Is a Pressure Canner Worth the Money?

Dave Luke wrote:My advise would be to water bath this year and depending on how it goes evaluate next year.

The controversy around "rebel canning" and following all the guidelines perfectly- Don't worry about perfectly, but especially while learning, do follow guidelines.
the possibility of blowing up the kitchen if I make a mistake- Verry rarely happens. If you're using the equipment properly it shouldn't.
The time it will take- No arguments there, except that I like food.
The space I need to find in our small home for all the equipment- For water bath the only non standard thing you will need are rubber grabbers and the jars. For pressure it's those and the canner. Other than the canned food of course.
The chance of messing it up and poisoning my family (as alluded to in the first point )-  It your jar is sealed, hasn't leaked and resealed or turned funny colored/smelling it's most likely fine. About the fear think about it like salmonella, if your chicken doesn't look/smell off and you've cooked it, it's not that much of a concern.

Thank you, Dave! Very reassuring to know and great tip about checking for the smell or funny appearance. I have decided that is the best way to go ....start with water bath canning and move on to pressure canning once I get the hang of it.

John F Dean wrote:If something is worth it or not is very individualized.  We all value things differently.  Pressure canning is worth it to me.   If I were to add up the dollars I put into gardening and canning, I suspect a trip to the grocery store may well end up being cheaper. I like the idea of growing and preserving my own food.

That's a great perspective, John! Thank you! That's the whole reason I garden, too, and it's definitely worth it, even though it seems pretty expensive sometimes.

Dian Green wrote:
We grow lots of tomatoes and freezing works for me. I no longer bother with much in the way of prep. I just wash, dry and remove the cores and any bad spots. I'll also cut them so no pieces are bigger than a fist. I've found that once they have been frozen, when thawed they just melt and disintegrate and the skins can just be pulled off and removed. ( we mostly do soups and chilies with them)

Great information. Thanks, Dian! That does sound so easy!

Gred Gross wrote:The item you linked from the zoo is not a canner, just a pressure cooker. Besides being too smaller jars, one of the reviews notes that it does not make enough pressure for canning either.
That being said, some of my old time local neighbors do water bath canning for meats. Yes it takes hours but you can put a lot of cans in a big tub and boil it outside.

Thanks, Gred. I did notice that, too, when I looked closer at the reviews. I thought you definitely couldn't water bath for meat? I wonder how they managed it? That's why this issue seems to get a bit confusing sometimes. Have a great night!

Tereza Okava wrote:a big pot for water bath canning, you can use for other things too-- beermaking, lobsters, vat of stew, whatever. A big pressure canner, maybe not (and I'm a person who looooves my pressure cooker, but you don't necessarily need a big one for normal things, if you're thinking about storage space). I think trying water bath canning this year is a great idea.

Tereza, thanks, good points! I have thought of one spot for the big pot for now, so that's good. I have decided that it's water bath canning this year. I am so glad to have asked this question. This whole discussion has been very helpful. Have a great night!

Shari,  you might like the hour-long video from Becoming A Farm Girl.  In it, Cassandra talks about canning, growing, and harvesting and offers a lot of tips for food preservation, etc.  If you have the time and the inclination, please take a look.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_X68iFSQKzA

I love my pressure canner.  I use both a pressure canner and a hot water canner, but I tend to use the pressure canner more often.  I especially love it for roasted tomato sauce.  I personally really dislike the flavor of tomato sauce and salsa with lemon juice or vinegar added, and I love the flavor of roasted tomato sauce.  I take all my garden tomatoes and cut them in big chunks along with chunks of onion, peppers, lots of basil, salt, pepper, garlic cloves, and then drizzle olive oil all over it and roast it until the house smells divine and everything is soft and cooked.  Then I put it all through the food mill and can it.  It tastes divine, better than any store bought sauce (here's the recipe).  I use this pressure canner/cooker/steamer (aff link) and I love it.  I purposely bought this one because I love that I can also use it for things like steaming tamales and other dishes where I need a great big pot.  I've had it for ten years now and use it every summer and fall.

