To continue the conversation regarding Food Storage. The old thread is here.
Question to all about home canning versus buying canned goods at the stores. I haven’t canned in the past (besides making some jelly once) but I’m not opposed to learning if it is significantly cheaper than buying the canned goods at the store. One other thing, I don’t currently have a home garden, so I would be purchasing veggies at a farmers market and then canning. I am going to try the recipe someone provided for the canned butter! Can someone provide examples where home canning might be more ecconomical than buying pre-canned items at the store?
In my opinion, canning vegetables at home is not usually a money-saver, unless you get a really good price or have grown it yourself. However, canning meat is, because you can buy meat only when on sale then can it yourself, and it IS cheaper than buying canned meat at the store.
NOT IN THE UK! We have a chain store ASDA who is owned by Woolworths (so it may be worth checking out) that has their own ASDA brand and the canned meat is SO cheap that one could never do better. So I’ve been a good girl and been stocking up!
One of the reasons to can is the US law that allows the government to confiscate preps in times of emergency, but excludes home canned items because of food safety issues.
Personally, I can in order to preserve higher quality foods for my family that do not contain the preservatives, chemical additives, or salt commercial canners standardly add to their products. Rather than comparing my ripe, peak of flavor, pure canned fruits and veggies to the cheapest cans I can find on the shelves of Sav-A-Lot, I prefer to compare them to similar items found in health food stores or in the gourmet aisle of better food stores - and for that, the price cannot be beat.
Wow, I wasn’t aware that by law the government could confiscate my PERSONAL food rations. Gulp.
Do any of you links to sites with recipes for canned meats? I checked the LDS website and didn’t see any (unless I overlooked).
The trick to saving money with canning is to find the supplies at a decent price. The jars can get expensive if your only option is to buy them new, ditto a pressure canner. Lids, rims, canning salt and pectin aren’t that pricey.
By the way people out here in the country use a propane powered deep fat turkey fryer as a water bath canner (okay for tomatos and acidic foods, NOT SAFE for meats or non-acidic foods. You fill the fryer with water instead of fat and it’s nice and deep
This activity of course should be done OUTSIDE at a safe distance from your home (every summer at least one person starts a fire in his/her garage or house trying to can using a propane turkey fryer…it never fails).
birdie74 – at 07:44 Home canning probably will never be cheaper than commercial, even if someone GAVE you the food. However, as flourbug stated, you end up with a poduct that tastes better and is better for you. Not only is it a good way to preserve meat, but you can have just what you want. We make big batches of chili and can it and there is nothing in the supermarket that comes close to tasting as good. Like most things, there is some initial expense to get your equipment, but after that you are cruising.
birdie74 – at 07:44
“Cheaper” is a relative term. There will probably be brands/store brands out there that will always beat the price of a homecanned item. However, I have a couple of justifications for home canning.
1. I never have to worry about my freezer dieing and losing all of my meat. Yes, I still freeze some meat, but I’ve gotten to where I can more and more instead. Plus, store-bought canned meat is usually more expensive per can/pound that home canned meat. I can preserve by canning almost any meat out there … including meats that you wouldn’t normally find canned such as ground beef. I buy the cuts I want when they are on sale and it works out cheaper.
2. Perhaps silly sounding to some but I like the convenience of home preservation. I have a large family and normal sized cans don’t normally cut it … yet the commercial size cans are usually too much. By using pints and quarts I end up with the perfect amounts for my family’s consumption.
3. In a can of home prepared food I know exactly what is in that can from ingredients to quality of the ingredients. That’s not true for commercially canned foods.
4. There is less waste with home preserved items. You know the value of the work involved in the preservation process. Tossing something is certainly less likely than with a store bought canned item.
5. You can create gourmet items for much cheaper than you would get in a store. The soups and stews are wonderful. there are some really unbelievable fruit recipes. You can can storebought cocktail weenies in BBQ sauce and create a really tasty convenience food.
6. Special dietary needs can be taken into account. There are some sugar-free and/or low sugar recipes out there for diabetics. You can control the fat content of the meats. Etc.
I can a lot of stuff that you can’t normally find canned … at least here in the USA … such as cocktail weenies, kielbasa, sausage, ground beef. My dad sometimes gets venison and he cans that.
Dehydration is another good home preservation activity.
Bottom line is that by using home preservation techniques you can stock up on items that would normally require refrigeration or freezing or only be available fresh. It also greatly extends the shelf-life for items.
But every household is different. You should do what makes the most sense for your home.
