Home Canning Gone Wrong

[PugslyCat]

Last night I tried to do some home canning. I made about 10 pints of split pea soup, filled 9 pint jars and refrigerated what was left. When I processed the jars the canner wouldn't hold pressure. I guess after 40 years it's time to replace the gasket even though it seems pliable and I see no defects.

In the past I've had steam come out from under the rim when first heating it, but the gasket always sealed and built pressure eventually. This time no dice. It built enough pressure that the safety valve popped up to it's working position, but enough steam was still escaping around the rim that the pressure regulator never started to jiggle.

The bottles sat in boiling water long enough that they sealed when they came out of the canner, but that is meaningless since I never got them to processing temperatures and pressure for the required amount of time. I'll change the gasket and try again with new jars and lids, but if that doesn't work I'm facing having to eat an whole lot of pea soup before it goes bad.

 

[auk1124]

Pressure canners are potential bombs - your canner scares me. I'd replace the seal and if it still acted weird after that, I'd replace the whole thing if it were me. A catastrophic failure could be deadly.

 

[ouch]

You can always play exorcist with the kids.

 

[pinecone]

Does your canner have a pressure gage? A safety plug? Some do not, I feel both are necessary for safety. That said I have found the gasket in my pressure COOKER (not canner) requires that it be brought up to operating pressure quickly for the gasket to seal, also keep the petcock open until you get steam only (no air or water) then reduce heat to keep that pressure/temp correct. My canner, which is at least 50-60 years old, requires no gasket. YOU CANNOT CAN IN A PRESSURE COOKER.

 

[PugslyCat]

Does your canner have a pressure gage? A safety plug? Some do not, I feel both are necessary for safety. That said I have found the gasket in my pressure COOKER (not canner) requires that it be brought up to operating pressure quickly for the gasket to seal, also keep the petcock open until you get steam only (no air or water) then reduce heat to keep that pressure/temp correct.

I use a 16 quart Presto aluminum pressure cooker/canner (says so in the manual) with the glorious harvest gold exterior. My mother bought it 40 years ago. It has no gage, just the three piece, weighted, jiggler type pressure regulator. I'm comfortable with it because it does have a safety plug that blows out if pressure builds beyond a certain point, but a gage certainly would be better.

My usual mode of operation is:

1. Get the cooker up to a boil as quickly as possible (i.e. high heat) without the pressure regulator in place.
2. When it is outputting a steady stream of steam I reduce heat as low as I can and still keep up steam.
3. Leave it steaming unregulated for 10 minutes to make sure it's only steam and not air coming out.
4. Add the regulator and crank the heat to build a head of steam rapidly. Usually I get a good seal in a few minutes, but not the night before the original post.
5. Process jars for the required time.
6. Remove from heat and let rest until the pressure indicator on the safety valve drops.

Pressure could be built more rapidly by turning up the heat a couple of minutes before putting the regulator in place. Maybe I'll try that in the future. Doing so means I'll have a much stronger jet of steam coming out when the regulator goes on.

There are some other options to rapidly reduce pressure, but I've always read to avoid those for safety reasons.

YOU CANNOT CAN IN A PRESSURE COOKER.

Can you expand that, especially why the all caps? I ask because I've used my electric pressure cooker to reprocess individual jars in the past.

I would think that even the small ones would be able to be used for pints and half pints as long as you have a rack in the bottom, sufficient water capacity to maintain steam for the required processing time, and can control the pressure at proper levels.

 

[PugslyCat]

You can always play exorcist with the kids.

Last night I reprocessed my nine pints of soup in the pressure cooker/canner as outlined in my last post. With the one jar that still didn't seal and the quart that I had refrigerated, I don't think that I have enough left for play time.

 

[PugslyCat]

Pressure canners are potential bombs - your canner scares me. I'd replace the seal and if it still acted weird after that, I'd replace the whole thing if it were me. A catastrophic failure could be deadly.

Well, yes. Any pressure cooker, presure canner, or boiler could explode if over presurized. To avoid that they have safety valves. This one, not so much if it won't hold pressure in the first place.

