Canning Club!

Hi, just wanted to speak up here as I have been canning for about 20 years. Be very careful with hot water bath canning/boiling water canning. 15 minutes is not long enough to properly perserve anything and could make you very very sick as botchalism will grow in sealed jars that haven't been processed properly. The scary thing about botchalism is that it has no smell or taste, you don't know it's there until you are sick.

Pressure canning is the safest way to preserve vegetables I would hate to hear of anyone getting sick or worse from trying to can their own foods. If you aren't sure google "canning" and whatever food you want to can and you can find the correct way to process.

I'm not trying to discourage anyone, just want everyone to be safe.

Thank you for your concern! Food safety is the biggest deal in home canning. We do our best to follow the USDA guidelines for processing high and low acid foods the proper way.

From what I've read, high acid foods can be safely processed in a water bath as the acid is inhospitable to botchulism and the times have generally been around 20-25minutes for processing (for things like jams, longer for other things).

Those veggies etc are definitely the ones you have to watch out for and I totally agree with you, when in doubt, pressure can! But just because you pressure can doesn't mean you did it correctly either. You must ensure you get to the proper PSI for your elevation to attain the proper temperature for killing the bacteria.

In googling, you need to make sure the source is a good source though too. Stick to known entities, government (FDA, USDA, local extension office) and academic institutions. Pickyourown.org appears to be good as well since they site the USDA regs. Ball is another good resource, along with the guide that comes with the canning supplies.

So, please everyone keep these things in mind. When in doubt, ask, that's why we're here! Make sure we are doing things the right way. We don't want anyone getting sick.

just sent bf to get a new sponge because the old one freaks me out too much to use on the canning equipment....

Not that this is canning related, but one of those hints from Heloise type things...I had thought I read you could nuke em to clean em...but I just like to run the jars thru the dishwasher. And I, too, would prefer a clean sponge to dirty. They're the nastiest thing.

You just gave me an idea! dedicated canning sponge?

whew! this is working again!

I have the Ball Blue Book, and it does suggest using lemon juice to up the acidity. Most of my toms are at their peak right now, as I only picked the oldest ones a couple days ago and many last night.

when packed in water, it says to process for 40m pints; 45m quarts, in the water bath canner. so that's significantly longer than 15m that someone was concerned about.

good to know!!! I don't have the ability to get a canner yet so I do it in a water bath

I think hot pack rather than raw pack helps too...my two pennies.

Mama J - Here are some links:

http://www.pickyourown.org/canninghotpackorrawpack.htm

http://www.pickyourown.org/glossary_of_home_canning.htm

Uh oh! Canning isn't so exciting anymore. haha

I got my plum and pears Friday. The plums weren't what I thought they were. They were better! I had expected them to be sweet plums, but nope! They were the small tart plums that I grew up on as a kid (seems to be a German/Eastern European thing, or at least it's always the older eastern Euro ladies fighting over them at the store...and me.). Anyway, I made plum preserves. My grandparents are going to be happy. They grew up eating it back in Germany. And I'll probably make more since 10 8oz jars was only 10cups and I have 30lbs of plums. I'll make some cake too, but that's not canning related.

The pears...I'll can too. Waiting for them to ripen a lil more. I'll make some spirited. Anyone have any other good pear ideas? Pearsauce? - I have 39lbs of pears!

How do you make pear butter?

I was out of town so sorry I slacked on keeping this going!

I found some butter recipes in the Ball book I got. haha I'm still going through all the 400 recipes in there!

Canned the 39lbs of pears - did them basically just in syrup (some sugar and some with honey) and some with booze. Finished off the plums with more jam...and one batch of jam I took too far and made something like a really soft sugar candy. hahaha oops!

Right now the bulk foods thing I get this stuff from is doing apples. We're planning apple sauce next...I'll have a bushel of apples to process in a couple weeks. Yea! I need to make some more pasta sauce too...hopefully the tomatoes are still around.

i just canned my peaches in syurp and booze - waterbath only is needed.

why not try peach/plum jam? do a small batch, dip a spoon in and if it sucks, then give it to some one you don't like. hahaha and if it rocks, make more.

look around for some recipes for the plums and peaches...what about jelly and not jam? i've found a bunch of other recipes in my ball canning book that use other things with the fruits too that i would have never thought of.

and yes...the tomato jam sounds horrid...i saw it in the ball book and was puzzled. i hate tomatoes, unless they're in pizza or pasta sauce...or ketchup or bbq sauce. evil fruits they are! but i'm glad you liked what you made. hehe

i just ordered 2 bushels of apples. woot!

lastly...anyone know anything about honey? i can't find anything really about preserving it (yes, i know it doesn't go bad unless it gets icky stuff in it). so do you just clean a jar and pour it in? i can get a gallon of raw local honey for like $33.50 so i'm tempted to get it and just jar it myself.