Thanks for all the comments and suggestions. I’m headed out to the book store to get a ‘canning for dummies’ book, since my canning experience is pretty limited. KathyinFL, I totally agree about having more nutritious options and I love to make big pots of soups. I’m not looking to go towards 100% home canning, but looking to subsidize the store bought foods.
I’m really trying to change my day to day mentality about food storage (whether BF hits or not). I live in FL so we are also in threat of hurricanes. My goal is to be more self reliant and prepare for those unexpected rainy days.
I do think some things can be canned for a much cheaper price than buying them in the store, but so many factors have to be taken into consideration though. A pressure canner can run into some money, but it’s a one time investment and if you want to can meats, it’s necessity. Where will you be buying your items? We buy a lot in our area from farms (Amish) and buying by the crate can really be worthwhile. If you have to buy new jars, well, they can be expensive, but here again, we buy a dozen from the Amish for $1.75 a case (gotta watch though as they’ll toss a few mayo jars in and I refuse them - they’re okay for water bath canners, but not pressure canners). I’m sure there are places in your town where you can buy them used too.
I find some fruits are cheaper to can than buy (peaches and pears especially)as well as meats and soups/stews are another thing I think you can can for less.
Veggies, well, I doubt you can save by canning them really, unless you’re able to get a really good deal on them. IMO though, it’s simply easier for us to buy these canned. The same applies to all tomato products for us.
Another thing canning is good for (I was a Y2K planner) is, you can go into Sam’s club and buy those huge cans of cheese and re-can those into pint sized jars. IMO, it’s the best cheese on the market. I’m sure other things bought in bulk could be re-canned too, though the cheese is the only thing we’ve ever tried.
Rayne, what kind of processing do you need for re-canning the huge cans of cheese? Waterbath? or pressure canner? Any other directions/suggestions? Thanks
I used to can (waterbath) lots of fruit and tomatoes when I was younger. I stopped because it was not worth all the time I spent doing it. I now dehydrate or freeze extra fruit, and buy canned tomato products. If I were younger however, I would learn how to can meat and get a good pressure canner because I think it would be worth it in so many ways. Alas I’m not, and now prefer to spend my dottage doing other things. With a possible pandemic looming, we decided to just bite the bullet and purchase canned meats. They will not be prime eating. Without a threat on the horizon and the need for canned meat, we generally cook everything from scratch and buy fresh sale meat and use fresh veggies.
giraffe,
I was talking about the #10 cans of nacho cheese from Sam’s Club. I just wanted to clarify that we’re talking about the same type of cheese.
In a large pan, I combine the cheese and a quart of water and bring it to almost a boil. I fill roughly 9 pint jars with the hot cheese sauce and process it at 10 pounds of pressure for 45 minutes in a pressure canner.
Our family loves it, so it’s kind of a staple around here.
I like to can and dry my own produce and supplies - not because it is all that much cheaper - but because it is a skill that may be necessary if “store bought” becomes unavailable or in short supply. I cannot bring myself to place my life in the hands of a system of “just in time” production and distribution - and a system that requires large applications of energy and technology to work. It is too vulnerable in my opinion to any number of problems. So … I can get things cheaper at the store (and I do stock up on those items too)… but I will continue to can and dehydrate my own and local seasonal farmer’s produce as well… because having the equipment and knowledge to do so is part of my basic preparedness package.
I get peaches from Georgia every year and can and freeze some. Yum. I also make a spiced peach jam and regular peach jam. No comparison with store bought for quality. I also make apple butter from apples purchased at a local orchard, and strawberry jam when I can get the berries on sale. My family loves home canned items.
I freeze a lot of veggies from my garden, such as tomatoes,and zucchini. Last fall I got a bunch of free pumpkins after Halloween and froze that too. We love pumpkin pie, bread, and muffins.
Canning is a great way to preserve fruits and veggies and retain better flavor than store bought.
I like my own salsa, spaghetti sauce, barbecue sauce, jam etc. That’s why I can. Also, as DoubleD pointed out, in a longer-term scenario, you’ll need to know some way of preservng surplus food.
OK, I did not have a great shopping experience to the book store to try and find a canning for dummies book. The books were mostly geared on how to make jams, jellys, pickles, relish, etc.
I like lbb, DoubleD, KathyinFL and others want to be able to put up soups, spaghetti sauce, stews, etc. Does anybody have a link to a good and informative website about canning (that isn’t so focused on canning jelly)?
birdie74 Look for a book called ‘Putting Food By’ (ie covers canning and a whole lot more).
Also a current copy of the Ball Canning Company’s current canning guide would be a good idea - if your Wal-Mart has canning supplies, they will likely have the latest Ball guide.
