Rules:

So, I’ve been researching and exploring the world of canning and really wanted to get into the action this year. While doing some research and trying to confirm my local altitude I stumbled across a 5 week canning course, 5 courses $50. That seemed like a sweet deal, but here are the classes. I see a lot of people talk about the risks of water bath canning, and some people say it only works for certain recipes while others seem to have sworn it off entirely due to the safety concerns.

I was just wondering if you all thought the courses would be helpful, or if they have too much potential to teach me improper canning procedures. I loved the idea of a class because I’m an over thinker and seeing it done in person will relieve a lot of my “first time actually doing this” anxieties! I didn’t want to post too much of the flyer as it has sensitive info, but feel free to ask questions!

I had to pressurize them twice since they didn't seal the first time (I think I had the heat too low) and now they look cooked instead of blanched. They also look like they lost some of the water inside the jar. Will they still be good? They are sealed now and have been sitting for 24 hours and haven't popped.

Amazon has this on sale and I'm tempted to buy it but want to make sure I'm not buying junk. Has anyone used this and is it any good?

A recipe I have calls for pickled, julienned carrots. They say to heat vinegar, sugar and water over medium heat until the sugar is dissolved and then cover the carrots for 12h+ in the fridge.

This sounds pretty simple and too quick to be dangerous, but I understand that people can get really sick from pickles and I'd like to avoid it since I'm going to feed that to my friends. So I just wanted to check in with you guys, who probably have more experience with this, before I kill any of my loved ones, despite it feeling kinda trivial. Just being cautious.

I have a bunch of electric AA’s, and don’t want to buy a non-electric just for canning. They claim to be ‘dry sterilizers’, as opposed to wet, but I don’t really know what that means or how they’re different mechanically and my searches have been fruitless. Is it just a liability thing? Can I can in these?

Ok this may get some strong reactions but I'm curious. I have a green chili with pork recipe I would love to pressure can in big batches to save on freezer space. The ingredients are pork, onion, garlic, broth, tomatoes and roasted green chiles. I looked up some recipes on my closest extension office website and came across the following for "vegetable soup":

"Hot Pack Only – Choose your favorite vegetable ingredients. Prepare each as you would for a hot pack in canning. Cooked meat or poultry can also be added, if desired. In a saucepan, combine ingredients with hot water, broth, or tomatoes and juice to cover. Boil 5 minutes. If dried beans or peas are used, they MUST be rehydrated first. CAUTION: DO NOT THICKEN OR ADD MILK, CREAM, FLOUR, RICE, BARLEY OR OTHER GRAINS, NOODLES OR OTHER PASTA. These ingredients can slow down the rate of heating and these process times have not been tested for use with soups containing these ingredients. Add salt to taste, if desired. Fill jars halfway with solid mixture. Continue filling with hot liquid, leaving 1-inch headspace."

It would seem to me that my ingredients list could be cooked, hot packed, pressure canned for 90 minutes and it should work just fine with the above quoted guidelines. I would add thickener when it is actually served. Am I out of line on this?

I just received my 23 quart presto pressure canner & my 24 quarter pints (yes, the 4oz ones) with intention of canning my loquat jam.

My understanding is that you have to pressure can low acidity foods. I plan to get some PH test strips here soon, but from others online I’ve read that loquats are naturally low PH, and therefore would need to be pressure canned and not water bath.. however, I’m now seeing that it’s unsafe to pressure can anything other than quart and pint sized jars.

My question here is, is there no way to can small 4oz jars of loquat jam? I used the following recipe, and plan to add some pectin to try to thicken it more when I reheat it to can it up ..

•18 cups pitted loquats •9 cups of sugar

• I cooked down the loquats with the sugar until it had boiled for a while, and ended up straining the skins out bc we didn’t love the texture with them left in. It’s delicious, and I’m really hoping there’s a safe way to can these 4oz jars for gifting and storing.

The only stream canner I have found that can double as a water bath canner and has a temperature gauge is this VPK steam canner. The only foods I water bath are jams, cherries, and cinnamon apples. I don't want to hot pack my cherries and apples which is why I want it to double as a water bath canner.

