Michigan

[Olive Hill]

I want to make sure I understood this right:

What you are saying is that it is safe to use garlic, onions, peppers, and oils, etc. if you are pressure canning, just not if you are using warm bath?

I did my own canning for the first time last year, but didn't end up doing all that I wanted, just tomatoes and apples. I used to help can all the time growing up, but last year was the first that I did the entire process on my own / needed to actually have a clue what I was doing. All my previous canning was really just following one direction or another, doing parts of the process, but not having to understand the whole thing, if you know what I mean.

Kind of. There are tested recipes that contain garlic, onions and peppers -- and even a select few that contain a SMALL amount of oil -- all of those recipes require pressure canning and are considered safe. Canning onions, peppers and garlic outside of those recipes, even with a pressure canner is not considered safe and canning oil, save for those select couple of recipes, is never considered safe. The herbed oils you make should only be stored in the fridge and should be used within a couple of days, even with herbs so dry they're kindling.

All this based on USDA/NCFHP recommendations.

 

[Totalcolour]

I want to make sure I understood this right:

What you are saying is that it is safe to use garlic, onions, peppers, and oils, etc. if you are pressure canning, just not if you are using warm bath?

I did my own canning for the first time last year, but didn't end up doing all that I wanted, just tomatoes and apples. I used to help can all the time growing up, but last year was the first that I did the entire process on my own / needed to actually have a clue what I was doing. All my previous canning was really just following one direction or another, doing parts of the process, but not having to understand the whole thing, if you know what I mean.

ONLY if you follow a tested recipe. Oils can only be used very sparingly. So, if you are canning meat or fish, leave the oil out.

I use these pamphlets and have found them all to be a big help:-

http://nchfp.uga.edu/publications/publications_usda.html

(Olive has it down good)

 

[Olive Hill]

Yup, too true. I like the USDA books (found on the web) which cover meat, veggies fish and, well everything cannable (not cannibal) and also the Ball blue book. Once you've been canning a while, you end up pretty much memorising it all. And, the USDA has dry as well as wet canning!

Agreed! The Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving is another good one for newbies.

 

[RaZ]

Why do they call it canning when the stuff goes in jars?

Shouldn't it be called "jarring"?

 

[Olive Hill]

The satisfaction & taste is the great reward but what I like most about it is that I know where it came from!!

Add more acid, leave it out.....this has always been a dispute between my DH & DM when canning the tomatoes. One says to add it because you need it there's not enough in the tomatoes alone, the other says leave it out because there is plenty. I always get a kick it out of this because it's like Old Pro verses Newbie.

Though I think there is much to treasure about life experience, the problem with just trusting the old pros is that 1) we're learning more all the time, so recommendations change and 2) the food we're growing is changing in chemical structure which can make it more (or less in some cases) dangerous to do things in the "old ways".

 

[Farmerboy16]

Why do they call it canning when the stuff goes in jars?

Shouldn't it be called "jarring"?

 

[Totalcolour]

Why do they call it canning when the stuff goes in jars?

Shouldn't it be called "jarring"?

Many years ago, in another, long lost era, there was a machine that made food fit into "metallic" little cans, that one could use at home. They called it "canning". But then some great inventor came up with the idea of using glass vessels, but the name, "glassing" sounded silly and a bit "jarring"!.

 

[M.sue]

Though I think there is much to treasure about life experience, the problem with just trusting the old pros is that 1) we're learning more all the time, so recommendations change and 2) the food we're growing is changing in chemical structure which can make it more (or less in some cases) dangerous to do things in the "old ways".

So true and that goes for situations in the medical field as well.

 

[EeyoreD]

Hahaha I knew I could count on you Opa!

Olive that's a good point. I think I read that most commercially grown tomatoes are not only tasteless but have less acid. Ok ok, commecially grown tomatoes I can't even stomach anymore but it still stands to reason that some strains are going to have enough natural acid for canning and some will need special treatment (added acid or pressure canning). But I think you make the really good old fogey (I can't resist) point that it's important to understand the basic ideas and equally crucial that, once understanding those, you're able to adapt them to what you're actually doing.

 

[EeyoreD]

FOR SALE: Proven American Guinea Hog Breeding Stock

Ugh, I wish I could do this but not only have I not read up about hog raising, most of my acreage is swampy and the high ground I'm saving for chickens/ducks and hopefully, later, goats. But I love pork and would love to raise or at least fatten home grown pigs