first serious canning session

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 This it the first serious session after turning the stripped off carcass of Christmas day turkey into stock .
 It was a five pound hunk of poor quality badly cut supermarket beef , all the veg leeks onions carrots & celery and the beef went into the slow cooker without frying or browning .  I added , 15 gams of salt, 12 peppercorns , 1/4 teaspoon of ground white pepper  80 ml sweet Masala wine and four bay leaves and seven pints of cold water .

 I put it on auto for four hours  , switched it off left it over night to cool .
this morning I  cut the beef up into 1x 1 x 4 inch long sticks along the grain & packed those small 5/8 pint Weck jars and topped them with the stock .
 Once they were in the canner I strained of the remaining stock , split the veg evenly between the four one pint jars , filled them  correctly with stock and slipped them in the fridge till we came back home this late afternoon  when they too were processed .


 This is the start of out canner pantry by this time next year we should have a reasonable cycle of food stuffs that we could never ever buy in the shops.

It didn't take as long as I expected .. I carried the small kitchen timer around with me  ( to the garage , outside office and pond etc. ) so when  it went off I came back inside to do the next step of event in the caning sequence , which was quite handy as it was really brassy cold outside.

 

Watch out David.... canning is adictive   

NICE! Remember, it's all (safe) fun and games until you run out of jars.

I need to start looking for jars at garage / estate sales!  From this Forum, it sounds like the newer jars are thinner??

A nice sunny day in the 60's. But the air quality is Red, Hazardous for everyone.

I have had no problems with any new Ball/Kerr canning jars I have bought in the past few years. What I did have a problem with was they are selling them in 1/2 boxes now and no labels for the jelly jars.

I looked at buying the cheaper Chinese jars (Golden Harvest) but I didn't like their weight when I was inspecting them in the store. Those were thin.

Thanks for stating that new Kerr / Ball are okay. What is a fair store price for 1/2 and 1 pints? ~$1+/jar? I'll hit HD and Big Lots, maybe Smart and Final.

Sometimes I find per dozen 1/2 pints as low as $7-$9, Pints $10-$14, quarts $12-$17 ish for all those prices. I hear that sometimes places like Lowe's have near half price sales of leftover stock at certain times of year.

camprn wrote:Sometimes I find per dozen 1/2 pints as low as $7-$9, Pints $10-$14, quarts $12-$17 ish for all those prices. I hear that sometimes places like Lowe's have near half price sales of leftover stock at certain times of year.  

Lowes/HD  1/2 price!  I'm off to check tomorrow.    

sanderson wrote:

camprn wrote:Sometimes I find per dozen 1/2 pints as low as $7-$9, Pints $10-$14, quarts $12-$17 ish for all those prices. I hear that sometimes places like Lowe's have near half price sales of leftover stock at certain times of year.  

Lowes/HD  1/2 price!  I'm off to check tomorrow.    

Let your fingers do the walkin'.   

Canning supplies are often on sale right after canning season; which where I am is usually Oct. I have used the Golden Harvest jars that I bought years ago for many years with no problem.

Plantoid, your dinner looks delicious! But what caught my eye was your electrical receptacle.

I know that your receptacles are different than ours, but it just occurred to me that I haven't seen one of your receptacles with what appear to be 2 switches on them.  I was wondering if that's what we call a GFI receptacle?  Or are they just on/off switches?  GFIs  are required to be used here in wet locations like kitchens, bathrooms, and outdoors.

Our GFIs look like this. Sometimes the buttons are colored; one button is for testing and one is to reset.  At times they can be as temperamental as a ... oops,  never mind that part.   

Just curious.

Boffer, good eyes.

Here in the UK we can have our electrical "  Face plates " sockets around the home as switched or unswitched .

Surprisingly the UK electrical wiring regulations are law as to regards what approved goods may be fitted the rest is a code of practice ( woe betide you if you deviate and some one gets hurt of worse )

 You appear to have a shaver socket outlet .. mine are three pin // earth at the top vertical  live to the left horizontal that must be used with a fused plug .. fuse sizes 1, 2, 3 ,5 10 & 13 amps wrt 240 volts .
 my sockets are a wee bit over the top for when switched off both the live and neutral ( return )are isolated by the action of the switch .
 