Does anyone know if you can double stack half pint jars in this canner?

From what I've read, the limitations of steam canners are you 1) can't process anything for more than 45 minutes, and 2) you can only use hot pack recipes. Is there anything else?

I've canned a few hundred jars of food, and only had 3 not seal. One was a damaged flat that I didn't notice when I put it on. I've been canning green beans, and all of a sudden I'm having a TON of failures. At least one per batch, mostly 2 and 3 that aren't sealing. I'm following the recipe, prepping my jars, cleaning the rims, using brand new flats, and I just don't understand what's going wrong!! I've even checked my canner, and besides some discoloration it looks the same as the day I purchased. I'm at a loss, please help.

So I am picking up a side of beef next week and my plan is to can almost all of it. I will make sloppy joes, chili, meatballs, just plain ground beef and burritos in a jar. Does anyone have any other suggestions? My last side of beef lasted over 18 months, so I am excited to continue this not buying beef trend.

I'm new to canning, and have done a handful of sessions using recipes out the Official Ball Book (Chicken & Gravy goes excellent with some homemade dumplings). Probably due to nostalgia, i'm enjoying the texture of some of the finished product.

Now I understand why you cannot safely process things like pasta for longterm storage, but i'm still curious: Is there a list somewhere for recipes that you intend to eat immediately? I'd love to try homemade Chef Boyardee Ravioli or something of that sort. It's that specific texture I want, NOT to store it on the shelf.

Is there any good recipes sussed out for how much pasta expands in a jar, or am I best to just try out and experiment on my own and note the results?

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Hello all!

This is a slightly off topic from canning but I trust all of you with the great information provided!

We bulk buy flour and get it incredibly cheap. $10 for 50lbs and our source may be getting drastically more expensive. So I want to “preserve” our flour if we buy even more than we already do.

Does flour go bad? I know there can be bug eggs etc.. but does it ever develop bacteria if it’s kept dry in jars etc bottom bacteria? I know some people “can” them and put them in ovens which is crazy to me.

Does it make a difference between bleached & unbleached?

Any info is great. As always thank you all for such detailed information!

Trying to reduce the costs associated with canning jams. The standard mason jars with lids and rings are quite expensive. Has anyone had experience sourcing glass "single-use" jars with lids from Alibaba? Temu? Do those type of jars process in a water bath in the same way that a standard mason jar/lid/ring would?

I want to do some can g for the first time this year and I know I’ll have a surplus of strawberries. I definitely want to make some jam, but it’s only me and my boyfriend so we won’t need but so much and we only have a handful of people to give it away to. I’m looking for other safe recipes for baking, mixed drinks, etc as well as friendly advice, more video recommendations, and of course the good old “I wish somebody had told me…..”

Thanks in advance! :)

I pressured canned turkey stock using the NCHFP recipe. The quart jars are sitting in the canner (Presto weight gauge) cooling down, but the lids are popping multiple times, up and down and broth is also squirt out of the lids! Like legitimately squirting out the sides of the tops. This has never happened to me before and I've canned stock at least 10 times already! My husband opened the top of the canner while I was busy but he said the pressure plug was completely down before he opened it and the top was easy to twist off and remove. Are these safe for the shelf? Should I try to re can them with new lids?

I have been looking for some recipes that I can’t find online from the usual trusted sources so I have been looking at old canning books. All of these old canning books are from what are considered reputable sources but how old is too old to still consider safe? 25 years? 50 years? 75 years? I would assume anything from a trusted source in the 2000s is definitely safe, but what about the 80s, 70s, or older?

Also a lot of these older recipes are very short and don’t go too into detail, sometimes there are even 10 recipes on a single page.

Hi folks!

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I am from Europe and I found out we use different type of jar lids for our glass jars, the video's I've seen about canning are USA based and are lids that are in two parts.

Here we have this type, it has a rubber seal on the inside and "edges" so it is not perfectly round.

Is this safe to use in a pressure canner? I bought the Presto one from Amazon USA.

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This thread repeats every month on the 1st.

