Pressure Cookers/Canners...

[BCB]

Thought I might just take a couple of pictures of the canning process that has started here…

It is work to say the least…

I do my canning in my garage (note all of the clutter and chaos!). That way I can keep the heat from the gas range out of the house…

The pressure canners are Mirro and they are close or a bit over 30 years old—at least the smaller one is…

The small one is a 12 quart pressure cooker and the one on the right is a 22 quart pressure cooker. They both will process 7 quarts of product and 7 or 8 pints of product, but the 22 quart one is taller and will allow pints to be stacked on a rack that sits on the bottom layer of pints. Total—16 wide mouth pints and 20 regular mouth pints…

That is spaghetti sauce I just processed. It got all the ingredients together yesterday after work and done the canning this morning. Total time for picking veggies to final canned quarts—at least 10 hours!!! A very time consuming chore…

Note the tongs on the right of the picture—necessary to remove the jars from the cookers…

I boil the sauce for about 1.5 hours and then put it in the quarts. I process for 10 minutes on 10 pounds of pressure…

Venison takes 75-90 minutes on 10 pounds of pressure, depending on the size of the jars…

So there it is—the canning season has started in Western PA…

Good –luck to any who care to venture into this task…

BCB

Note the lead ingots on the left side of the picture of the quarts—yep, I cast in the garage also…

[RBak]

BCB, We are getting ready to do the exact same thing...can up some Spaghetti Sauce!

We've got to get a pressure canner! That is all there is to it.

In fact, we did have one once, a few years back, for a very short time after Christmas. It was given to us by our older daughter, and six months later "borrowed" by our younger daughter...you get the picture.

Of course, we've been saying we are going to get a nice one for the past thirty / forty years...even back when all the kids were at home, and we were doing a lot of canning, we've still never owned and used a pressure canner, but we have gone through a whole bunch of Pressure Cookers.

Now that we're both so dad-burn old a pressure canner might seem totally irrelevant, it still remains high on our bucket list.

Russ

[JonB_in_Glencoe]

Here are a few pic's of How I can Tomato/veggie juice.
I do this Outside by my woodpile...as seen in photos.
this was last year, my tomatos aren't ready yet.
this is Minnesota!!!

first I run through a raw juicer, Beets, carrots, cellery, garlic and Onion.


Here are the picked Tomatos


I prep the tomatos


I cook the tomato's the run them through a food mill,
then add the raw juices.


then seal in pressure canner.


then cool

[BCB]

RBak,

Either of the ones in my picture can be used as a cooker or a canner...

We use them for both purposes...

As a matter of fact, when the turkey has been consumed at one of the major holidays, we take the carcuss and put it in one of the pressure cookers for 15-20 minutes on 10 pounds of pressure and let it cool slowly...

All the meat that was left falls from the bones and we end up with a very nice broth...

We freeze it and use it later down the road to make a good turkey soup...

Waste not want not...

Most people just dispose of the carcuss and it still has conciderable meat on it...

And so it goes...

BCB

[Changeling]

I really like your yard, reminds me of home. People out here don't have/plant shade trees anymore, they don't have time!
I planted new varieties of Pecan trees that produce in the North about 8 years ago along with some Hazel nut trees/bushes, now I get both nuts, not to mention a fine crop of squirrels, LOL.

[RBak]

BCB, A couple of times you've mention 10# pressure.
Our current Pressure cooker is a 12 qt. Presto and it has a rocker. A rocker that releases at 13#, according to the paper-work that came with it.

Can I get a 10# rocker, or a 12#, or whatever? I have ordered replacement parts for our current cooker twice, IIRC, it was rockers and seals, and the 1st time I ordered one, I got the other one without asking. On their web site I have not found where I have a choice.....are you saying I do?

Or, is it possible I have to have another brand of Pressure Cooker.

Russ

[BCB]

This is the weight that sits on top of the Mirro pressure cooker/canner...