Birdie74,
I just finished up a free online course from the University of Georgia’s National Center For Home Food Preservation. It was recommended on my yahoo canning list. It is a good basic course with lots of pictues and drawings. It probably took me two to three hours to complete the program. They ask for your social security number when you sign up, but you can hit the link there for help and ask for an alternate number. A live person assigns these, so it took about 48 hours for me to get an email back, then when I signed up, it took another 48 hours to get back the link saying I was all signed up and could begin the course. Other than that…it was pretty simple.
The Ball Blue Book is the ‘bible’ for home canning, however, the U of Georgia site also has instructions online to can almost everything that can safely be canned. The recanning of the cheese listed above would definitely NOT be recommended, but then again, I have canned butter which is also a big no-no, so we have to make our own decisions about what we feel comfortable canning or not.
You should read the Ball Blue Book, which is a slender paperback book about 75 pages worth, and then move on from there. Putting Food By is also good, but I would start with the Ball Book first. A pressure canner is required for low acid foods- fruits and tomatoes are considered high acid and can be processed in a BWB (Boiling Water Bath) canner—basically a large deep stock pot- large enough to hold several jars and still cover them with one to two inches of boiling water and NOT boil out onto your stove!
I had never canned in my life, but I wanted to learn for home food storage so I bought a canner at Ace Hardware, the little accessories that make canning easier and safer (tongs for getting those scalding hot jars safely in and out of the pots, a little magnetic lift lifter, a small plastic spatula to help remove air bubbles from the jars, etc.)and a few boxes of canning jars.
I started by reading my manual from the canner (this always gets some people who never read manuals!!) then the Ball Blue Book intro pages. Then the instructions for canning chicken. I did a raw pack on the chicken breasts (not pre-cooked) and I think that has fallen out of favor in the Ball Blue book since I started, but I still pack it that way since it is easier amd I have never had any trouble whatsoever with the chicken done this way. I then tried canning pork loin (very lean and on heavy ‘sale’) which is fabulous for instant lunch or dinners— just add BBQ sauce, heat, serve on a bun. Then I tried Hamburger with onions and green peppers added. Then I did my homemade chili, stew, then the Ball Blue Book’s recipe for Beef in Wine (heavily discounted whole sirloin from Kroger— ) which makes great stroganoff if I add some sour cream to it, a can of mushrooms, once it has boiled and heated after I put the contents of the can (jar) into a saucepot.
I mention these, because as I have read my canning groups online, I have discovered that I have unwittingly ‘taken the plunge’! Many of these gals have BWB jams, jellies and the like for decades but never had ‘the nerve’ to try pressure canning or at least canning of meats. I apparently jumped in with the ‘hard stuff’ and IT’S NOT HARD!
You do need to babysit the pressure cooker while it’s working and constantly play with the heat source a bit to keep it at the proper pressure, so plan on working on another kitchen project while pressure canning, also plan on being home for the whole project!! (That sounds obvious--- but some people have been known to walk off during canning---NOT GOOD.)
I love having dinner on hand when I am so exhausted I can barely put one foot in front of the other and even reading the small print on the back of a box from the freezer is more work than I think I can get done. I just grab a jar, open, dump, heat, eat. If I am able to make a salad, that’s a bonus. Canned chicken breast makes fabulous chicken salad sandwiches, casseroles, chicken pot pie, soups, stews. It’s my favorite thing to can.
I buy my canning jars at Big Lots (they have the Golden Harvest brand- all canning jars are made by the same company now- Altrista)because they are cheaper than Ball or Kerr jars, still come in the full cardboard boxes and have the lids separate from the jars when you open the box.)I bought a 22 qt. Presto pressure canner which has been a good size for me, then picked up an 18 qt. from a recent widow who didn’t want to can anymore. I have an extra gasket, an extra pressure gauge and pressure plugs for if TSHTF and something goes wrong. I had the extra checked by the county extension office and keep it safely away from bumps so it should still be accurate to use.
That is something I didn’t mention, the pressure gauge needs to be calibrated, so you will need to take the pressure gauge to your local county extension office and have them test it. It is usually free or less than $5 to get this done and can be done in a few hours to a coupld of days, depending on how they do their testing and how backed up they are. Walmart has lots of canning stuff during the late spring and summer, but gets rid of most of their inventory in fall, so if you need it from there, get it now (even if you need to put it on layaway). Ace, True Value and similar stores usually have canning items in stock year round and can order in anything they don’t have in stock.
Sorry about the length… Just hope this helps get someone canning.
Oh.. the link for the course for the U of GA course is here: https://www.uga.edu/nchfp/exception_account.html This is for the ‘exception account’ to take the course without providing your social security number.
