Pressure Can 2 Types of Food (1 Gallon Each) - food.straw.pressurecan PEP BB

I finished this one up today!  Earlier in the year I canned up some chicken broth/stock from some freezer birds.  Then over the past two days I butchered 11 old hens and canned up their meat.  It took two sessions so I have pictures from the second one and a final show showing a jar from yesterday.

Not all tomatoes are highly acidic.  The newer varieties aren't as high in acids.  Always use tested recipes.

Food 1 - Bratwurst

I learned how to can bratwurst from this video, Canning Brats. This has become one of my favorite home-canned convenience foods.

4 brats per wide-mouth quart canning jar.

Raw meat requires no additional water because it makes its own broth as it cooks in the pressure canner.

Processed for 90 minutes at 10 pounds pressure.

Yield was 6 quarts.

Food 2 - Bone Broth

I was out of pints of bone broth, so today I made a big batch. I basically use the recipe from Nourishing Traditions, except instead of using a whole chicken, I save and freeze bones. Also, this time I didn't use vinegar as the acid; I used the dregs of my first batch of elderberry wine.

Recipe from Sally Fallon's Nourishing Traditions.

Chicken and chevon bones, chicken feet, carrots, celery, and onion simmering to make the broth.

After it's strained, it's brought to a boil again and ladled into pint canning jars.

Processed according to Ball Blue Book, 20 minutes under 10# pressure.

Total yield for this batch was 20 pints of bone broth.

Pressure canning! I did eight pints of crushed tomatoes and four quarts of cubed potatoes. Our canner is of a size that the tomato took two processes, so it might look like there’s more documentation than needed.

I made a gallon of French Onion Soup and over a gallon of chicken stock. Got it pressure canned and set up in my pantry. Feels good to be stocked up on stock again.

To show you've completed this Badge Bit, you must provide proof of the following as pictures or video (<2 mins):
  - preparing each type of food to be stored in the jars
  - putting each type of food in a pressure canner
  - at least one gallon of each type of food (at least 2 types of food) in sealed jars

Homegrown Rabbit and Pumpkin pressure canned.  

Rabbit prep:  process, brine in saltwater 24 hours,  cut into portions and raw pack with sea salt and fresh herbs.

Pumpkin prep:  harvest,  cut and peel, boil for 2 minutes,  hot pack with cooking water.  

Process all for 90 minutes in pressure canner.

2 Quarts, & 4 pints of each,  for one gallon of finished preserved jars of each!

Melody Goretti wrote:I made a gallon of French Onion Soup and over a gallon of chicken stock. Got it pressure canned and set up in my pantry. Feels good to be stocked up on stock again.

My submission was flagged incomplete due to using a plastic canning funnel. But others here have used plastic (including canning funnels) and received credit. I’m just confused as to what is acceptable and what isn’t. It’s definitely not very permie of me to not use what I already have and just let it sit in a drawer or go in a land fill while I spend money on new equipment. I really don’t want to do that, but is that what I have to do to get credit for this?
I’m definitely going to be canning more things in the future and will have another opportunity to try for this bit. I guess I’m just wondering if I have to go shopping for new equipment before I do.

I think an argument can be made that Melody's funnel isn't actually shown touching the food, only preventing any potential splashes from getting on the jars or counter. If having plastic involved at all were a problem, than Mr. Hassl's submission here would be unacceptable, which seems unnecessarily scrupulous. Could we understand that since so many submissions using plastic funnels and measuring sticks have been approved, that the problem isn't so much incidental and momentary touching of the food against plastic as using plastic containers and tools in contact prolonged enough to cause leaching of chemicals?



quote=Mike Haasl]I finished this one up today!  Earlier in the year I canned up some chicken broth/stock from some freezer birds.  Then over the past two days I butchered 11 old hens and canned up their meat.  It took two sessions so I have pictures from the second one and a final show showing a jar from yesterday.

Recently the certifiers noticed that many Food Prep and Preservation BBs had been certified despite having plastic touch the food at some point.  Per the Badge thread:

The following are strictly forbidden:

- Aluminum cookware
- Teflon and similar materials
- Microwave ovens
- Plastic touching the food, including cooking utensils and zip lock bags  

The clarification to the whole badge prohibiting plastic, teflon, aluminum, etc was added in late 2020.  My submission was prior to that but I'm sure I had some other BBs approved since.  The requirements are continuing to evolve to close loop holes, fix inconsistencies, better match Paul's vision for PEP and to correct other problems.  In all these cases, previously approved BBs are grandfathered in.

