The Great Challenge - Your Fears Pressure-Can-Along

I'll keep that in mind, David.  I've never done tomatoes in pints, always preferring quarts.  Also, my canner only does 8psi or 15 psi, there's nothing in the middle.  When I called the company about it they said to use 15 in place of 10 and shorten the time by 10 mins I think (can't remember exactly but I wrote it in the manual & in my canning book). Not sure what the 8 is for ...maybe pressure cooking but I'm not sure since it's been a while since I pressure cooked anything.

cc

Molly, You are a talented lady!

Well, as "live" as I can make it...



Waiting for the steam to start coming out of the vent...

...and six minutes later, there it is!



Now to wait 7 minutes...

The steam really started going at about 6 minutes.  



I went inside and got an oven mitt for safety and set the jiggle weight at 10 pounds over the vent when my timer showed 7 minutes.  The pressure started climbing immediately.



The heat is still on high at this point.  I waited until the psi registered 10 on the gauge and then immediately dropped the flames to the lowest setting on the burner...and lo and behold! The lowest setting was exactly enough to keep the jiggler jiggling occasionally.  I did a little experiment by raising the heat and keeping an eye on the gauge and all that happened was that the jiggler jiggled more fiercely but the gauge continued to register a little over 10 psi.

Wow, that's some contraption! Look at all those tighteners. Carry on...

LOL, it's pretty intimidating, CC, Which is why I'm so grateful to have so many (virtual) hands holding mine!!!

(Thank you, everyone!)

Here's a picture of the pressure holding steady:



So anyway,  since I wasn't actually canning anything, I decided to turn off the burner.  

It has now been 15 minutes since I turned the flames off and the gauge reads zero...



So I took the jiggler off, loosened the wing nuts and opened the canner carefully so that the steam would escape away from me.

Thus concludes my pressure canner's maiden voyage!  

Yay!  What a RELIEF!!!  

Who's next?

Molly , when using the pressure canner outside try and protect the flame & canner from any cooling air movement as this may actually drop the pressure & heat to unsafe levels .

Try putting the set up somewhere that it is not affected by breezes , open windows or doors redirecting air flows , rain or sudden changes in the strength of any sunlight ( scudding clouds ? ) on the canner whilst it is pressure canning .

I suspect that it's the main reason of the AAC folk are always saying , " Stay with your canner whilst canning .

If it slows from say single  one second jiggle/ steam actuation  every 20 seconds to one every minute or more you're close to not canning correctly


 I've made it a golden rule that unless I can hold my hand on the cooling / so called cold canner for more than 20 seconds I won't open it or remove the jiggle weight no matter what the pressure gauge shows .  Even then I've often had the gentle sucking in of air via the vent tube taking place when the weight is removed.

 When you have a full load of hot canned jars inside the canner it will take much longer to cool down . I've often found that a full load of 8 x one pint jars takes anything up to 1 & 1/2 hrs ,  depending what I'm canning & the ambient room/ area air temperature .

 My last few cannings have been planned to start the actual canning at 19.00 hrs ,  I then leave them to cool overnight when the the canning time is up , opening  open the canner at 07,00 or so in the morning to take the jars out & check the sealings.

 I've moved over to this system as it allows me to re can the fairly sterile contents asap., should a jar not have successfully canned first time round .

( None since I've started to write down and recheck the timings and pressure settings to can at. )

Drum-roll please as I take my magic pressure canner and turn this...



...into THIS!



I only did one can just in case I screwed it up and I only forgot to do one thing: I didn't run a spatula around the (hot packed) carrots to get any air bubbles out, but it seems to have sealed anyway.

Next time it will be a whole canner-full!

P. S.: Good advice, Plantoid. The grill is located under the relative protection of a large (roofed) side porch, so my biggest worry is a sudden breeze.

Very cool ... are those pickled carrots or just regular?

Molly, Thank you for sharing your first pressure canning. Gives me a little hope for me.

Marc, they're just regular old (purple) carrots, hence the color of the water.  

Just in case, we opened the jar today and heard a very satisfying "phhhhhhhhit!" as the pressure released.  So now we're ready for a whole canner-full.  

Sanderson, I think it's your turn next.  C'mon, I'll hold your hand. It'll be all right...