Here is the home page for the U of GA National Center for Home Preservation:
http://www.uga.edu/nchfp/index.html
They also have links for how to dry, freeze, etc. I still haven’t read all they have they.. it is quite extensive. AND you can write them and ask if a particular recipe process is still considered safe to use, and a live person will email you back!!! Gasp! Try to read through the basics first though since these are busy people. Also try joining one of the many yahoo canning groups.
home_canning@yahoogroups.com CreativeCanningCuisine@yahoogroups.com
are two I enjoy. There is sometimes some contention on these groups between folks who only promote ‘official’ USDA canning methods and those who still use recipes from Gramma. Just ignore it… the info you do get is WAY worth any ‘spats’.
Thank you NEMO an others for the great information!! It gives me hope to know that somebody else didn’t know what they were doing to start either. I do have some of the supplies b/c I have made jelly before in a water bath which I found to be pretty easy. My game plan is by next month to invest in a canner and take advantage of the summer slow down with my work, to start some canning. I live in FL, where we often have power outages (esp. during huricane season). I don’t want to put up a lot of food in the freezer for it to get ruined with the next power outage! I will let everybody know how my first ‘trial run’ turns out.
For a bit more info:
http://extension.usu.edu/cooperative/publications/index.cfm?cid=249&groupid=14
Home Canning Guides from the Utah State University Extension offices. These can be saved and read offline or printed as well. If you read all the online info I have provided links for today, you will be a PRO!!! So don’t feel you need to spend a bunch of money on books. The Ball Blue Book is CHEAP so it’s definitely worth buying, though.
Time to scan the flyers for meat sales, and get going again!
I initially started canning because I don’t like to put all my eggs in one basket and because it’s an ‘older’ skill that intrigued me. We have bazillions of wild blueberries up behind our home and I love blueberry pie- so I started with pie filling and syrup and went from there. Recently I’ve been canning, because more and more, I just hate to feed my husband and daughter food I did not cook myself- just goes against the grain. It’s OK once in a while if I’m late getting home from work or just plain wiped out on a Friday night, or naturally-if we go out to dinner- but if I’m home, it needs to be something I made. Don’t get me wrong -I have plenty of store-bought canned goods in my pantry, I dearly love Delmonte canned peas, and I’ve yet to get my meatless spaghetti sauce to come out as good as Hunts, and I have put may of them aside to be literally tossed in the back of the truck should we need to bug put (glass breaks- cans don’t- usually) but I’ve been gradually replacing them with my own home canned foods. I feel much better about the whole thing now that I do this. I know where it came from because either I grew it or husband shot it (cept chicken- I still buy that because we don’t have the time to raise them ourselves) and I know what went into it. I control the seasoning and so I can flavor things to my family’s liking and not have to tweak storebought food.
Now I’m back to canning so as not to have all my eggs in one basket- that would be the freezer- AND - as Flourgirl mentioned above- because I don’t want the government to come in and take my hard earned storage.(food will = money if this thing happens) As an addition to that- I also read that they can’t take anything that has been repackaged- So my pasta, sugar, flour, beans, anything that can be -has all been repackaged. (I kept a few things that aren’t our favorites out to satisfy them if they do come along)
Another great reason for canning is just the plain convenience of it. I make a dish of venison chunks- with onions and herbs in gravy that my family loves to have over rice. I used to freeze it and that was fine, but I had to plan to have it for dinner - and then go dig it out and put it in the fridge to thaw, sometimes for several days- what a pain. Now I just open up a shiny jar or 2 and heat it up and put it over rice or potatoes or even pasta and dinner is on the table in 10 minutes. Husband is so impressed with the quality and quickness of his meals now that he went and bought me a 2 burner 35000BTU propane stove to set up by the garage door and I can do a pressure canner and a water bath or 2 water baths at the same time and not steam up my kitchen and make us all miserable! Canning is very satisfying and a bit addictive really. I find myself standing in the kitchen wondering “hmmmm, NOW what can I can?
More info on canning: the canning & preserves forum on Recipezaar (http://www.recipezaar.com/bb/viewforum.zsp?f=24). There’s all the info you need to get started, and it’s a great place to ask canning questions.
“Space Age” Storage the MacGyver Way!
Here’s a way to find some extra room for your preps - Vacuum packing. For years my mom had laughed about it when we were kids, until I showed her how it worked to flatten a pillow.
You can buy the heavy duty “Space Bags” with the built-in valves and zip-lock seals, or get creative and do your own in bulk. First DO NOT use “cheap” thin 4 mil bags. You need thick plastic like the transparent lawn and leaf bags, about 8 to 10 mil. You want to use transparent so you can actually see what is inside for inventory, and to assess the condition of what is inside before you open it. This is the best way to store things like cloth, paper, or bulk grains and cereals.
