Warning: Pressure Canning Timing

I've just finished pressure canning loads of chopped up seven minute boiled and cooled  tomatoes with 15 ml of lemon juice per pint .
Bottled up it came to 6 pints and we still have a pint of  fresh in the fridge for use over the next few days
 
 I used the continental  European canning /bottling guide from Je Bouffe home canning and used our tow rise and fall pressure cookers , whacking them under pressure for 25 min at 15 pounds a square inch.

 As I was doing this I was thinking about a recent post by someone fairly new to pressure  canning & bottling.

 The person who said that they were able to speed things up by using the rest/ cooling down time under pressure as part of the sterilization cycle are to me playing with an open fire and a bucket of petrol.
 
From what I've read this last few months the canning /bottling times are times as actually & physically being in the canner or hot water bath at the correct  pressure and temperature , this does not include  the period of cooling down so you can handle them as some folk can pick out very hot items or get clever and use tong , cold air flow from an open window will cool the canner down quicker than one in a domestic kitchen with the windows closed. .

 It makes sense to me to treat the times as sacrosanct and wait the extra few minutes of cooling.as the high steady autoclave time & temperature  is then guaranteed to kill all bacteria .

 If you looked at a graph of a cooling canner in several different circumstances  I'm betting that it would fall far short of what is required , due to latent heat aspects & Boyles laws for gasses ..

+1 Just to be on the safe side.

plantoid wrote:... treat the times as sacrosanct and wait the extra few minutes of cooling.as the high steady autoclave time & temperature  is then guaranteed to kill all bacteria ...

 
...you too, sanderson!
If pressure falls too low at ANY point within specified processing time, START OVER!

Well , to give you all a bit of a giggle and something else to think about.

We went out at 17.00 to see an open evening where our  Munchkin helped present her school to future pupils from the junior feeder schools.   

As the canned toms were still rather hot when we departed home, I left them sat on a folded towel in the kitchen. On coming back home at 20.00 hrs. I tested the vacuum seals . Three jars failed  ... EYUKKK!

On looking closer at things whilst having my glasses on I noticed that each failure had a leak of tomato pushed through the seal and glass where it had boiled and pressurised enough to force the foaming / boiling  tomato out .

 Now , I religiously followed the canning instructions leaving  just a tad more than a half inch free for the contents expansion space in the top of the jars.

 It looks like I'll be leaving a full inch of expansion space when I re- can all of them tomorrow morning ..meanwhile they are sat in the 3 oC fridge to stop spoiling .

   Bummer dude!!

My mother in law called me the other day to ask if 3/4 of the liquid in the green beans boiled out of the jars while she pressure canned them if they were still okay to put in the pantry?  

We have all been eating a lot of green beans...

plantoid wrote:Well , to give you all a bit of a giggle and something else to think about.

We went out at 17.00 to see an open evening where our  Munchkin helped present her school to future pupils from the junior feeder schools.   

As the canned toms were still rather hot when we departed home, I left them sat on a folded towel in the kitchen. On coming back home at 20.00 hrs. I tested the vacuum seals . Three jars failed  ... EYUKKK!

On looking closer at things whilst having my glasses on I noticed that each failure had a leak of tomato pushed through the seal and glass where it had boiled and pressurised enough to force the foaming / boiling  tomato out .

 Now , I religiously followed the canning instructions leaving  just a tad more than a half inch free for the contents expansion space in the top of the jars.

 It looks like I'll be leaving a full inch of expansion space when I re- can all of them tomorrow morning ..meanwhile they are sat in the 3 oC fridge to stop spoiling .

If your directions say to leave a half inch I would go with that.  Wonder if the rims had any bits of food left on it before the lids and bands were applied? 
I've learned/read instructions that say to wipe the rim with a towel or paper towels. Then put on the lid and band.  From a standpoint of cleanliness and my own peace of mind, I now use a separate moistened paper towel (half sheet)then a dry paper towel for each jar. I think it assures a clean dry surface for the sealing compound, where a possible risk of re-used soft cotton towel may have bits of food on it from the prior jars.  Again, if little bits remain on the rim then there are problems with the seal.  Just sharing what I've learned, I'm really new at this stuff so maybe someone else will chime in.

