first attempt at canning

I knew you would know Rowena! Now I know why you know so much about preserving food!

Rowena, I have been out of town for a few days so I've just seen your message. Thanks so much for the thorough response! I had gotten other advice (probably based on the 90% that you talked about), but to be on the safe side, I will definitely make a water bath a part of my canning process in the future for anything that will be stored on the shelf (NAR56 please take note of this message also!).

In the meantime, I decided to try my hand at canning my first jars of Refrigerator Pickles yesterday, because I came back from a trip out-of-town to find half a dozen cukes hanging on the vines measuring 8.5 to 11.5 inches long (they were only 3 - 4 inches long last Monday). I got 3.5 pints out of six cucumbers. Curiosity got the best of me since I've never had this kind of pickle before, so I tried a couple today - WOW!! They were incredibly tasty and crunchy. I got my 20-year old who hates pickles to give one a try and it was amazing to see her smile in mid-chew and say "That's some good snackin' there!" I will definitely make these again.

Refrigerator Pickle Ingredients (that's sugar in the black cup) . . .



Refrigerator Pickles!

Oh MasonGarden your pickles look wonderful! Great job! I wish my pickles would grow, lol! They'll get there since I probably planted later than you.

Thanks, Tricia! I planted small seedlings on June 11th and I lost the first couple of round of baby cukes as they shriveled and dried up. I finally figured out that my vines were only producing female flowers and not a single male flower. I went to the garden center early last week and bought a couple of seedlings with only male flowers, did a little hand pollination with a tiny paintbrush to help them along, and voila! My cukes have grown like gangbusters ever since, going from about 4" to over 8"-11" in one week. As long as my new transplants keep putting out male flowers I'll be OK.

We ate our first refridgerator pickles today... They were in the fridge for a month, and let me tell you, the jar lasted 10 minutes. HOLY MOLY!!! We have 6 more jars, and 6 more cuke's in the fridge.. I'll be making many more of these small pieces of heaven!!!

My first pickled sweet banana peppers, here's to hoping they don't kill us...

LOL, if the lid popped, you're good to go. Don't forget to let them sit a month or two... it makes them better!
Congratulations.

It popped! Thanks camprn!

Love that sound!

I have never canned, pickled, preserved anything. All this talk of canning and pickling has me thinking I might like to try it. I was searching for a recipe for pickled banana peppers and found this very informative site.

The National Center for Home Food Preservation
http://nchfp.uga.edu/index.html

They even have how-to videos; next best thing to learning side-by-side with someone with experience.

Hi Everyone! Well, I've read all posts on this topic and I have a question or two of my own that I did not see on here. Yesterday was my first time canning. I canned one quart of tomatoes, hot pack in their own juice. I got out as many air bubbles as possible but I seem to have some even though my lid has a good seal. 1st question - is this normal/ok? 2nd question - it looks as if the tomatoes have floated to the top with liquid in the bottom...is this normal?

Thanks,
Renee

bubbles on jars that are freshly canned usually means that the food still had air pockets in it when the jar when into the canner. this is also what causes the food to float--the air pockets lift it in the liquid. as long as the bubbles do not continue to move or increase, the food is most likely fine. when you open the jar, smell the contents, and if it seems ok, just make sure to cook well before serving.

Oh...that's a bit unnerving. Pretty wild there were still bubble in there even thought the jar was packed tight along with proper head space and I squeezed out as much as possible.
Thanks Rowena!
Renee

When I can whole tomatoes, unless I heat the tomatoes and really cram the jar full, I get floaters. If you followed the recipe and processed for correct length of time and the jar lid popped they should be fine.

cheyannarach wrote:My first pickled sweet banana peppers, here's to hoping they don't kill us...

Those look fantastic Cheyanne

Check out this cool rack for your canner pot. One side holds 4 qt. jars and the flip side holds 7 half pint or pint jars. I found it at the Cornell Cookware Store at a Premium Outlet Mall near us. They have a few tools for canning and it is made by Progressive. It worked great for my one jar.
Renee

Finally used my canner. I did a whole whopping 2 qrts of green beans

I figured if I goofed I'd rather goof a little. And I may have goofed. For one I failed to make sure and get all the air out before processing. How bad is that? Also, I noticed when washing the pot, the water had a greenish tint to it like the beans leaked while processing. I guess I don't know if this is normal or not?

Those look good! Congrats! The green water is probably from spill over from the jars when everything in the jars was expanded, it has to go somewhere and unless you crank the lids on really tightly (which you are not supposed to do), the expansion is out from under the rim of the lids.

Next time you will remember about the air. I always have to do a double check of required headspace too.
Did the jars pop and seal? If so, you are good to go.

I don't know if they've popped yet or not. They're still pretty darn hot. I packed the jars pretty tight with the beans and did leave the 1" headspace. Everything was pushed up against the top when I first took them out of the canner and they have since settled down. Looks like there's lot's of air coming from the inside of the beans. Yes, next time I'll remember.
Too bad the awesome looking purple beans turn blah olive green when cooked.

Congrats! Those beans look great. I was wondering if you ran a chopstick (my preference) or some other non-metallic item from top to bottom into the jars a few times after adding the water to release air bubbles? I love canning things from the garden and it actually may be addictive. I have been canning one or two batches of something each night for the past 11 days or so (peaches this morning) and have to admit I find it gratifying. You will be surprised how quickly your food inventory builds case by case. You did a great job!

No, I forgot to remove the air and thank you for the kind words of encouragement

Wonder of wonders, my adult son, Chris, expressed an interest in trying his hand at canning applesauce (I'd already made arrangements to come down with the garden's cucumbers to make pickles with the grandkids). I told Chris I'd bring along my canner so we could put up at least 7 quarts. Now, as I've mentioned, I have an old All American cast aluminum canner, which is quite heavy. Then, when ratting through the local Goodwill for metal grates to put under my developing winter squashes, lo and behold, there was a very lightly-used Presto canner for $29. It even had the original instruction booklet inside! So I bought it. Even if there is a problem with any component, our local ACE hardware carries replacement parts. It'll be a lot easier to transport than the big old All American, I can tell you. Now to get those cukes picked.

Nonna! You LUCKY DUCK!

Years ago I had a granite ware water bath canner, but when I got the All American, it became a dye bath canner, then disappeared. Can't remember what I did with it--gave it away probably. This is the first time I've ever had two real pressure canners. The Presto will be so much easier to carry to Washington coast for one set of grandkids to learn canning and to east of Seattle for the other set. I'm calling this survival food preserving. Hope some of it will last to when they are adults.

we pressure canned for the first time tonight and we have a few questions.....

we canned chicken soup and beef stew, we followed the directions from the Ball canning book...

i will post some pic's later tonight

... first question.....is it normal for some of the contents to either float or sink after procesing?

.....why did i end up with a lot more soup/stew then what the recipe stated?....

......is it safe to sub differnt veggies in the recipe then what it calls for? ....

can we pressure can same size jars for the same amount of time but they have differnt contents in them?

thanks
hugs
rose