Actually, it is possible to embed cans in bulk products and seal enough in a single bag to compact a day or more of food in a single storage. The trick is to have some good bags, some good duct or electrical tape, some medical gauze or cheesecloth to filter the nozzle, and a strong vacuum cleaner.
Get a square or rectangular plastic tub larger than the volume of the material to be stored. Set everything up to be worked from a seated position so you can have your materials close at hand and work fast. It is even better to have 2 people working at this. Wash and dry the vacuum crevice tool and attach it to the hose, and run the vacuum a minute to be sure the moisture is dried before starting. Be sure the bag on the vacuum is new or the dust catcher is washed and cleaned as well. This will increase the vacuum power way over the little “seal-a-meal” capacity.
Put the bag in the tub and open it as fully as possible. If you are working with cloth layer in items as flat as possible. If you have clothing, PPE’s, sheets, blankets, etc. either load based on family or individual changes so you have complete sets when you break the seal. Use your own logic, but be sure you pack as flat as possible.
You may want to put in some toiletries or person comfort items like “Cracker Jack” prizes between layers (be sure to bag soaps, deodorants, liquids etc. separately to prevent or contain leaks). Make sure the top layer completely covers the entire pile. When the load is ready, the fun begins.
Gather the bag into a tight, even pucker centered on the pile. Insert the crevice tool against the top item gently, angled slightly to prevent it from to being closed by the plastic when you apply vacuum. This is when the second person becomes handy. Start the vacuum and as the bag sucks down gently press from the edges toward the center from all directions. If you are a wood worker you might make a compressor “cap” to fit inside the container with a hole for the bag and nozzle make this faster.
Run the vacuum for at least 30 seconds to a minute and have the tape ready. As the second person slowly withdraws the nozzle the first person twists the bag tightly closed behind it and starts a tight tape wrap around the closed bag top. Then double over the extra bag top and tape tightly again (Cut off the vacuum because it is going to get hot pretty quickly doing this).
You can now cut off the excess bag top and get the bag out of the container. A couple of wraps of tape around the bag will help keep it compressed in case there is a leak. You should get about a 3 to 1 compression if you do this right for most fabrics, so you can store 3 times the material in the same space, but remember it will also weigh 3 times as much as well.
Paper products are done the same way, but the gauze or cheesecloth is the trick here. Paper towels, toilet paper, tissues, all will compress, but remember that paper is basically fluffy wood, so it gets heavy and tends to cause the vacuum to stall sooner than with fabric. Use the same process as before; just remember the principle is to pack a usable volume into the space, not too much. With paper place a multiple folded pad of gauze or cheesecloth at the vacuum point to allow the nozzle not to become stopped up by the top layer of paper. Seal the same as with cloth packages.
Of course the hardest part is food. Grains, cereals, and pastas in bulk are a great idea for vacuum packing, but plan the space for storage well as it will be more difficult to maneuver a solidified mass than a bulk bag. As before, layer evenly, calculate a usable portion, and use the gauze or cheesecloth at the nozzle point. Everything is done the same as before.
In bulk cereals you can add a box of powdered milk. In grains add a few packages of spices you use with them. In pasta you can even embed some cans of sauce or grated cheese. These will not compress as well as other materials, but any compaction includes the advantage of being more water and vermin-proofed than a sack, and more easily stashed in various locations if concealment is part of your plans.
And if you have any doubts about how well this works, consider it has been the staple of illegal drug transportation and concealment for decades. If any other ideas come to mind please share.
Anyone have any ideas for storage for ramen and for powdered milk? (Other than mylar bags in a 5 gallon tub). Especially for the milk now that the weather is getting hot and damp). Leave it in original package? Take it out?
amak – at 20:25
I’m in Florida. So far I am keeping mine in the original packaging, but I’ve set aside a cabinet inside the kitchen for things I am leaving in the original packaging and not exposing it to outdoor conditions. You could, I suppose, put the milk in large rubbermaid type tubs in a utility room or closet. If you are worried about humidity, you could get one of those “Damp-Rid” dehumidifiers at the grocery and set it up near those types of prep.
Ramen noodles are in a retangular under-the-bed box … again a Rubbermaid type product. Keeps ‘em neat and keeps the insects out. I’ve thrown a few fragrant bay leaves in the tubs just for luck as well. <grin>
I just receieved some dehydrated items from honeyville (milk, fruits and veggies). It says that if you DO NOT open the packages that they will last up to five years, but much less if you open them. I’d err on the side caution and try not to open anything and risk any germs or moisture getting in.