+1 llama momma!
hot jars, clean rims, warm lids, right time and pressure are ALL important.

LM ... on waking this morning  I realized that the canner had given me a message that I didn't understand at the time.
 The water after canning had bits of tomato in it and it was generally orange tinted so knowing that I'd kept everything scrupulously clean and hadn't dripped any tomato (I  used a bottle /jar wide mouth canning filler  funnel  ) . There can only be one place the colouring and bits of toms came from ...... as the contents boiled they'd expanded & were expelled out the jar betyeen the lip / lid and seal .

Re-canning them to day straight from the fridge ...
 I used the old seals after washing them of caked cooked tomato , I boiled them for  five min to sterilize and soften them . Decanted the tomatoes into a glass jug then hot soap & water washed he jars . Rinsed then with very hot kettle water ,drained them and refilled with the cold tomato then put a seal on the lids and placed the jars in the canner & topped up the water so  that it made the water rise to just above the level of the tomato content in the jars

 Each jar now  had two tablespoon less off a full measured  pint instead of the 1/2 inch head clearance it took it to an inch of clearance. I clipped the lids with the reactivated seals down and canned .
 They got pressure canned for 25 min @15 psi ..when the canners ( I have two heavy duty pressure cooker with 5, 10 & 15 psi rise and fall weights ) dropped pressure on cooling I opened the lids and the contents of the jars were still boiling merrily.
 Even after taking the jars out the canner with tongs and putting the jars on a thick folded towel to cool they were still boiling a good four minutes afterwards.

 We went out shopping , two hours later when we cane back all jars were well vacuum sealed ..success

 I labelled them tonight at 21.00 ish , all the lids are still well sealed with the internal  vacuum and external air pressure .
 
It looks like I've finally understood several things.
 ( I  wish I had that Ball Blue 100 th anniversary canning book )

One
If the canner water is coloured with the contents & you've kept things really clean when filling and capping the jars something has come out the jars around the rubber seal and is likely to give a poor air tight seal on the finished product . .
 
Two
Fill the canner with water to the level of the contents of the jars so that heat transmission to the jar contents is at a maximum . It will reduce as the water boils off  but it won't affect things greatly .

Three 
Because of the pressure rise in the heated canner vessel the water temp it boils at increases so the contents of the jars will be much hotter than 212 oF or 100  oC  ... the heat comes through thin oven gloves on to your fingers much quicker

plantoid wrote:Two
Fill the canner with water to the level of the contents of the jars so that heat transmission to the jar contents is at a maximum . It will reduce as the water boils off  but it won't affect things greatly .

An exception to this from my experience is when pressure canning dried beans.  Even though they are soaked overnight and boiled up for 30 minutes before canning, they tend to soak up a lot more water.  So I like to put at least 2 inches of water above the level of the beans, leaving 1 inch head space.  Even then I often end up with beans with no liquid at the top of the jar.

And the finished jars tend to continue to boil for hours after removing them from the canner. 

CC

In the canner ( not hot water bath bottling )  user manuals does it often say put a 1 or 2 " head of water above the jars to be canned ?


 On thinking about it ....  it makes a lot of sense to have the jars totally immersed in the 222 oF  or so of pressured water hot water  in the canner .

Sorry, Plantoid...I misread #2.  I put up to 2 inches of liquid above the beans INSIDE the jars.  In the pressure canner itself, my manuals say to only have about 3 inches of water outside the jars, and that's what I do.

CC

CapeCoddess wrote:Sorry, Plantoid...I misread #2.  I put up to 2 inches of liquid above the beans INSIDE the jars.  For the pressure canner, my manuals say to only have about 3 inches of water outside the jars.