Hi, I’m looking to make blueberry lemonade concentrate and I am having difficulties finding a tested water bath recipe. I found this ball recipe and I was wondering if it would be safe to use blueberries instead of strawberries. I’m thinking since it’s so acidic with all the lemon juice and blueberries are as acidic if not more than strawberries, it could be okay?

I’m fairly new to canning and am trying to be as safe as possible so I appreciate all the help.

I made a red sauce with chicken stock, that means pressure can, or since it more chili's, can it be canned differently?

I live in a part of Florida where tomatoes don’t grow well—like we got maybe one half-ripe tomato last year, and that’s about it. However, tamarillos (tree tomatoes) seem to grow very well here, I do like my tomato/“tomato” based dishes. These things are pretty dang sour, like way more sour than a tomato (and so I’d assume more acidic), and about the same consistency, so could I (safely) just use a tested crushed tomatoes recipe for the pressure canner to can my tamarillos? If not, why, and does anyone actually have a recipe for these?

Kroger is running a sale on pineapples so I got 10, cut 5 and canned 7 pints in a light syrup, still have 1/3rd of the cut up pineapples and 5 uncut pineapples. I plan on cutting the rest up tomorrow and doing an other batch of pineapple chunks. But I also want to do something else. Can anyone point me to a reliable and delicious pineapple jam or other recipe other than pineapple chunks?

I was looking at the canning/pickling contests for the 2024 Wisconsin State Fair today and I feel… weird about them. The opening paragraph says you have to follow USDA standards, great. But then you get down to the actual jam/jelly classes and some are so hyper-specific that you’re pretty much forced to make up your own recipe - at least, I couldn’t find a tested peach-hibiscus jam on my initial search. Or is hibiscus considered an herb and you can toss it in at will?? Alternately, does everyone just make the exact same tested recipe for carrot cake jam, since only one seems to exist? That seems unlikely. And I know the judges are eating this stuff because taste is 40% of the final score.

Full disclosure, part of me thinks I’m just being judgy because it’s not what I’m used to: I grew up in Nebraska with a much more ag-centric fair (as opposed to WI, which is very much a music festival that happens to have cows at it).

In summary: is this as weird as I think it is?

Have made strawberry jam for decades without issue before. This time, had my daughter helping out and two batches got the powdered pectin dumped in at same time as the sugar (instead of cooking fruit with pectin first, then adding sugar). I decided to try it that way instead of wasting so much fruit… but now I have a dozen sealed jars that 24 hrs later are still runny. (Other jars made in proper order did set as expected). I have never had to recook and process a batch before. How much pectin should I add when I recook it, and how long to cook it? (I took the fruit/sugar to 218 degrees yesterday for a full minute, first time using a digital candy thermometer to make jam).

She just told us that the green beans tasted a bit bitter and then she told us that she got them from the neighbor who canned them themselves, and that the seal was loose. Should I go to the hospital or will I be fine?

Hi everyone, I’m looking for food grade safe buckets I can soak cucumbers in pickling lime in for 24 hours. I was going to buy from Amazon but I worried while it was food safe it would not work with pickling lime. Thanks in advance!

Restated Question: What is your favorite durable long lasting two piece canning lid system (original tinplate Jarden, Weck glass jars, Masontops Tough Bands, 316 Stainless Steel lids and bands, any other setup) that requires the fewest replacement parts and no one-time use parts at all?

Restated in an attempt to remove focus from prepping comments. I’d politely point your attention to the restated question above, if at all possible. Thank you!

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Original Question: (Warning: contains hypothetical systems collapse thought experiment scenario)

In a world with permanently collapsed chains of production and of an extreme canning equipment shortage with no solution on the horizon, what canning jars/lids/bands would you stock up on (in advance) and why?

• Mason Jars with regular Jarden lids and regular bands.
• Mason Jars with Tattler Lids and stainless steel bands.
• Mason Jars with plastic Masontops Tough Bands and lots of regular tinplate lids or fewer Tattler lids.
• Weck Jars (glass jars and lids)
• Any other combination or other setup?

Just a thought experiment helping with choosing a durable shortage proof setup with next to none one-time parts. Would be interesting to hear your thoughts.