What are these Damp-rid dehumidifiers?
I store my powdered milk in 1/2 gallon canning jars. I buy milk at Sam’s Club in (I think) 8.8 lb boxes, and one box fills three 1/2 gallon jars. When filled, I then use my Foodsaver to vacuum-pack the jars (might be able to get by without this step).
This is a great site (a lot of product promo, but hey, ya gotta pay the rent): How to freeze dry
I was checking the info on canning and found this bit on freeze drying. I didn’t know I could do it at home.
Kathy in FL (or whoever else does it) - when you throw a bay leaf in a container to keep pests away - does it give off an odor or a bad flaover to the food? ANd does it really work?
Kim - do you think not vaccuum sealing but using a oxygen absorber has the same effect? And where do you find 1/2 gallon canning jars? Thanks.
Damp-Rid is a brand name of one of those chemical dehumidifiers that you can store in out of the way places that pull the liquid out of the air. At Winn Dixie it is over by the deoderizers and closet cedar bags and such.
Bay leaves work. How they work to keep the varmint away I can’t be 100% sure. I’ve been told the essential oil in the bay leaves do it and I’ve also been told its the smell that the leaves emit. Either way it works, and it doesn’t leave a taste behind.
amak, I think using an oxygen absorber in the jar instead of vacuum sealing would be fine. I vacuum seal AND use an O2 packet, but that’s just me. Be aware that the O2 packets will NOT create a vacuum, so you’ll have to keep rings on the jars. I have gotten almost every canning jar I own either thru Freecycle (www.freecycle.org) for free, or bought them real cheap at garage sales. However, you’ll probably never be able to find the 1/2 gallon jars cheap or free. I’ve bought all of my 1/2 gallon jars at either Walmart or Ace Hardware. I am willing to pay for the 1/2 gallon jars because I’m a milk freak and can’t imagine being without milk, so want to store alot of it. I suppose I’m strange because I always drink skim milk anyway, and so the powdered milk tastes just fine to me. If you don’t think you need much, though, you can always use quart canning jars, or empty PETE jars (plastic jars like what peanut butter comes in, say PETE on the bottom), or even empty jars from pasta sauce and such (washed out well).
Thanks Kim & Kathy!!!
Don’t get The Ball Blue Book off Amazon, got to http://www.homecanning.com/USA/ALProducts.asp?CAT=479&P=2576 it’s 1/2 the price or less than Amazon.
bumping for bill
amak – at 13:54 Kim - do you think not vaccuum sealing but using a oxygen absorber has the same effect? And where do you find 1/2 gallon canning jars? Thanks.
Try your Farm Supply Store, here in Illinois, we have Rural King and Tractor Supply and Big R. They carry the 1/2 gal jars, even got mine in the wide mouth variety. They weren’t cheap, $12 for 9 jars at Rural King.
bump
flourbug at 8:25
One of the reasons to can is the US law that allows the government to confiscate preps in times of emergency, but excludes home canned items because of food safety issues.
What’s this? Flourbug (or anyone) can you tell me more about this? Where did you hear or read it? I can totally believe it, just am wondering who is saying it.
Side note: Lugon on the pseudonyms thread just posted a link to that famous children’s story, “Stone Soup”. A sweet story about how all the villagers in town are tricked into sharing their food to make a delicious stew for all, right? Only as I recall, the tricksters who wander through town are soldiers, and the townspeople are “hoarding” their food because they have out up enough for themselves and are tired of having people come through and demanding a share…I just find it interesting to be thinking about these issues and realizing that people have thought about them in difficult situations throughout the generations.
Another thing: I am thrilled to find some real live pressure canners here!
I have come to the conclusion that pressure canning of meat might be for me. I am not finding any canned meat or fish products that are reasonably priced and contain the ingredients I want for my family and which my family will eat. I know, I know, if TS really HTF, they will eat tuna and like it; but until then (and I hope it will be a long long while) we actually have to eat this stuff, so it has to be food we like.
But my mother, a professional food safety expert, has told me SHE never felt comfortable canning meats (she was worried about too much going wrong) and she thinks I shouldn’t spend all this time worrying about bird flu, only to kill my family off with botulism! She suggests I start with jams and jellies instead.
Problem being, jams and jellies I can get in abundance, and we don’t eat them anyhow. Meat is what I need — I want some canned sausage, hamburger/chili meat/soups and stews — as a way to round out what I already have in my freezer.