CC

Only a few inches of water is called for in my pressure canner as well.

camprn wrote:

CapeCoddess wrote:Sorry, Plantoid...I misread #2.  I put up to 2 inches of liquid above the beans INSIDE the jars.  For the pressure canner, my manuals say to only have about 3 inches of water outside the jars.

CC

Only a few inches of water is called for in my pressure canner as well.

 My Presto calls for "3 quarts of HOT water" outside of the jars. There's a mark (kind of hard to see) on the inside of the vessel, ONLY c. 1" above its bottom. That's all that's needed when pressure canning.

Windsor.Parker wrote:

camprn wrote:

CapeCoddess wrote:Sorry, Plantoid...I misread #2.  I put up to 2 inches of liquid above the beans INSIDE the jars.  For the pressure canner, my manuals say to only have about 3 inches of water outside the jars.

CC

Only a few inches of water is called for in my pressure canner as well.

 My Presto calls for "3 quarts of HOT water" outside of the jars. There's a mark (kind of hard to see) on the inside of the vessel, ONLY c. 1" above its bottom. That's all that's needed when pressure canning.

So it's probably more about the amount of water in the canner rather than the height.  My pressure cooker/canner is only a 10 qt so maybe 3 qts of water goes up about 3 inches....stand by...

I just checked and 3 qts goes a little over 2 inches. Once the jars are in, it would be about 3".

That's interesting.
CC

Well it looks like I will soon be getting the chapter and verse of things in the form of a brand new unused " 21 quart , All American pressure canner "  with the Centenary edition Ball and Blue canner book .
.
I spoke to Santa's Elf in the fish nets this very morning and they told me if I'm a good boy they will tell Santa to give me one this coming 2013 Christmas. .

If any of the readers have one of the " All American canners " and lives within a couple of hundred miles of where they are made would you please contact me via PM
 
David

Oh man! those are top of the line and out of my price range but I know it will serve you well and last for a lifetime.

Wish I had a direct line to Santa's elf... 

plantoid wrote:...If any of the readers have one of the " All American canners " and lives within a couple of hundred miles of where they are made would you please contact me via PM
 
David

Our Mailing Address:
AllAmericanCanner.Com
1035 Sylvatus Highway
Hillsville, Va. 24343, USA

I have a used one that I loooove.  Alas, I'm 2750.9 miles away from the factory, so no PM from me

Add five or more thousand miles more on top of that & that's how far away I am.

 I've checked out all sorts of places on line to buy so far each one wants to charge me in £ pounds sterling instead of dollars .. trouble is they want the same number of pounds as dollars and that is rather naughty when you look at the exchange rate.
 The shipping  they want to charge is astronomical ..nearly as much as the canner brand new .

 There are many ways to skin a cat .. some better than others and quite rewarding to boot .

plantoid wrote:Add five or more thousand miles more on top of that & that's how far away I am.

 I've checked out all sorts of places on line to buy so far each one wants to charge me in £ pounds sterling instead of dollars .. trouble is they want the same number of pounds as dollars and that is rather naughty when you look at the exchange rate.
 The shipping  they want to charge is astronomical ..nearly as much as the canner brand new .

 There are many ways to skin a cat .. some better than others and quite rewarding to boot .

I checked out AllAmerican etc. .com They want 199.99 dollars for canner new.

Then, down the page, there is a disclaimer, that distances them from the manufacturer, Wisconsin Aluminum Factory. The factory just sells them to other folks to sell for them, $207 and up!
I couldn't find anyone that would ship direct to you.
If you need me to, I can purchase, then ship to you, I have no idea how much shipping would be.
I think it is a shame that the folks that sell it over there are making such a profit.
Jo

Little JO

Thanks , at present there is  someone I'm in contact with who may be able to help me out .
I have sent you a PM explaining things.
 

David