At this point I use the regular hot water canner for applesauce and pears since the pressure canner makes them too soft, but the pressure canner for just about everything else.  I just find it fairly quick and easy and it doesn't  heat up the kitchen to the extent the hot water canner does when it's going all afternoon either.  I can also use it for water bath canning by just not screwing the lid on.  I use it for all kinds of things like -- juices, sauces, salsa, etc.  I love the taste of pressure canned salsa so much more than acid-added salsa.  I'm hoping to try doing beans in it sometime soon, since we use a lot of beans and I've heard it's very simple to make canned beans from dried with the pressure cooker.  

My family really enjoys canned beans. I don’t think I have ever done anything any easier or cheaper. I do a cold pack and keep a ziplock of smoked ham hidden that I use just for this. After soaking the beans and thoroughly rinsing them I put them in the jars with a chunk of ham, a chunk of onion and a little salt, cover with boiling water and then process. Simple and delicious!

This looks like what I used to do when I had a family to feed, Lexie.😊

I loved the convenience of ready meals of quality meals.

The only problem I ever encountered was how much headspace to leave.

How much headspace do you find is adequate?

With beans I always leave a little room to spare so I pack to about 3/4 inch, roughly, no less than 1/2.

Lexie Smith wrote:With beans I always leave a little room to spare so I pack to about 3/4 inch, roughly, no less than 1/2.

That’s confusing to me.  I have left as much as an inch, still had evidence of jar contents boil over, at very close to sea level.

It’s possible I cooled the canner too quickly🤦‍♀️, but it was a long time ago.

I’ll watch for it when I get a chance… though I don’t have the means to adapt to altitude above 5000 feet.

Thanks

It could be altitude related or not enough soak time. Different beans are going to expand differently, I suspect. Bringing the beans to a boil and then soaking overnight would eliminate any potential for expansion related problems. I only have experience with one type of beans, so far, so I’m not certain about the difference in varieties.

Beans especially with meat need pressure cooker.  Not sure what is being said there.

As for signs of boil over I assume you mean pressure cooker.  That is nearly always opening up and cooling off to fast.  Most pressure cookers directions don't want you to open it till the next day.  And the weight or the seal knob stays on till it is down to nearly room temperature plus some time past that.  If I left an inch of head space and didn't rush opening I have never had a problem.

Yes, it is true about meat and beans done only in pressure canners.

It was a long time ago, and I was 24x7 single mom of young kids with a part time professional job outside the home.  The more frugally we could live, the less I had to go out to my other job.

What a person might try to do is hurry the cooling to get another load processed before some other time sensitive thing needed to be done.


The biggest problem with cooling the pressure canner too fast is breaking the jars and losing all that food.  Depressurizing so quickly that the jars can’t keep up can cause “boil over”.  

Some pressure cookers recommend speed cooling of the cooker, but I am not mentioning how I might have tried it. IF that’s what I did.

It’s a cautionary tale for people beginning pressure canning 😊 who wonder if they can …….?  Or what happens if ……?

for those of you who live in very hot locations, (as I do) you might consider Steam Canning. Like a bath canner you should only can high acid foods and nothing that requires more that 45 minute of processing (all the water boils off).

There are a lot of resources available for canning. Someone posted the USDA site. This site:

https://nchfp.uga.edu/how/can_home.html#gsc.tab=0

has a book, by chapters you can download and print.

there is also the USDA "your choice soup" recipe. But if you are just starting out, maybe skip this until you have some experience,  not that you couldn't do it, it's that the "why" you make some of the choices is assumed.

https://www.healthycanning.com/usdas-your-choice-soup-recipe

The Healthy canning site is also a good site. It provides science based, proven recipes.

Science based means the recipes have been tested and it has been proven that the food product reaches the correct internal temperature (based on the process method) to be considered shelf stable. The methods recommended for chopping, weighing and measuring the food go in to the testing process. Which is it is recommended that you process chopped squash, but not pureed. The density of the food prevents the heat from getting to the center of the jar. The heat process at play here is convection, the jar heats from the outside in (thank you, captain obvious, LOL).