So — I am looking for some encouragement — is canning meats all that hard? Do you worry about botulism? I feel like, I am intelligent, I can read directions. I can do this! But --- does it really taste better than what you can buy at the store? It isn’t worth it if my husband won’t eat it….
Any encouragement (or gentle discouragement) would be appreciated here!
ACM, the technique used for canning jams and jellies is water bath canning, although I suppose you could pressure can them to practice up on the technique.
As for not needing jams and jellies, presumably you will need fruit of some kind, no?
lbb-
yes, that’s what my mom was suggesting — start with the high acid foods in a hot water bath, instead of doing the pressure canning of meats and low acid foods.
Hmmm… of course we will need fruits and such. We’ll store some jams I suppose — but right now we do not eat them at all, so it doesn’t make sense to store a lot. Also, I don’t think of jams and jellies having much nutritional value — I think they are more of a flavorful condiment. I think we’d do better with canned peaches and pineapples for Vit. C; Canned pumpking and sweet potatoes for Vitamin A, and maybe some dried fruits and such.
Average Converned Mom at 23:07, I have canned alot of meat, and tomatoes, in my pressure canner. I have never (not yet anyway) EVER canned anything using the hot water bath method. My reason for this is that I can buy already-canned veggies much cheaper at the store than what I could put up myself. If you are capable of reading and following directions then you can use a pressure canner safely. It is not rocket science. Anyone of average intelligence can understand the directions. To get you started and build your confidence, start canning either plain chicken or plain beef. It doesn’t get much easier than those two items. Once you’ve successfully done those two items, you’ll be confident enough to move on to other products. Try it, I’m sure that you’ll like it!
Kim – at 06:58
I’m with Kim, I NEVER do anything by hot water bath, it is just too risky. If you want to start out with something easy (although messy) do high acid tomatoes, but really there is no reason you can’t jump right into meats.
Here is a good recipe for hamburger in tomato sauce that can be used in a lot of meals:
Cook beef and onions in large pan until meat is browned. Pour off fat. Add remaining ingredients, bring to boil and simmer 5 minutes. Pack into sterilized pint jars. Adjust lids. Process at 10 lbs pressure for 75 minutes. (Quarts for 90 minutes).
I remember my mother being fairly adamant about not canning meats as well (old timey public health RN), although she did make freezer jam. I am sure that this concern was well founded back in the day, but I wonder if safety has improved with newer and more calibrated, standardized equipment.
What say you, canners? How do you tell if something is “not right” with your canned meat product?
I did a little research – it seems the very big food safety concern in low-acid (veggies and meat) canning is botulism. It seems that as long as you follow directions it is unlikely to be a problem. From the cdc web site here http://tinyurl.com/jbt8e I see there are about 28 cases of food-born botulism in the US per year, and I also read that about 8% of these cases are fatal. So it is serious disease, which can be held responsible for the deaths of several people. Still, it doesn’t seem like a widespread concern to me – I think I can handle that!
How common is botulism?
In the United States an average of 110 cases of botulism are reported each year. Of these, approximately 25% are foodborne, 72% are infant botulism, and the rest are wound botulism. Outbreaks of foodborne botulism involving two or more persons occur most years and usually caused by eating contaminated home-canned foods.
(snip)
How can botulism be prevented?
Botulism can be prevented. Foodborne botulism has often been from home-canned foods with low acid content, such as asparagus, green beans, beets and corn. However, outbreaks of botulism from more unusual sources such as chopped garlic in oil, chile peppers, tomatoes, improperly handled baked potatoes wrapped in aluminum foil, and home-canned or fermented fish. Persons who do home canning should follow strict hygienic procedures to reduce contamination of foods.
Jefiner: I learned my lesson on not assuming ANYTHING about the storage and preservation of foods. I just harvested my first crop of garlic. It did very well. But I also like olive oil and thought that since I had consumed garlic in olive oil from a sealed jar that I could also do this at home as a means of preserving it. But, of course, I checked things out online and found that I would likely kill myself. BOTULISM was almost certain.
I reverted to my first inclination and have hung the garlic in a mesh sack in a dark, cool, interior hallway of my home that gets little usage and a good amount of airflow. It should be good for four to ten months.
I had previously just harvested wild garlic and froze the cleaned cloves. But if the utilities go down, I wanted another option and more quantity.
Medical Maven - Your post gave me shvers because one of the things I have been doing is “preserving” home grown basil in olive oil. I have bee doing this for a few years and I am surprised I have not killed my family. The only thing that saved us is probably that I used it in cooked dishes and homemade pizza. There has been several posting on canning butter but now I am a bit concerned with that process…of course I have 12 lbs of butter all ready to go…yikes!