 

[Phog Allen]

Hey Paul. My mum canned for years when I was a kid. Now I am not exactly sure why you cannot can in a pressure cooker but I think I know why you cannot cook in an aluminium canning device. I am talking cooking food that is not in a canning jar. Stews, roasts, etc. Any sort of acidic food will etch the interior and potentially leech aluminium into the food. At least I think that is correct. Pinecone may certainly know more than me about and hopefully he will post again. I have a nice Presto stainless steel pressure cooker that we have made plenty of meals in. Works a treat.

Cheers, Todd

 

[pinecone]

PugslyCat; Most pressure cookers do not bring the pressure therefore the temp. high enough, and may not keep pressure steady enough. Most if not all canning forum/ Commercial sites state not to use them. I personally would not use anything that does not have a gage. Do your cans pop (you can hear it) when they are cooling? This sound tells you the lid is making a good seal. I have had food poisoning ( not from canning ) and it is very painful, and dangerous. I am very safe when it comes to food. Check to see if you have a local County Agent office, they can give you more than I can post here. There are lots of Canning forums also. The fast/ high heat seal is a trick I have to use on my pressure cooker to get it to seal.

 

[Alacrity59]

Hey Paul. My mum canned for years when I was a kid. Now I am not exactly sure why you cannot can in a pressure cooker but I think I know why you cannot cook in an aluminium canning device. I am talking cooking food that is not in a canning jar. Stews, roasts, etc. Any sort of acidic food will etch the interior and potentially leech aluminium into the food. At least I think that is correct. Pinecone may certainly know more than me about and hopefully he will post again. I have a nice Presto stainless steel pressure cooker that we have made plenty of meals in. Works a treat.

Cheers, Todd

Presto makes both Stainless Steel and Aluminum pressure cookers. Some say Aluminum adds a bad flavour to tomato based recipes.

 

[pinecone]

Disclosure from pinecone; To reduce confusion huh: or add to it)
There is a process called open bath or open kettle that uses no pressure, it can only be used for certain high PH foods and takes hours and hours. Others foods require the higher temps that you need pressure to get. There are many resources for caning information on the internet. Have a good time, canning can be fun and an big AD.

 

[PugslyCat]

Hey Paul. My mum canned for years when I was a kid. Now I am not exactly sure why you cannot can in a pressure cooker but I think I know why you cannot cook in an aluminium canning device. I am talking cooking food that is not in a canning jar. Stews, roasts, etc. Any sort of acidic food will etch the interior and potentially leech aluminium into the food. At least I think that is correct. Pinecone may certainly know more than me about and hopefully he will post again. I have a nice Presto stainless steel pressure cooker that we have made plenty of meals in. Works a treat.

I don't know that the aluminum taints the food so much as acidic foods will turn the aluminum black. I know my mother always used to cook roasts on the stove top with an aluminum dutch oven with no problem as meat, potatoes and carrots are low acid foods. There were no problems that we knew of, anyway.

PugslyCat; Most pressure cookers do not bring the pressure therefore the temp. high enough, and may not keep pressure steady enough. Most if not all canning forum/ Commercial sites state not to use them. I personally would not use anything that does not have a gage. Do your cans pop (you can hear it) when they are cooling? This sound tells you the lid is making a good seal. I have had food poisoning ( not from canning ) and it is very painful, and dangerous. I am very safe when it comes to food. Check to see if you have a local County Agent office, they can give you more than I can post here. There are lots of Canning forums also. The fast/ high heat seal is a trick I have to use on my pressure cooker to get it to seal.

I don't have a gage, but I do have a calibrated pressure regulator. The one I have uses the main part of the weight for 5 PSI, one additional weight gives you 10 PSI, and using both additional weights gives you 15 PSI. Some of the older "jigglers" were one round piece with multiple holes of different shapes that would provide different pressures depending on which side was placed over the steam outlet. I never quite trusted those.

Except for one jar that seems to have siphoned due to incorrect head space they all popped when they cooled. It was a good seal, but without have maintained pressure and temps there still could have been some nastiness inside.

I did a quick web search and found reasons for not using a pressure cooker in place of a pressure canner:

• Many pressure cookers just add some add some amount of pressure but aren't calibrated to hold a specific pressure. This can be bad because canning really requires you to attain and keep a steady pressure for a certain amount of time to heat the center of the jars to a safe temperature, thus killing the nasties that may be in your food. The electric pressure cooker I have used to reprocess some jars has "Lo" and "Hi" pressure, but nowhere does it say if "Hi" is 10 PSI or something else. I already ate that batch of whatever it was and survived, but won't be doing that again.
• Many pressure cookers can't reach the pressures needed for canning. Usually canning requires you to maintain 10 or 15 pounds of pressure and the little guys just can't do that.
• A fully loaded canner of 16 quart capacity and above takes considerably longer to heat up and cool down than does a 4 quart pressure cooker. Apparently recipes rely on this extended period of elevated temperatures when figuring out how long jars need to process.

