air bubbles in canned soup

Hi all. This is my first post, so sorry if it's a bit basic.

I just canned my first 2 different soups. Wild garlic and cauliflower and potatoes.
The cauliflower and potatoes was slightly thicker and after canning I can see some air pockets in there.
You can see in the picture, cauliflower and potatoes on the right.

They all had 75 mins as the presto book recommended.
Is this normal? Should I be worried of dying in the depths of winter if I eat it then?
Some reassurance from someone  with more experience would be grand.

Thanks
Dan

Hi Dan,
Welcome to Permies! Well done for your first attempt at canning - I've not been brave enough to try that yet, but it would be good to use a smaller freezer for food storage!
Do you have your own recipe for the wild garlic soup? That does sound great.
I suspect as long as the temperatures were reached the soups should be fine, but as I said I've no experience so hopefully someone who knows can chip in.

I've had that happen with thicker applesauce and I don't worry about it.  My theory (hopefully semi accurate) is that you're trying to heat all the food to XXX degrees in the jar.  75 minutes at pressure will take care of it for pressure canned food. The food scientists likely try to mess with it in their experiments.  So they likely have a bit of safety factor built in.  For things like bubbles or other minor problems.  

Air insulates a bit better than soup.  So if you have lots of air in there it might insulate the center of the jar and it won't get quite as hot as expected.  My hunch is that while it's cooking those bubbles are moving around and the insulation effect isn't that much of a worry.  Now a half bell pepper with the open end down, holding a 1/4 cup of air, would be a problem in my mind.

The recipes always say to release any air bubbles. If it was soup and it sloshed in, it probably had none. The idea behind that is to make sure, like Mike Haasl said, there isn't anything big leaving a blocked air pocket that the heat can't get in.

When it is heated under pressure, it comes to a boil, and thickens up a bit more, if you take the jars out a bit early, you'll see them boiling like mad as you lift them. That boiling leaves air pockets in the thickened final result that are not from blocked pockets, everything in there did get heated correctly, and those are ok.

So check BEFORE it's canned that there aren't pockets of air (run a knife or chopstick around the outside edge is what they usually say) and as long as there are not any THEN, it will not be a problem if there are any later.

:D


I vote we get the garlic soup recipe!

I've had tomato soup that kept boiling for maybe a half an hour after I took it out of the pressure canner.  I think a key difference is that those bubbles are steam, not air so they're already above boiling temp.  I think Pearl hit it right on the head.

I'm thinking no worries.but Did you make sure there was no bubble's before you put the lid and ring onto the jar?. The canning book's I've used for soup's and chili say to make sure that there are no bubble's if I remember right.even then. that's only to be on the safe side.if I figure right.

Thanks Nancy, Mike, Pearl and Jim

Yes there were no air pockets as I added it to the jars this only happened after the canning process.
So my fears have been abated and I won't eye that jar with suspicion in the cupboard anymore.

Wild garlic soup recipes

1 carrot
1 stick of celery
1 onion (white)
Massive bunch of wild garlic
Potatoes (just enough to thicken the soup slightly)
Salt and pepper
Vegetable stock

I don't know if you guys have wild garlic in north america, but the bottom of my garden is full of it right now. It likes to grow by rivers or damp shady spots and has a short growing season, 1 month or so.
It's very common here in the southeast of england and the west country and I'm not sure if it is up north.

It's just about to come into flower now and it is at it's best when young.

Thanks
Dan

Thanks for the recipe d edwards! (edit: oops)

It's very common here in the southeast of england and the west country and I'm not sure if it is up north.

It makes a lovely sight with bluebells in the gardens of Armadale castle on the south of Skye., but not sure how cold tolerant it would be. There is a very similar plant in North America whose name escapes me just now...I'm a bit reluctant to introduce wild garlic here because of it's invasive reputation, but I may do so in my tree field.