Help!
Does anyone know if I can slice my case of banana peppers for a couple days…until I am ready to make salsa. I need to go to another town to find chili peppers and Jalapenos and I don’t want the banana peppers to go bad if I can’t find them today or it is too late to make it and can it. Also, I want to make a lot of this, can I freeze the other peppers, as well, so I can make additional batches on another day. Also, the recipe I am making doesn’t call for onions and I want to add some of my garden sweet onions…Will it still be safe to make and hot water can. Gotta go…BUY..these peppers…Wish I lived where things were closer!
seacoast - this is the best way that I know of to keep butter - turn it into ghee. Pure butterfat, keeps for months if kept cool. In the fridge, even longer. Simmer the butter (unsalted worked better but salted is fine too) at a low heat until the milk solids separate and the butter fat is a clear gold, and smells delicious. I’ve done it for years. Recipes say don’t stir it and they’re wrong. Stir it frequently so the solids at the bottom don’t burn. Gradually the solids turn kind of crispy, you can also spoon some off the top as you go.
When the butter fat is all clear, the solids are crispy looking, let it sit until very warm but not hot, and strain through either good cheesecloth or a VERY fine stainless steel strainer. I put it in quart jars, add lids, and store in a dark cool cupboard. It’s better to use quart jars than bigger jars.
Seacost and Medical Maven
From what I have read, you can flavor oil with herbs but there is a risk of botulism if the herbs are fresh. Garlic is a high risk because it grows in the ground wher botulism spores are. All herbs are a theoretical risk, if the leaves have touched the ground or haven’t been washed. Washing helps but isn’t failsafe in removing the spores. Adding vinegar or something acidid probably helps but isn’t certain. From what I have read, it is OK to use shelf-stable herbs — so dried basil or garlic would be fine to flavor oil to store in a pantry. But if you use the fresh stuff, the flavored oils must be kept refrigerated and used within about a week.
ACM: It looks like our Forum Thread on Canning Meat was shut down. MODS: can you please re-open that thread as I think a lot of the folks who are prepping would like to read that thread?
http://www.fluwikie2.com/pmwiki.php?n=Forum.CanningChickenAndTurkey This one may discuss it, but I haven’t revisited it lately.
In brief, I can a lot of meats and meat dishes. I never canned a thing in my life, I just bought a pressure canner, read the instructions, read the directions in the Ball Blue Book (canners’ ‘bible’) and did a raw pack (not pre-cooked) of boneless, skinless chicken breasts for my first-ever attempt at canning. It was much easier than jams and jellies which I am just now getting into.
I have canned chicken, pork loin, beef stew, beef chili, Beef Sirloin in Wine, hamburger. We love having it around for when I am bushed! Just follow the directions (do a test run with your canner using jars filled with just water) till you feel a bit more comfortable with the process. Make sure you afford yourself plenty of time and maybe get a couple new videos to keep the kids out of your hair, and then dive right in. By the way, the water in the jars could even be kept and used for medical emergencies as it is now sterile!! (or as sterile as you can get with home equipment). Or just dump the water, toss the lids (not the rings- you can reuse those lots of times) and then start with some real food. You will like it.
Also, you can join a canning email group on yahoo. I would suggest: home_canning@yahoogroups.com
They will help provide lots of info and advice. Just do them the favor of reading the Ball Blue Book first (this is a cheap!! book) and then ask your questions if you can’t find the answer in there. They also share hundreds of tried and true (and USDA approved) canning recipes to try, and things to do with your canned goods.
Average Concerned Mom – at 23:07
I have a masters degree in Nutrition and Dietitics. My masters thesis was on food safety practices. I use to can alot when my husband and I were in college, and when our kids were young. (We had to, to survive!) Up to now, I have not canned meat, for much the same reason your mom stated. It is dangerous. However, if rules are followed and hygiene/sanitation practices are strictly adhered to, canning meats should be fine. My grandmother kept her cellar full of canned foods… including canned meats. Low acid foods, like meat, should only be canned using a pressure canner. The books recommended on this thread are excellent, IMHO, and are what I am going by to can. My pressure cooker/canner also came with a how to manual.
About canning HB meat… anybody canning it… I have some questions! Does it come out mealy, like it does cooking it in a crockpot? In other words, how is palatability? Same question about canning sausage… like breakfast sausage. Do you can HB meat plain? Brown first (both sausage & HB)? Add other stuff… like season it up… taco, spaghetti, whatever? (**Thanks for that recipe, HillBilly!**)
NEMO – at 16:38
Thank you, thank you, for that thread link to canning meat!
Closed due to length. Conversation is continued here.