Presto makes both Stainless Steel and Aluminum pressure cookers. Some say Aluminum adds a bad flavour to tomato based recipes.

Yea, I have been thinking about upgrading to the 23 quart stainless steel pressure canner so that I can double stack jars, but so far have been too cheap to buy it. I've heard not to cook acidic foods in aluminum. I don't know that it causes problems for the food, but the acid turns the aluminum black. I learned that when I used this same canner without the pressure regulator as a water bath canner for tomatoes and had a siphoning problem.

There is a process called open bath or open kettle that uses no pressure, it can only be used for certain high PH foods and takes hours and hours. Others foods require the higher temps that you need pressure to get. There are many resources for caning information on the internet. Have a good time, canning can be fun and an big AD.

I do a lot of tomato based products and pickles in the non-pressurized water bath canner. The basic premise is that the nasties in the food we are preserving don't survive in an acidic environment nor when exposed to temperatures higher than the normal boiling point of water for a period of time. The acidic foods that the botulism can't thrive in can be processed in the water bath canner. The pressure cooker is needed to raise the boiling point of water, thus the temperature, to kill the botulism in non-acidic foods.

Yes, I have MJAD - Mason Jar AD. I've been at this for 15 years and this batch of soup was my first failure to launch.

 

[auk1124]

Well, yes. Any pressure cooker, presure canner, or boiler could explode if over presurized. To avoid that they have safety valves. This one, not so much if it won't hold pressure in the first place.

Holding pressure in the first place and then suddenly not holding it in the second place would be my concern. What I was trying to say was, that seal letting go under pressure would be a worry for me.

 

[PugslyCat]

Holding pressure in the first place and then suddenly not holding it in the second place would be my concern. What I was trying to say was, that seal letting go under pressure would be a worry for me.

OK, I understand where you are coming from. A sudden random jet of super heated steam can really ruin your day in a hurry. I am already looking to replace the gasket just because it's the original from the mid-1970's. Although the it is still pliable with no visible defects it isn't going to last another 40 years.

Going forward I am going to try to crank up the heat prior to adding the pressure regulator to see if that doesn't help it seal better.

The one jar that said had not sealed turned out to be OK. I took off the ring and lid to pour it into a pan last night and found that there was a second lid still on the jar and sealed down nicely.

 

[Deltaboy]

Our Family has canned for years and we use a Canner for both canning and pressure cooking. Moms to the fold over locks on the lid. It is over 40 years old and she pressure cooks Turkeys in it so we can speed up the time on the smoker.

 

[PugslyCat]

The fast/ high heat seal is a trick I have to use on my pressure cooker to get it to seal.

I did some more canning last night with great success. In the past I always turned down the heat while steaming without the regulator prior to adding the regulator. I was doing this to conserve water and energy. Last night I cranked up the heat a couple of minutes before adding the regulator. This caused the canner to seal very quickly and get up to processing pressure faster than I am accustomed to. It worked great!

 

[PugslyCat]

Last weekend I canned four pints of beets and encountered the same problem as in the original post. All four jars sealed, but pressure never built up in the canner to process them safely. This time I went ahead and replaced the seal. It hurts to spend $10.95 to replace a part on a presure cooker/canner that originally cost $16.49, but I guess 40 years of service is enough for a rubber gasket. The gasket also came with a replacement for the emergency pressre release, a rubber plug that blows out to prevent over pressurization.

Although the old gasket was pliable and all, I could really tell the difference when I tightened the lid with the new one. At first I thought it was too thick due to how hard I was having to turn the lid to lock it. Everything went fine, though, and I didn't have to play any games with cranking the heat to get pressure to build.

 

[Hawkeye5]

I recently changed the gasket and over-pressure plug on my Presto pressure canner. The original was 5 years old and although I've never had a problem such as described, I'm a firm believer in preventive maintenance.