Canning

[oldjerry]

I'm really fed up with that vastly overated lump of metal and plastic that takes up a load of space in our utility room aka the freezer.It was handy when we had a couple of pigs in it,but it's now just got a few frozen veg.Most people I know seem to use them as a reservoir for ready meals and shop prepared food.
I like preserves,bottled fruit,jam etc,and that's what the pressure cookers for.For some reason,this is the limit of recognised home bottling in the UK.In the US you can buy massive bottling(canning) cookers,and the interweb is full of people demonstrating bottling fish\meat etc.I really fancy doing some of this(in fact I'm going to) Anyone got any hands on experience?
I'm looking at an' All American '41 litre monster (about $400 plus shipping) it's a big price but should last my lifetime,and that of my young kids(which is only fair,seeing as I'll have to sell all their bikes\toys etc to buy it!)
Seriously, any tips please.

[Odsox]

I shall watch this thread for any helpful replies OJ.
I have THREE "vastly overated lumps of metal and plastic", I made the mistake of getting a smaller one to replace an inefficient one, now both are full, plus another small one !
It would be nice to get back to the original idea of just having one small one, or even 2 small ones, or at least emptying the inefficient one.

[Green Aura]

I've never used a canner. The only things I heat treat are tomatoes and I just bung them in the oven. Do the French use them - I know they preserve lots of meats etc by bottling?

I'll watch with interest though as we now also have 3 freezers on the go - an ordinary undercounter one, the second of a similar size is part of a fridge freezer and a medium size chest freezer. We found ourselves discussing bringing the ice cream freezer down from the shop to give us more space as they're all full.

Having said that, although they obviously use electricity, I don't begrudge them because they've allowed me to buy half a pig, loads of kid meat and freeze some decent home cooked meals for my mother (who had developed quite a taste for ready meals ).

And we still bottle the tomatoes - when we get any, lasts years didn'tt ripen so I've got a shedload of chutney instead.

[grahamhobbs]

I'm off to France in a couple of weeks to butcher a pig and make rillettes, pate, etc. All, including some plain roast joints, will be bottled in kilner type jars without any fancy equipment, at most a large pot and a thermometer. I've done it before with my paysan friends, but this time I will take notes and report back here later.

[demi]

my in laws in macedonia bottle all fruits and veg just in a water bath which consists of just a big pot with a lid filled with water on the cooker.
the jars are first washed in soapy water then submerged into the boiling water to steralise them.

for fruit:

wash and de-stone your chosen fruit.
take your steralised empty jars.
fill them with the fruit.
add 4 tbsp of sugar.
top up with water covering the fruit but making sure there is a 2 cm space between the top of the water and the lid.
run a spatula round the inside of the jar to get rid of any air bubbles and wipe the rim of the jar and put on the lids.
put the jars into socks or wrap in cheese cloth ( this stops them banging together and braking )
put the jars into the water bath, the water should cover them, and put the lid on.
boil for 25min, remove and leave to cool down.


you use the same process for veg, here are some recipes:

mixed summer veg in tomato sauce:

roughly chop your veg ( tomotoes, courgette, aubergine, french beans and parsley. but you can uses any combination of veg you like as long as you keep tomatoes are your base )
throw everything into a big pot with some olive oil and lemmon juice ( you can use the water bath pot ) and cook until the veg are soft.
add salt and pepper to taste.
fill the steralised jars ( and wash the water bath pot and set it up )
following the same prosess as before add the jars to the boiling water and boil for 25min.

i add a jar of this to things like bolognase sause, chilli or stews.

you can make any kind of tomaote sause you like

i also make pasatta:

heat oilve oil in a pan
add some garlic and a big bunch of fresh basil
add chopped tomatoes and salt and pepper to taste and a squeeze of lemon juice.
simmer for 20 min then put everything through a sieve, mushing as much through the sieve that you can.
then jar it up and stick it in the water bath for 25min.



you can jar any veg in tomatoe sauce with lemon juice in the water bath. the acidity of the tomtaoe and lemon in enough to preserve it without having to pickle anything.

as with all preserves, store in a cool dark place and allways check its not off before you eat it.
iv only ever had 1 jar of tomatoe sauce explode when i opened it ( it was afew years old ) but iv had about 3 bottles of wine do it so far! if anything explodes or has mould or smells off then dont eat it

[demi]

it was my understandiing that you have to use a pressure canner to bottle animal products, maybe its not nessesery though but you should be careful as meat has a whole load of more dangerous bacteria than fruit and veg do.

iv seen people jarring whole meals like chilli/stews ect, using the same method as above but adding orange juice, along with tomatoes, for the acidity and pressure canning it instead of using the water bath.

here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXSBCrw9dSg

[Odsox]

I've done it before with my paysan friends, but this time I will take notes and report back here later.

Thanks Graham, that would be much appreciated.
We bottle loads of tomatoes every year, also all our soft fruit, but I tried once doing home made baked beans and one blew the lid off and the others were bubbling and smelled evil, and that was with a high concentration of tomatoes.
I realise acid and sugar preserve, but I would like to do soups for instance.

[oldjerry]

Ditto,there's a fair bit on line re pressure canning baked beans etc and meats.I'll never find it again,but I bet you can odsox,I think I googled in USDA canning regs or similar,and got a utube clip of some scientific woman from some Sherman Uni doing the whole thing with one of the aforementioned 'All American' jobs....it's what really inspired me.

[The Riff-Raff Element]

I'm off to France in a couple of weeks to butcher a pig and make rillettes, pate, etc. All, including some plain roast joints, will be bottled in kilner type jars without any fancy equipment, at most a large pot and a thermometer. I've done it before with my paysan friends, but this time I will take notes and report back here later.

The trick here is to take advantage of the high fat content : it is important to get above 121°C to kill any botulism spores. The rillettes and so on are then sealed up (while hot) with hot fat. I do this when I confit ducks' legs and use an oven to get the temperatures right.

Pressure canners are available here in Frnce, but they are a real investment. The last time I compared prices, importing from the US was competitive.

[oldjerry]

RRE,my french is schoolboy stuff,but I wouldn't mind having a look what's available over the water,so IF you've got a few moments could you steer me to a website sometime please?.....

[gregorach]

I will also be watching this thread with interest - I only have a tiny freezer, and it's entirely full of hops, ice cubes, gin, and vodka.

Canning is one of those things - you can totally get away with not doing it right, right up until the day your luck runs out and somebody gets botulism. That somebody will most likely be either elderly or a small child, and botulism can be fatal. However, the toxin is destroyed by cooking, so as long as you're cooking your canned whatever before eating it, you should be OK.

[demi]

Canning is one of those things - you can totally get away with not doing it right, right up until the day your luck runs out and somebody gets botulism. However, the toxin is destroyed by cooking, so as long as you're cooking your canned whatever before eating it, you should be OK.

thats good to know because botulism is something i worry about.
we allways cook our jarred veg before we eat it anyway.
i guess that why no one's bothered about it in macedonia.
i wouldnt jar meat/animal products using a water bath though, i think its got a much bigger chance of going off.


iv got a feeling you can preserve veg in a brine solution, jarred and steralized in the water bath. but dont hold me to that.