It just may be this Sunday. I will be making a run for produce culls Friday night and sometimes there are a lot of edibles. If there are, I may put those aside, pay the vendor a discount price and can them. It's just my principle never to eat anything I solicit for the compost pile. But, if I let them know and pay them, then yipee!

mollyhespra wrote:Drum-roll please as I take my magic pressure canner and turn this...

[photo of newly harvested carrots]

...into THIS!

[photo quart jar of canned carrots]

I only did one can just in case I screwed it up and I only forgot to do one thing: I didn't run a spatula around the (hot packed) carrots to get any air bubbles out, but it seems to have sealed anyway.

Next time it will be a whole canner-full!

P. S.: Good advice, Plantoid.  The grill is located under the relative protection of a large (roofed) side porch, so my biggest worry is a sudden breeze.  

Outstanding!    Not so tough, after all, huh?  When you read the manual. 

I have to admit, the first time I used my pressure canner, I stood around the corner while it built up pressure and while it was cooking.  When I had to change the stove setting, I rushed in, made the change, then rushed back out again.  I was all like, "FIRE IN THE HOLE!"  Haha!

I was a little more relaxed about it the next time, once I understood the operation of the device.  And I sure do love being able to store such a variety of my own home-crafted foods at room temperature for extended periods.

Congratulations, Molly!  I'm so proud of you! 

(And I'm sorry I was gone while all this was happening....)

A pint of mixed canned carrots & peas in glass jars is a very common European kitchen cupboard stand by . We are now starting to see them appear in the local shops in glass jars along with sauerkraut and other canned canned veg like french beans , wax beans ,  boiled beet root etc.that are catering for the Eastern European migrant invasion we appear to be having here in the UK .

 The taste of the carrots & peas can be a bit earthy to some folk because of being both in the same jar and being processed together , but with a bit of decent gravy and some thin sliced beef/ horse meat and a few scoops of quality horse radish sauce and plenty of new potatoes it's quite palatable .

Canned peas and carrots. Just too reminiscent of elementary school lunches.

sanderson wrote:It just may be this Sunday.  I will be making a run for produce culls Friday night and sometimes there are a lot of edibles.  If there are, I may put those aside, pay the vendor a discount price and can them.  It's just my principle never to eat anything I solicit for the compost pile.  But, if I let them know and pay them, then yipee!

Did you get the veggies?  I'm probably going to try for a full canner-load this time and I'd love some company...

P.S. Thanks for the compliments, all, on my jar of carrots. DH & I felt like proud new parents, lol!

It's never too early to start saving up for the day they're off to carrot college!

Marc,

Molly, We made a run to the Farmer's Market but didn't have time to buy decent culls for canning. Just distribute the buckets and collect them when full. Maybe next Sat morning Vineyard Market. One guy sells slightly bruised at 1/2 price around 11 am. But I'm wishing you the best and looking forward to your photos.

Ask and you shall receive...here are the results of our labor over the weekend:



22 quarts of carrots
4 quarts of string beans

Which doesn't count the two quarts of carrots that we ate.

So far, it looks like 1 square of carrots is yielding us a canned quart. it's impossible to tell, exactly, since we've also been cooking and eating the carrots for a couple of weeks now.

The green beans represent the first "real" harvest of 11 squares, though we've also been nibbling at them for about a week.

I think I've successfully challenged my fear of the pressure canner.   to all of you for helping me avoid costly psychotherapy.

I am very impressed!

Molly, congratulations!  They look great!

Are those the Tattler lids?  How do you like them?

This thread has just been great.  Susan (my gardening partner) wants us to buy a canner and we have not personally done this, although my mother made gorgeous jars of peaches, and sauce and tomatoes and beans.  

We lived in San Diego, and my father was transferred to Hawaii just before the war. He opted for us to stay in Hawaii throughout the war so our beans and other canned stuff was over 5 years old when we returned.  The Ag Extension folks tried to get my mother to throw out all those jars of wonderful produce and she said "nothing doing"..

We ate well.

AtlantaMarie wrote:Molly, congratulations!  They look great!

Are those the Tattler lids?  How do you like them?

I love my Tattler lids! But I use tin lids when I'm doing give aways.

Ditto on a great job there, Molly! You sure did get a lot of carrots this year. My germination rate was so poor that I'm thinking I need to either let some go to seed this year and collect, or buy a new pack or 2.

CC