If you notice, there are 5#, 10#, and 15# places. The holes are on the outside of the disc. These are placed on the top of the lid. There is a stem there that the disc sits on. That is how I get the different pounds of pressure...

You can see it sitting on the first pictures I posted...

Good-luck...BCB

[defib]

the higher the weight the higher pressure and temp of the water. make sure you use the right pressure so you kill all traces of germs. botulism requires higher than normal temps to kill it. be careful.

[Lloyd Smale]

Im new to this canning thing myself but as typical when i do someting i do it like an excessive compulsive nut case would. So far ive canned 3 deer this month and even made some spegetti sause and chilli. My buddy gave me 4 flats of tomatoes and a pile of red green and yellow peppers. Bottom line is making sause out of veggies is alot of work especially when you can buy decent speggetti sause in a can or jar for a buck and a half. But what fun is that. Now canned venison is anohter thing. Its eating fit for a king and something you just cant buy anywhere at any price.

[RBak]

This is the weight that sits on top of the Mirro pressure cooker/canner...

If you notice, there are 5#, 10#, and 15# places. The holes are on the outside of the disc. These are placed on the top of the lid. There is a stem there that the disc sits on. That is how I get the different pounds of pressure...

You can see it sitting on the first pictures I posted...

Good-luck...BCB

Hmmmm, I checked, and my rockers don't have that, so I suspect it is "fixed" at 13#....I also notice your's is brand-name Mirro, while mine is Presto...so I guess it's going to be 13# or nothing when we use this Pressure Cooker for canning.

Got all the jars washed yesterday, got Tomatoes, Tommatieos (sp?), Jalapeños, Long Green Chilies, Carrots, Onions, Garlic, Cilantro, jars, lids, boxes, and whatever, all over the kitchen, the dinning room, and some stuff even in the living room, got my two big pots out for final sterilization & final sealing, so as soon as we get back from Church, guess what we are going to be doing.....besides cleaning up all this mess.

Russ

[Mk42gunner]

One thing you guys that are new to pressure canning absolutely need is a book on canning. My mom and both Grandmas canned a lot of vegatables and jellies when I was a kid. They always checked in the books to make sure of the times and pressures before starting. Different iteems call for different times, pressures and head spaces.

One other thing, make sure you let the jars cool for at least a day, before moving them. This lets the seal cool and set, so it will hold for years. One of my dad's aunts lost a whole days worth of canned green beans by taking them home in the car, the same day they were canned.

I don't do much canning anymore, mainly because planting a garden is the best way I know of to get grass to grow.


Robert

[ammohead]

so I guess it's going to be 13# or nothing when we use this Pressure Cooker for canning.

Russ:

The level of pressure is only important as to how it applies to temperature. To can properly you need about 240 degrees F. In PA where BCB is at will be quite a bit lower in elevation than in Western WA I am guessing. It could be that 13# in WA is quite equivalent to 10# in PA. At any rate a higher pressure than the recipe calls for is not a bad thing. It would mean more insurance to rid the contents of any bacteria because of the higher temperature. If you were canning carrots for example or potatoes it might mean that they would cook a little more and get softer. But for something like game meat I can't see that higher temperature for the same amount of time will hurt anything. It is when the recipe calls for 15# and all you have is 13# that there might be some concern. In this case I would increase the time to make up for the lower temp/press.

I used to live at 4800 ft about sea level and I always used my 15# setting for all recipes that called for 10#. I now live at 3600 Ft and I still use 15# just to be safe. I canned 5 pints of northern pike the other day at 15# for 90 minutes. I finally found a way to handle those danged Ybones!

ammohead

PS I just reread your post and saw you were canning tomatoe sauce of some kind. tomatoes and peppers are high in acid and were it not for the onions, carrots and garlic (which are low in acid) you could probably get away with water bath canning (212 degrees F). So don't sweat the difference in pressure as stated above. With what you are canning you can hardly go wrong.

