In this podcast episode, Kathy shares 10 tips for safe canning.
Play the episode
Resources
Resources mentioned in this podcast:
- Canning Tips from USU
- Water Bath Canning
- Pressure Canning
- Episode 9 - Using Different Canners
- Canning Tomatoes
- Canning Apple Pie Filling
In this episode you'll learn:
- 10 tips to avoid when canning
- Items that are considered major canning mistakes and could possibly be deadly
- Reminders about safe canning
Where to listen to the podcast
Listen to this episode on iTunes, Spotify, Amazon Podcast, or your favorite podcast player. Or scroll down to read a full transcript.
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Transcript
Hello and welcome back to the Pantry. Glad you're here with me again today. We are starting to get into canning season, and I want to share some reminders about canning with you. So if you are brand new to canning, whether it's water bath, canning, or pressure canning, you might go back and listen to episode nine where I talk about all of the basics about water bath canning, and then also about pressure canning.
If you are a seasoned canner, I think it's a great idea every year just to review the best practices, and that's what I'm going to do with you today. So I subscribe to several different newsletters from different university extension offices that talk specifically about canning, and I just got one from the university from Utah State University that has a great reminder about common practices, and common mistakes that you wanna avoid when canning.
I'm going to share a direct link to this page because there are some really great tips just to review about safe canning. The ones I'm gonna talk about are the major canning mistakes that can be potentially deadly. They have 10 items listed here, and I'm just going to go through each one of these just as a reminder that canning is wonderful, but also can be deadly.
You have to make certain that you are using best practices so that your canning is safe for your family, friends and you!
We're just going to dive right in. I'm going to go through each one of these and talk about them. So the first one is making up your own canning recipe. I love to bake and cook, and when I am doing those, I just add a little of this, a little of that, and make up and add things as I'm going along, but in canning that is not okay.
I always follow approved recipes either from the Ball Canning Book, from the National Center for Home Food Preservation or Extension offices that specialize in canning or even from websites that have approved. Processes in canning. All of my recipes that I offer for canning on my website follow the recommended practices.
The reason that you should not be making up your own canning recipe is without scientific testing, you will not know how long the product actually has to be processed so that it can be safe. All right.
The second one is adding extra starch like flour or thickener to a recipe. Um, if you were making a stew or a apple pie filling or another pie filling, you want to make certain that you are using an approved thickener.
So flour and some other starches will slow the rate of heat penetration and it can result in undercooking. Make certain that you're following. An approved recipe that will have the approved starch that you may use or the amount of starch that you can use. Sometimes if you think something's not thick enough, can it the way that it says in the recipe, and then when you're ready to use it, if you need something to be a little thicker, that would be the time when you're reheating it, you've taken it out of the jar, and then maybe add a little bit of extra flour or cornstarch to thicken it up.
All right. The next one is adding extra ingredients like onions, chilies, bell peppers, or other vegetables to salsa. Salsa is one of those great things to make during the summertime with so many different items in from your garden, but not all of those items can be water bath canned. And so if you have a salsa recipe and you wanted to add some extra bell peppers or chilies to it, you have to be very careful because it might not be safe for water bath can anymore.
So don't add those extra things unless it specifically says in your recipe, goes back to our first thing. Don't make up your own recipe.
Oh, dear. This next one just surprises the heck outta me that people use this as a process, but I've seen it out there. So this could be a potentially dead deadly mistake if you're using your oven to process jars instead of a water bath canning method, the oven is not a good conductor of heat as water or steam is.
The jars may also break or explode, but you're really risking an under-processed food that probably is not safe or may not be safe as you consume it later. Do not use your oven.
The next one is about not making altitude adjustments. Now, back in episode 47, I talked about the importance of altitude and why you have to adjust depending on what your altitude is and you can go back and listen to that, but since the boiling temperatures are lower at higher altitudes, the products are under-processed. So when you're water bath, canning, you have to add additional time. When you're pressure canning, you have to add additional pressure. Make certain that you're looking and know where your altitude is, and then always adjust for that when you're canning.
The next issue is when you are pressure canning, not venting the pressure canner. So venting is you put all of your items into the canner, you've got the amount of water on the bottom, you lock your lid into place, you turn up your heat, and you allow the steam to start to come out of the vent from the top of the lid.
That has to happen for at least 10 minutes once the steam starts to come through, the lack of venting can result in air pockets in the canner, which can result in cold spots, and so the internal temperature of your canner, your pressure canner, may not be as high as it's needed.
This next one for me is a tough one because it's sometimes difficult to find a place where you can actually do this, but if you're using a pressure canner and you're using a dial-type pressure gauge, you're supposed to have those tested annually. Most extension offices will provide a way to have these tested. They may have a certain time that you can bring your lids in and they test 'em to make certain that your pressure gauge is registering accurately.
I had an old pressure canner that I used that always registered a pound under, so I kept a little note inside my pressure canner when I was storing it. So every time I took it out, I had that note and I remembered I had to add an extra pound of pressure, plus then I had to adjust my altitude. You can always buy a new pressure gauge, but it's best if you just test it so you know exactly where it is.
If you are canning tomatoes, this next tip really applies to you. Failure to acidify canned tomatoes. So canning tomatoes. The tomatoes do not all have an adequate acid level or acidity level for them to be safe. Water bath can. The problem is, you can't easily test the acidity level of your tomatoes.
So we always wanna acidify our tomatoes before we water bath can them. I always add bottled lemon juice to my canned tomatoes before I water bath can them. If you don't do this, it can result in botulism poisoning. And remember that botulism is usually deadly. Don't play with that. If you are pressure canning.
This next tip you wanna really think about, not only is it unsafe for your food, but it is really dangerous to be doing this.
So if you have pressure canned something and you have done the appropriate amount of pressure, the appropriate amount of time, and you turn off your stove, you have to let that pressure canner. Cool. Naturally, do not try to cool it down with cold water by placing this into the sink. I can't even imagine moving that huge pressure canner into the sink, but, and then cooling it down with cold water.
You could ruin your pressure canner, but more importantly, that cooling process is part of the processing time that ensures that your food is safe. So, It takes a long time for that pressure to come all the way back down to zero. You don't want to force cool it. You don't want to remove that vent cover until your pressure canner has already gone all the way back to zero pounds of pressure.
The final tip is letting your food prepared for hot packing in the jars. Cool before you place them in the canner. If the recipe calls for your items to be fully heated and then place it into the jars hot, as soon as you have those jars filled, you wanna put them right into your canner, whether it is a water bath, canner, or the pressure canner.
Otherwise, this again could result in under-processed food. So those are the 10 tips that the Utah State University has put out about major canning mistakes. They also have several minor canny mistakes, which could mean that your food quality deteriorates. But the results probably are not going to be deadly.
And then they also have some cautions for specific foods, some general rules and exceptions to those general rules. Things like changing the salt level is okay in everything except for your pickles if you're making any sort of pickles. So again, I'll include this link because it's a great reminder to read through before you start your canning for the season.
As always, let me know if you have any questions and I will see you next week in the pantry. Bye.
Thanks for listening, and be sure to tune in again next week for more episodes of Preserving the Pantry.
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