Isabella Woodhouse wrote:
> In article >,
> George Shirley > wrote:
>
>> Hokay, I'll chime in here. I've been pressure canning for more than 40
>> years, most of it with the same eighteen-quart canner. Mine is the one
>> with the gauge that reads the pressure but it also has a jiggler.
>
> I'm so glad you posted--- thank you. While I've done a lot of
> canning and preserving, I have only little experience (a few years ago)
> with pressure canning and, basically, what I recall is that BWB seemed
> so much easier and less time-consuming than pressure canning. OTOH, I
> was horribly sick at the time (celiac) but now, after recovering for a
> couple years, I am very much better and getting back into my groove
> again. So I need to relearn the process I guess.
>
> We're all electric, no gas service at all. I have a glass-top range and
> I do recall that adjusting the pressure was difficult. I may well have
> heated on too high a range setting and then overcorrected to bring down
> the pressure. I recall doing peaches (halves) and that the jars lost
> half their liquid so I had to just open them all. Never had anything
> like that happen with BWB. The canner is a Presto with a dial gauge.
Many glass-top ranges have a prohibition for canning pots, just too
heavy for them. The process of over correcting that you described can
cause liquid loss. The idea is to have a smooth, steady climb to desired
pressure and to start cutting back the heat a little ahead of time.
>
> We have an outdoor grill with a 15,000 BTU side burner so I was thinking
> maybe I could try using that for pressure canning. But, since it gets
> pretty hot here and it's very sunny out there, it would likely take a
> lot longer for the canner to cool down out there unless I got it into
> the house. But I fear that would be way too much moving around. Right?
If you can move the grill into a shady spot (that's what I do with mine)
then I wouldn't worry too much about moving the canner into the house.
It's best to NOT do too much moving of the pot until it has cooled down.
I think some of the canners on this newsgroup do use propane stoves
outdoors to do the work, maybe some will chime in.
>
>> Once I turn the heat off the pressure starts to drop and, within twenty
>> minutes or less, the gauge reads zero. At that stage you can remove the
>> top. At that point I do something our old home ec agent in Texas taught
>> us, toss a tea towel over the top and let it sit five more minutes.
>
> If I may ask, what is the purpose of the towel?
The home extension agent says it helps to control last minute liquid
loss by keeping the canner from venting too much heat at the last
minute. I just started doing it years ago and it seems to work.
>
>> ...Once that's done I lift the rack out, set the rack and jars on a
>> folded towel and let them cook to room temperature. It is generally
>> recommended that you let them sit for 24 hours before moving them
>> around to ensure the entire mass is cool.
>
> My canner only has a plate with holes on the bottom--- no lift-out rack.
> In the past, all our BWB canners had a rack that held all the jars and
> you would lift the entire thing out. I was worried about the jars
> falling into each other and rattling around. I wondered if maybe that
> was why my peaches did not turn out. It was disconcerting.
I wouldn't think that's why the peaches didn't turn out, sounds like
what we were discussing earlier. Some canners, pressure or BWB, have
flat racks, some have lift out racks. Most usually I just lift my jars
out with a jar lifter, very carefully, and set them on the folded towel
to cool naturally. I wouldn't worry too much about the plate instead of
a rack.
>
>> ...I've never had a jar fail to seal in the pressure canner, never
>> had the jar contents go bad (we eat it all up pretty quick anyway),
>> and, for certain items I prefer canned to frozen. Ie, green beans, or
>> shelled beans of any kind. Soups, soup stocks, broths, etc. all get
>> canned to save freezer room for important stuff like vacuum sealed
>> steaks, roasts, fish, etc.
>
> I've been very fortunate with BWB canning. But it would be nice to feel
> even more secure and be able to can a greater variety of things. My
> chicken broth takes up entirely too much freezer space, for instance.
Yeah, I've got a couple of gallons of chicken broth in the freezer right
now and it's not even soup weather. You can always use the pressure
canner but take your time, do each step properly, watch the pressure
gauge and keep the heat and pressure about right. When we had an
electric stove I learned just when to cut the heat control back to
control the pressure, you can too. Once you learn you can do it right it
builds your self-confidence and it becomes easier. I had to learn how to
control the heat all over again when we got the gas stove. NOTE: do have
your pressure gauge tested annually for accuracy, some state extension
services can have this done for you at a nominal fee. I'm lucky in that
this is a heavy industry area and there's a gauge shop just down the
road a bit. They do mine for free.
>
>> Sure, pressure canning is a PITA but you get a safer, more convenient
>> food that will last up to a year or more in a cool place out of direct
>> sunlight - my pantry.
>>
>> It's certainly no more difficult or lengthy than messing around with jam
>> pots, boiling jars for 5, 10, 20 minutes, etc. I quite BWBing tomatoes
>> twenty years ago when I became uncertain as to the acidity of the fruit.
>> If I get enough to can I pressure can them.
>>
>> Oh yeah, none of the food I can has ever become mushy from the canning. YMMV
>
> Well that is certainly good to know. BTW, since I started freezing my
> green beans on cookie sheets and then vacuum sealing them, they are just
> ever so much better than the old way of packing them into boxes. The
> only shell beans we get from the garden are black-eyed peas. And we
> gobble all those up fresh so there's never any left to preserve.
>
> Isabella

I haven't tried the green beans that way since we have a small freezer.
Last year I pressure canned more than forty pint jars of green beans.
One pint is just right for a meal for the two of us. Good luck with your
canning and you can always come back to this crew and ask questions.

George