Why To Can With Pressure Canners
February 14th, 2010 Filed Under Uncategorized
Canning can be a very long and tiresome process. Especially if your using an open water method of placing jars in a pot filled with boiling water and timing them. This can lead to water all over your kitchen, burnt fingers and a restriction on your ability to can low acid foods for a fear of botulism. Pressure canners are a very simple solution to all of those problems. It is still a pot that you put on your stove top, but it is sealed with a pressure gauge and helps reach higher temperatures to sterilize your jars more thoroughly. Here are some good reasons to invest:
More sterile: Due to the fact that the pot is sealed and has a pressure gauge to help monitor whats going on inside, you reach higher temperatures that you would with an open water method. With this canner, you don’t have to fill it with water, instead you rely on the vapour produced. With higher temperatures, the bacteria such as clostridium botulinum, or botulism, is avoided.
Canning low acid foods: Now that you reach higher temperatures with a thorough process, you can start canning meat, sea food and low acid vegetables. This means that what you can isn’t limited to a year supply of tomatoes or pickles! You can get more creative.
Canning more: The pot comes with an internal rack, so you are able to can more at once, where as with an open water pot, you can’t stack your jars vertically.
Simple and easy: You simply place your canner on your stove top, add you jars into the rack, add the instructed amount of water, seal the top, wait for the pressure gauge to tell you the desired pressure, and then start timing! Once your time is up, relieve the pressure via the exhaust valve, let it cool, take the rack out, cool some more and then store your preserves.
Better technology: Since there are racks inside the pot, this ensures that the jars don’t sit against the wall of the pot and the vapour reaches all sides of the jar. This means that the heat is distributed evenly for all the jars and the process is very thorough.
Good investment: For a one time price of around 60$, you have a canner that is durable and simple. It will allow you to can tonnes of food, faster and safer, helping you save in the long term with all the food that you put on your shelves. Check out a Mirro pressure canner for a good entry level choice.
Canning with an open water method can be irritating and messy. With water boiling over the sides of your pot, and the handling of hot jars that might contain unwanted bacteria, it can be quite a chore to can. With pressure canners, your hot water is contained, you handle your jars with a rack that stacks them and holds them in place, and you know that the water temperature is above 212F. Now it’s easy to can anything without worrying and enjoy much more than tomatoes safely, and without burning your hands!
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