12 Lifesaving Canning Rules
September 7, 2011, Submitted by: Ken Tweet
Canning low acid food is the only preservation method that can be deadly, so with canning instructions you must follow the rules closely and not experiment.
These canning instructions are designed to always provide you such a wide margin of safety that poisoning is simply impossible. You follow the directions, and then you can be confident.
Learn and follow these canning rules absolutely!
1. Don’t use jars larger than a quart. Home canning technology cannot guarantee that larger quantities will be sufficiently heated through for enough time. Rather, the food on the outside will overcook, while that on the inside won’t get hot enough. Botulism spores can boil awhile and still be fine.
2. Use water-bath canning only for high acid foods. High-acid varieties of tomatoes, fruits, rhubarb, sauerkraut, pickles, and jams/jellies are the only high acid foods. All others (vegetables, meats, stews) must be canned using a pressure canner.
3. Use only modern canning recipes from reliable sources.
4. Never reuse jar lids. Used lids aren’t reliable for sealing correctly. If a screw band is rusty or bent, it won’t work right and should be discarded and replaced.
5. Don’t use antique or ‘French’ -type canning jars. They aren’t as safe as the modern, regular ‘Ball, Kerr’ type.
6. Check the jar rims carefully every year by running your finger over the top of the rim and checking for nicks. Even the tiniest nick makes the jar unusable for canning. A nicked jar rim won’t seal reliably.
7. Raw pack is not safe for certain foods: beets, all kinds of greens (spinach, etc.), white potatoes, squash, okra, a tomato/okra combination, and stewed tomatoes!
8. You must allow the correct amount of space (head-space) between your food, together with the liquid that covers it, and the jar lid.
9. Don’t begin counting the processing time until after the water with the jars in it comes to a good rolling boil if using the water-bath method, or until after steam has vented for 10 minutes from your pressure canner.
10. Process the full recommended time.
11. Lift out each jar individually (not inside the rack) using a jar lifter; keep it upright and not tipped.
12. If a jar didn’t seal, discard the lid, put on a new one, and reprocess. Or put the jar that didn’t seal in the refrigerator and use the contents within a week or so.
Credit: Data gathered from ‘The Encyclopedia of Country Living’
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Excellent Ken, you might just have saved someone from becoming very sick, good work
. I have this book somewhere and whenever I pick it up and read it I learn something. Again, thnk you for putting this on, don’t want anyone getting sick during the harvest times that are approaching.
Also…….there are some new tomatoes out there that are low-acid. If you don’t know for sure what you have , just presssure can it to be safe.
Question: for water-bath canning, is it safe to do so if lemon juice is added to increase acidity? For example, my dad did water-bath canning with tomatoes that are low in acid but said it would be OK to use the water-bath method since he added lemon juice to increase the acidity to acceptable levels. I’ve never read anything about such a thing, though, and am wondering if that would still be a safety risk.
Also read ALL of this:
http://www.uga.edu/nchfp/publications/publications_usda.html
These are all great ideas. I would also emphasize that the one should NEVER modify a canning recipe unless the recipe allow for it.