[oneokie]

Hmmmm, I checked, and my rockers don't have that, so I suspect it is "fixed" at 13#....I also notice your's is brand-name Mirro, while mine is Presto...so I guess it's going to be 13# or nothing when we use this Pressure Cooker for canning.

Got all the jars washed yesterday, got Tomatoes, Tommatieos (sp?), Jalapeños, Long Green Chilies, Carrots, Onions, Garlic, Cilantro, jars, lids, boxes, and whatever, all over the kitchen, the dinning room, and some stuff even in the living room, got my two big pots out for final sterilization & final sealing, so as soon as we get back from Church, guess what we are going to be doing.....besides cleaning up all this mess.

Russ

This part: http://www.gopresto.com/products/pro...hp?stock=50332
is a 3 piece weight set. By using different combinations, one can use 5#, 10# and 15#.

As was mentioned, get a good canning book. I suggest the Ball Blue Book. It has chart that shows which weight is needed for various elevations. And it also has a chart on time extensions for elevation.

[BCB]

Yep, ammohead is correct about the elevations—I am at around 1400 feet…

I get away with the 10 pounder, but charts indicate I am at or near borderline to use the 15 pounder…

I know there is always the concern for spore forming bacteria as it takes 240 degrees to croak the spores. Well, this is not advice, but I have always used the 10 pounder and I have used it since the late 1970’s. I know that I am not getting the canned product to that critical temperature. But in all honesty, 15 pounds per square inch of pressure sort of bothers me a bit—sort of a scary number! Actually, I looked through the Mirro book and nothing is processed with the 15 pounder. As ammohead indicated, it could be used at higher elevations…

Again, this is not advice, but over time and much canning, I have been able to adjust the canning times a bit depending on what the product is and what the instructions say. Much of the problems with bacteria contamination are poor preparation practices. The contamination starts on the products before they get in the jar…

I have had venison canned for 4 years with not a problem—although that is not a practice I do. I now know approximately how many jars we might eat in a year and that is what I like to have on the shelf at the end of the canning season. Yea, it looks nice having dozens extra, but that might not be a good practice…

As a kid in the 1950’s, pressure cookers/canners were available, but people absolutely feared them from horror stories that were told—some of those stories were true…

So, I remember my mom canning beef as well as venison by putting it in quart jars, adding some salt, pepper and water, placed the lids and screwed on the rings and placing them in the over. She set the oven at 250+ if I remember correctly and left them in there for 6 hours (?). The liquid would boil in the jars, but without them being under pressure, the highest the temperature could get would be around 212 degrees—not completely true as salted liquids have a bit higher boiling point, but only probably be a few degrees. We never died from eating that meat…

So, get a good book, Ball has one and also the book that came with my Mirro cooker/canner. Canning is a good hobby, but it is time-consuming and must be done correctly or Montezuma’s Revenge could hit, even if you didn’t go to Mexico!!!...

Good-luck…BCB

[Old Goat Keeper]

The problem with not achieving the required temps is not Montezuma's Revenge but botulism. It has no taste, smell or any sign at all that it is there. The only way you know it is there is when it kills you! Yes I do can but I also follow recipes to the letter! And I'm talking about "tested safe" recipes like from the Ball Blue Book or the your home extension service. Yes many did use unapproved methods in the past but they either didn't know better or they couldn't afford the necessary equiment like a pressure canner. Yes I do believe in living the old timey way but I also believe in being safe! I want to die of old age and not botulism!

Tom

PS. You can waterbath peppers IF you use vinegar to preserve them. But if not using vinegar like in spaghetti sauce they NEED to be pressure canned. They are NOT acid enough for plain waterbath method.

[RBak]

Hey folks, Good thread!

