Any home canners?

[Hawkeye5]

I'm almost done canning blackberry jam. We have wild blackberrys at the back of our property and for several years now I've made up batches of jam. I only have 4 empty jam jars left, and I should be able to pick berrys again by Sunday to finish. There will be 18 half pints of home grown jam (mostly for the wife).

I also put up pints of green beans, tomatos, and pasta sauce. There will be a few quarts of green beans for holiday meals, but pint sizes are ideal for the two of us. The beans and tomatos are coming soon and I hope I'll be well on my way by the time we leave for vacation.

Its nice to pull a pint of green beans from from the pantry shelf in January knowing you grew and preserved them with no added chemicals.

The only problem is I have to protect my produce from the kids when they come home for a visit!

 

[jlanger]

Do you use a pressure canner?

I'm looking into doing some home canning and while I have the parents old steam canner, I've heard that hte pressure canners do the job better and safer. They're 70-100 bucks but it sure beats getting something nasty!

 

[behrendprof]

For green beans, a pressure canner is essential. For tomatoes (which I can up every year) and jams, a plain old hot water approach works. If you are considering it, go find Ball or Mason canning guides or contact your County Extension office.

 

[Joe Edson]

For green beans, a pressure canner is essential. For tomatoes (which I can up every year) and jams, a plain old hot water approach works. If you are considering it, go find Ball or Mason canning guides or contact your County Extension office.

+1 When I was in high school I had a huge garden and did a ton of canning. I believe I got a pamphlet from the county extension office that had guidelines for the various products.

 

[jwhite]

For green beans, a pressure canner is essential. For tomatoes (which I can up every year) and jams, a plain old hot water approach works. If you are considering it, go find Ball or Mason canning guides or contact your County Extension office.

+1 on the Ball guide, I do a variety of jams/marmalade every year. If I have a bumper crop of tomatoes I'll put those up as well.

 

[Hawkeye5]

Yes I use a pressure canner for green beans. Hot water bath for the jam and tomatos. You can find a reasonably priced pressure canner at Wal-Mart. I use the pressure canner for everything, but just the pot as a hot water bath for the jam and tomatos. If you are not going to can low acid produce you could purchase one of the hot water bath canners for less than a pressure canner.

There are many websites for home canning, and the Ball website is great. What suprised me a bit when I started canning a few years ago is that much our mothers and grandmothers did has changed, it has all been updated with research. The newer standards mean home canning is much safer now because all the bugs are killed. I remember the zinc lids that a round rubber gasket was used with, and I believe my mother canned green beans in a hot water bath.

 

[auk1124]

Have about 80 quarts of green beans left over from last couple of years, don't think we will can any this year. We always can tomatoes, and we are about out so we will probably can quite a few of them.

There appears to be a good crop of apples coming on, so we will probably can several pints of apple sauce as well.

Our canner was a wedding gift from my father - a very thoughtful gift.

 

[bandrus1]

I made pickles this year for the first time... they are a bit salty but very good

 

[Open Channel D]

green beens, asparagus, beets, corn, okra, tomatoes, chow chow, spaghetti sauce, ketchup (three kinds: regular, curry and Moroccan) applesauce, peach butter, raspberries, blackberries, chokecherries, and later this year, apricot/pineapple preserves.

Also do pickled radishes and eggs; brandied peaches, and cured sausages.

Make all my own beer, wine, and fuel-only ETOH (it would be wrong to consume it).

Thank God for the Grange!

 

[DFrancis]

We canned a bunch of apple related goodies this fall from our tree. Apple butter is wonderful.

 

[Sticky]

We don't can much since the kids all moved out, just some fruits and jams. Nowadays we do much more food drying for use when canoeing, hiking, etc...