All my circuits for each room has an individual current and earth leakage circuit breaker of 2, 5 , 13 15 , 20 or 30 amps as do the outside lights, the bathroom light and extractor fan and the main 20 amp cooker supply point.

 The UK has perhaps the worlds highest electrical safety standards around.

 I'll take a better picture for you and post about it .

 This is the 2 gang double pole throw switched faceplate we have 36 of them around the bungalow . 15 of them in the kitchen .  They are commonly called wall sockets or power points.

 They can be switched or un switched  and in singles doubles or triples .
 Around the TV area I have three double sockets , one plug in point for each item of ...DVD player , satellite TV receiver box  , TV , Wii box, Photo frame and the wire free  DEC phone one of these socket extenders thankyou ! .

After  I designed the new wiring plan for the home and got everything done and inspected /commissioned Alison said I think we should have had another two sockets ..one here and one there..( near the TV area ) , she managed to escape the cup of cold water ..... but only just. 



This is the plug with the cover removed some electrical items don't have the yellow and green cable as they are double insulated and of a lower current ..this plug is off the electric kettle 2500 watts @ 240 volts which is one of the higher current consumers. it has a 13 amp fuse WRT 250 volts





This is the pin side of the plug , note that on the live and neutral pins there is an inbuilt black shroud to stop you accidently touching live if you or a kiddie curl their fingers round a plug whilst pushing it into s switched on or other wise live socket.
 The shroud also covers enough of the pin so that by the time the shroud ends at the brass  even if you slipped a razor blade or thin strip of cooking foil down the back of the plug the power will have already been taken from the pins because the will be  3 mm ( 1/8 th of an inch ) clear of the live and neutral rails .

As I said they are a very safe but expensive socket but well worth the protection that they afford.

Interesting info Plantoid. I'm going to have to split this thread.   

Thanks I was hoping you would, perhaps at Boffers comment about the sockets ..
Cheers
 Dave .

Today was a big shopping day, even though it was 106*F.  We had to order a clothes dryer, and lo and behold, there were Kmart, Target, 99 Cent and Walmart stores on our circuit.  So I was able to search for more canning goodies.  The big score was a Made in the USA wide mouth 1-gallon glass jar for $9.99 at Target.  Sauerkraut!!

Also some more jars, pickling stuff and 2 little magnet sticks to get the lids out of the hot water.  Don't know if they are really strong enough, but I had to chase the lids around in the hot water when I made the salsa.  Binder clips and plant clips for the garden.  A very good day.

PS  If you think you see a bag of M&Ms in the background, it's just an artifact from the lighting.

Well. Done.

When word got out in our small town that we like to can it wasnt long before jarrs started showing up.  We made some canning deals with gardening friends offering to can their stuff for them on halfs.  Recently we put up 4 gallons of tomatoes in qt jars for our friend gave him 2 and kept 2.  We do the canning and seasoning he grows them.  We do the same thing with other stuff as well so now friends look for jars for us.  We recently asked them to stop looking we now have an attic full.

Wow, sanderson...SCORE!!!  You made out for sure, and especially the big wide mouth gallon jar!  

Yes, and I do believe there is a mirage of a Pounder back there on the counter...lol

sanderson wrote:....and 2 little magnet sticks to get the lids out of the hot water.  Don't know if they are really strong enough, but I had to chase the lids around in the hot water when I made the salsa....

Sig, don't risk getting scalded.  Get one of these, or use a strainer.


google 'canning lid rack'

Oooh! That is a contender for best kitchen gadget!!!

Nice, sanderson! I'll be interested in hearing how you decided to can the M&M's!

The sauerkraut project is intriguing too.

Marc, the glass jar is a 1 gallon size with virtually the same width opening as the jar. Everyone raves about home made sauerkraut.

Boffer, neat gadget.

Folks, the M&M bag is just a mirage!