To all u wood range canners

Have I missed something? Are you useing a Pressure canner? A Pressure canner is the only safe way to cann beans.

Sounds as if He is using a water bath canner...

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In Life, We Weep at the thought of Death'
Who Knows, Perhaps in Death,
We Weep at the though of Life.

Lynn Miller Publisher of Small Farmers Journal has a saying. There aint no just one right way. Yes Im useing a canner. My mom used one all her life, She canned hundreds of qts of beans in my 10 years of being there and being old enough to know anything about it.

Does salt have calories? If you only eat salt, will Japanese Whalers show up at your door with a harpoon?

I'm not a doctor, but do believe one must have a few extra calories and a lack of exercise in their diet, to obtain whale-hood.

I do believe I'd die, after a couple hours slaving away in the bald sun, if it weren't for a well balanced diet, which includes copious amounts of salts and electrolytes in the summer.

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Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity. Seneca
Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival. W. Edwards Deming

Whether one is using a pressure canner or a water bath canner, the same heat that sterilizes the food sterilizes the jars. That being said, one can't bring up the temperature in a regular canner enough to can things like meat etc. which need to be done in a pressure canner. The granite canners only work for fruits like tomatoes or peaches or with things like pickles. It is the acid in them that allows canning at a lower temperature.

The jars simply need to be washed clean and rinsed before canning. The can then be turned upside down on a towel till packed. There is no use to sterilize a jar and then put unsterilized contents inside... it is a waste of time and (stove) energy. The canning process sterilizes both the jar and it's contents. Furthermore it is a good way to loose some of your jars to put them in boiling or very hot water. The jars should be filled, put in the canner and then brought to a boil gradually.

Good (mason) jars can usually take being put into the hotter water of a "cold pack" canner on the 2nd round and further rounds but it will often cause things like old mayonnaise jars to break.

Jellies are often not really sterilized at all. They depend on their high sugar content to prevent the growth of bacteria. That is why the jars can be topped with paraffin wax, or slip on lids. Very low sugar jams/jellies should be canned with a sealed lid like any other fruit.

Whatever you think. As said before, my mom never used anything but a canner, and she canned beets, beans, peas, pickles, saur krute, peaches, pairs, jellys, strawberry, and grape, AND MEAT.

Once maybe 5 yrs before she died, she had me go down into the celler and climb up to where I could look over the shelf built into the edge of the celler and look at every jar to see if it was bad or not. Out of say 200 jars, at least, there might have been 1/2 doz that were bad, and there was no way to know how old they might have been. But she had 3 or so jars of canned shredded meat. She said my grandmom and her canned it in 1948, I looked it over, turning it around , upside and down, trying to find some rot in it, especially near the top. DID NOT FIND ANY.Didnt open it. Thought, if it looked good, then somebody else could take a look at it in 10 yrs or later. Be interesting to see how long it kept.

Tex, I usta work at a glass manfg co for near 20yrs. we took those salt tabs alla the time in summer. you could see guys with the salt white on their shirts where it had leached outa their body along with sweat. I started work at another place, and they said salt was bad for your heart. They didnt supply salt tabs, and I never saw the salt streaks again. I dont use it, never have, and ive only died 3 times. Maybe 4 after I eat the beans I can tomorrow lol

I can on an old coal water boiler which is simular to a cattleman's or ranchers stove using 2nd rate firewood out on my patio.
Before the stove I used cinder blocks, an old oven rack, & whatever held water to can in. Including old crisper drawers from refridgerators. Also a new galvanized round wash tub with a make shift lid for the tub made from heavy cardboard covered with foil. DH offered to make me a lid with flashing but I opted for an Amish made canner from Lehman's.
There's a pic on blog of a typical canning set up which works for me.
For the record I hand scrub the freak outta my jars, then sterilize, then keep them in very hot water until filling. If I'm canning up more than a few bushels and need many jars then the wash tub you see pictured on the left becomes a hot tub for jars by elevating with a few cinder blocks & adding hot coals from the fire.
On the subject of canning like Moms/Grandmothers ect. this is how it was explained to me ... Sweetheart if canning was like heart surgery would you perfer your surgeon to operate as if it was 1940 or present day?

http://thirtyfivebyninety.blogspot.c...-up-on-my.html


~~ pelenaka ~~