Home canning is a popular method for preserving foods, particularly fruit and vegetables. It allows you to take advantage of the bountiful crops you experience in spring and summer from your home garden, and save them for the colder months when supply is considerably diminished.
But there are tricks and tips you need to know about home canning which can save you a lot of time and effort, and will save you from the risks of losing your valuable preserves through spoilage.
One of the major causes of concern in any food preservation technique is to ensure that the integrity of the food is maintained for as long as possible in the safest possible way.
Although you need to be careful and follow some basic safety rules, the actual process of home canning is quite straightforward. As you are going to be heat processing all food, it is important to make sure that the correct heating standards are maintained.
Here are some basic steps:
- All food should be placed in jars that have airtight seals, preferably two-piece metal lids.
- Choose an appropriate canner such as the highly recommended All American Pressure Canner Cooker, to heat the jars to the temperature stipulated in the recipe.
- Choose the correct size jar appropriate to the food you are processing, and be careful to maintain space inside the jar appropriate to the expected expansion rate.
- Make sure that the heat is maintained for the period of time specified in the recipe. This will ensure that no bacteria or other microorganisms and enzymes will spoil your food.
- Allow the jars to cool slowly. This will allow the lids to form a strong vacuum seal.
The principle behind this process is that the contents will expand as the jar is heated. This causes pressure changes to take place inside the jars so that air is expelled from them. As the jars cool, the difference in outside and inside pressures causes the lid to clamp down tightly to form a vacuum seal.
The All American Pressure Canner
It is vital to have a good quality canner such as the All American Pressure Canner, that will maintain temperatures and will heat the contents at a consistent temperature, whilst at the same time ensuring that the vacuum sealing method outlined above can take place as efficiently as possible.
High acid foods and low acid foods require different processes however, and for these you will need either a boiling water canner or a pressure canner respectively.
The bottom line is that you should always follow the manufacturer’s instructions, and make sure that the equipment is clean and properly assembled before use.
Read our detailed review on the All American Pressure Canner Cooker.