I started with water bath canning. But, now have a stovetop pressure canner. I use it to pressure can veg, but have only done this a little bit. I have also cooked in it-amazing to cook a chicken or small turkey quickly, or make other foods.
Dehydrator: if you make jerky, read instructions carefully bc there are specific requirements to make it safe to eat. Both of my dehydrators have adjustable temp, and can go high enough for jerky. But, one of them instructs you to bake the jerky after it is done dehydrating whereas the other one does not provide that instruction. Excalibur is a well known dehydrator brand. But, I bought a circular stacked tower one from Amazon that performs well too (forget the brand). Dehydrators take time …you will prep items, lay them in, wait for many hours, to then remove a small amount of food. This is not a bad thing, just realize that you will want to have expansion trays or get a larger dehydrator than you may think, if you have the space. So, my Excalibur dehydrator is large. It stays the same size, bc it is a single unit where trays slide inside. But, my stacked dehydrator has a base with trays- can be stacked 9 trays high. These trays collapse for storage, so the storage size is much smaller than the working size. For a small home or apartment it is the better choice.