I've been busy as a cat in in his very own sand box since Church this morning.
about an hour or so ago we finished up with 36 pints of Hot Salsa, my favorite "go with anything food", and right now all 36 pints are on the dinning room table...I guess tomorrow it's going to be Spaghetti Sauce but this time we are adding meat to the sauce...never done that before.
.
The table was so full of jars I had to have my supper off a TV Tray while watching a little of the pre-season football game.
I've learned a couple of things today, and one of them is Bret Farve may not be to old for football, but I am to old for all the work involved in canning...LOL

Still yet, we love it...not necessarily the work part of it, but the finished product.

Some interesting points have been made here, even got a new part number for my old Presto Pressure cooker...thanks for that.
The last time we ordered a couple of parts, either I didn't see that, or it wasn't there. Don't know how I could missed it.

Like so many other things in life, after you've been doing a certain something for years, there is still always room for another view, and a little learning.

Russ

[BCB]

The problem with not achieving the required temps is not Montezuma's Revenge but botulism. It has no taste, smell or any sign at all that it is there. The only way you know it is there is when it kills you! Yes I do can but I also follow recipes to the letter! And I'm talking about "tested safe" recipes like from the Ball Blue Book or the your home extension service. Yes many did use unapproved methods in the past but they either didn't know better or they couldn't afford the necessary equiment like a pressure canner. Yes I do believe in living the old timey way but I also believe in being safe! I want to die of old age and not botulism!

Tom

PS. You can waterbath peppers IF you use vinegar to preserve them. But if not using vinegar like in spaghetti sauce they NEED to be pressure canned. They are NOT acid enough for plain waterbath method.

I was only using Montezuma’s Revenge as a generic term for distress at “both ends”…

I know it is not botulism…

I used to subscribe to the MMWR, a publication from the Center for Disease Control—now I get it online. Regardless, there have been 118 cases of reported botulism in the USA this year and only 10 of them were food borne. It is a rare critter at best…

Can one get it from home canning—heck yes, but one is most likely to get another bacterium that gives temporary discomfort from improper food handling. Still, those bacteria can be deadly to compromised people…

As far as old style canning methods, lack of knowledge may have been some of the problem and technology was certain a problem. But if one looks at the overall picture, people have canned and preserved food for thousands of years and we are still on the earth…

I was raised on canned foods and there were no pressure cookers/canners used. Everyone in my age bracket mostly were and we are all here. Heart attacks, cancer, diabetes, and other aliments along with accidents got many of my friends…

I ain’t worried about botulism as long as I use good preparation and prudent canning methods. A pressure canner/cooker is just extra insurance…

My grandma never heard of a pressure canner/cooker and she raised 8 kids…

Good-luck…BCB

[redneckdan]

YBut in all honesty, 15 pounds per square inch of pressure sort of bothers me a bit—sort of a scary number!

Meh, that is only 2500 lbs of force trying to seperate the lid from the pot and impale it in your ceiling...hard enough to sweat about...

[Changeling]

Im new to this canning thing myself but as typical when i do someting i do it like an excessive compulsive nut case would. So far ive canned 3 deer this month and even made some spegetti sause and chilli. My buddy gave me 4 flats of tomatoes and a pile of red green and yellow peppers. Bottom line is making sause out of veggies is alot of work especially when you can buy decent speggetti sause in a can or jar for a buck and a half. But what fun is that. Now canned venison is anohter thing. Its eating fit for a king and something you just cant buy anywhere at any price.

Did you remember to skin them this time

[DragoonDrake]

I have a question. I have been water-bath canning for nearly a decade and never had a problem with my jars sealing. This year we decided to try canning a few extra things and needed a pressure canner. Well to make this story short, in the pressure canner we have been having about a 50% failure to seal after 12-16 hours of cooling. We have been following all the processing directions for the recipes, cook times, head space, wiping and pre-heating. Has anybody else had this problem and did you find a "cure"?

Side note: the first time using the canner I misread the directions (read skimmed them quite poorly) and took my weight gauge off prematurely. This is the only batch that we have done that has had 100% sealing.

FYI Northeast Ohio is our location.

Adam