Melody, to answer your final question, I'd pick up a stainless steel funnel some time and I bet that in the next 5 years you'll meet a new canning enthusiast who would love to use your plastic funnel for a while.

Mike Haasl wrote:Melody, to answer your final question, I'd pick up a stainless steel funnel some time and I bet that in the next 5 years you'll meet a new canning enthusiast who would love to use your plastic funnel for a while.

Thanks for weighing and clarifying. Nice to get to chat with a person about it and get an answer. I still have
Tomato soup and a couple baked bean recipes I want to test, so I’m sure you’ll see me in this thread again- with a stainless steel funnel. :)

Woo hoo, stainless for the win :)

Hey PEP-folks,
Hoping that two kinds of beans will satisfy the requirements for this. Pintos are different from black beans, I suppose.

This project was fun, because my wife had been vaguely uneasy about pressure-canned beans after a friend gave us a jar that was a little mushy. I suppose they did a full stove-cook prior to the can cycle, the recipe I followed was clear about how to distribute the cook times. Success led her to recently make a number of really good bean dishes and become a pressure-canned-beans advocate. Woo.

My process (the same for both types of beans)
1) Measure out 7/3 quarts of dry beans, soak under water 24hrs.
2) Drain, rinse beans (which are now basically 7 wet quarts), and add to large stock pot with plenty of water, add 7tsp of salt. Bring to boil and simmer 30min.
3) While simmering beans, heat jars in canner and make sure you have your new lids, bands, ladle, funnel, and jar lifter accounted for. On the first go, I brought the canner to steam to make sure it behaved well, with the jars inside. Second go, I brought the canner up to open boil and didn't get the jars as hot. The canning cycle is what brings it all up to temperature anyway. During simmer, skim any bean foam head which may build.
4) After 30min simmer, set out jars & bean pot, ladle beans into jars, clean rims, apply lids+bands, and jar-lift the hot beans into the pressure canner. Ours fits 7qts.
5) Making sure the canner is in good order, with clean seals, unobstructed ports, all the usual preflight checks for pressure canners, cook the jars at pressure for 90min + altitude adjustment. In our case, 1900ft above sea level, we added 5min time and a marble to the canner jiggler to hold it at ~12psi instead of 10psi. Look up your region if you choose to pressure can, especially at 4000+ft, the adjustments can be substantial.
6) After the at-pressure 95min canning period, remove heat, allow to cool until canner depressurizes, and set jars out on a counter to cool. Label, laager, and enjoy!

The photos document both batches, we have since done two more given the good success and how our family can polish off 2qts of beans at a meal no problem. Growing kids.
Happy homesteading,
Mark

Mike Haasl wrote:Recently the certifiers noticed that many Food Prep and Preservation BBs had been certified despite having plastic touch the food at some point.

So are Tattler or Harvest Guard lids included in this? I don't know what regular canning lids are treated with to prevent rusting, BPA  or whatever else...

Hi Gina, I was able to get a quick discussion with Paul and he decided that, at this time, any style of canning lid is ok to use.  I've updated the main Food Prep badge to reflect this.

They are Harvest Guard lids. The company is an offshoot of Tattler and the lids are essentially the same.  They are BPA and Phthalate free, and made from a food grade plastic known as Acetal Copolymer, designed to withstand temperatures well beyond what you will find in a safe canning environment.  If you refer to the comment directly above my submission, you will see that they are accepted for this application.

I found a very interesting article on canning lids. The underside of the typical Ball or Kerr lid is coated with something called plastisol which is a PVC product The seals aren't latex anymore, they are silicon.  Check it out.

Canning lids

I made chicken broth from an old rooster.
And deer stew!

I pressure canned sunchokes and broth!

I had some trouble with siphoning on the sunchokes, so they ended up needing to be canned twice - documented in detail: https://permies.com/t/5118/canning-sun-chokes#2832504


Preparing sunchokes:


Into the canner (round 2; also a jar of broth which didn't seal the first time):


Out of the canner with no siphoning:


Sealed:


5 quarts:


Making broth from veggie scraps:


So done, much broth:


Into the canner they go:


6 quarts and a pint:


Sealed:


As was that last pesky quart (though I had to switch jars because the first failed to seal twice, even with new lids each time):


(edit because grr links are hard)

I pressure canned 5 qts each of chicken soup and beef stew for PW.

I gave over 1.25inch of headspace so I made a 5th quart jar of each just to be safe on volume.