ellen wickberg wrote:
Anny Middon wrote:
I did some canning last night and wondered for the umpteenth time whether I
should get a silicone oven mitt. I always find removing from the HWB and
draining the empty jars to be awkward. I'm thinking that with one of those
long silicone oven mitts I could just use my hand to get the jars and drain
them. Also I guess to lower the filled jars in the BWB, although the jar
lifter seems to work fine then.

Anyone here have a silicone oven mitt and use it for canning?

Anny


Hi Anny. Are you sterilizing the jars in the BWB? For most BWB canning
you only need hot, clean jars, not sterilized, to put your product in.
The BWB time will make sure that the contents and jars are sufficiently
heated to destroy spoilage organisms.
Ellen

A boiling water bath will not guarantee sterility.

The three most common ways of sterilizing (in the true microbiological
sense)
an item are :-

1. Ionizing radiation - not really practical unless you happen to have
a cobalt60 source or a nuclear reactor in the garden shed.

2. Autoclaving the material at 121C (15psi) for around 20 minutes, you
could use a pressure cooker for this but you have to start timing once
the cooker has reached temperature.

3. Dry heat at 160C for 90 minutes (30 minute to allow the material to
reach temperature and 60 minutes exposure time). This is easily done in
a home kitchen, either cover the mouths of the jars with aluminium foil
or place the mouth down on a baking tray and cook them in the oven.

I usually use the latter method leaving the jars in the turned off oven
untill my jams/pickles etc are ready to bottle and process.