With canning,  the time the food goes into the canner, the processing time (and if pressure canning the "wait" time), along with the time the jars need to sit (12 - 24 hours) are all factored into the producing of a safe product.

Ball, Kerr and Golden Harvest jars and products are all produced by the Newall company, which is owned by Rubbermaid.

Ball produces the Ball Blue Book every few years and it is recommended that you purchase the new one when it comes out. This isn't just because it is a money-maker (yes, it is), but also because the science is changing. Until about a year ago it was recommended that you simmer your lids. The reason was to soften the rubber gasket material (not just sterilize the lid). The new lids do not have that requirement (everybody say YEAH) because the gasket material has changed.

Also, the older books have recipes and method now proven to be less safe. I just composted a Ball Blue book from 1973 which showed open kettle methods for jams and jelly which recommended inverting the jars instead of processing.


Other resources:

https://extension.oregonstate.edu/topic/food/preservation/resources (they have an app for OLDER smart phones (Iphone and android)

https://hgic.clemson.edu/factsheet/canning-foods-at-home/

Excellent resources Redd! Please, all those new (and old) to canning, ignore YouTube videos for canning advice and recipes unless they are from one of the above listed sites. There’s a bunch of videos on canning that could end you up in the hospital or worse. As you learn the basics you’ll be able to figure out which ones are safe. You can can most anything but safety should always be paramount. I’m excited for all of you new guys! I loan out canners and help local ladies learn because it has been so rewarding for me and my family. It’s a fun and exciting journey and worth every step!

Thank you so much to everyone who answered! I appreciate each one of you and this whole discussion has helped me feel so much more comfortable in trying this whole canning thing. I bought a water bath canner with equipment last Friday. I haven't used it yet but will post pics when I do my first batch. I still have a lot of questions but do have enough knowledge to know how to study up on it. I am so moved by the kindness and knowledge of this community!

ABSOLUTELY a pressure canner is worth the money. I can at least 500 jars (quarts & pints) every years--sometimes more. Last year, I bought a 2nd pressure canner and it was the best money ever spent.

I can pretty much everything with the pressure canner, excepting jams and jellies. I use a raw pack method for everything and it comes out perfect. So much simpler and more nutritious than cooking all your food and then cooking the tar out of it again in a pressure canner.

Now, my reasons for using a pressure canner are simple.  Water.  I can't bring myself to use all that water in a huge pot that I'd never be able to lift when full.  A pressure canner uses just 1" in the bottom of the pot vs. 10-12 inches to cover the jars!

Also, we used to live in a small apartment. I canned there also. Jars were stored EVERYWHERE. Under the bed, in every nook and cranny of closets, in the pantry, in the ....... fill in the blank.

We eat organic and organic food is seriously expensive and mostly can't be had where we now live. I garden and can for the year. We eat soup---veggie, potato, stew, split pea, lentil, squash soup. I can green beans, green peas, 7 bean mix, meat (yes raw pack). Salsa, spaghetti sauce, ketchup, etc.

I haven't seen anyone mention the spaghetti sauce and salsa you want to make. If you add over a certain percentage of items that aren't tomatoes, hence raising the pH, you should use a pressure canner.

To me it is very simple.  My Ball Instruction book has instructions for raw pack ingredients or cooked ingredients. And they have recipes. Like another poster said, it is nearly impossible to blow up a modern pressure canner.  And a pressure cooker isn't the same as a pressure canner.  Do some more research.  I love using both and have both but they are not the same piece of equipment.

Good luck and happy canning!!

Dottie,, I’m going to make ketchup for the first time this year, I’ve been looking at different recipes but they (mostly) all contain so much sugar , care to share your favorite recipe?

Be glad to!! The original recipe called for 20 lbs or so of tomatoes, which my crock pot won't hold. I scaled it down to a more manageable quantity. Now that I have a new, and larger, crock pot, coming, I'll give it a go on the larger batch.  It is a pretty good recipe--much better than several I've tried using tomato paste.  You might want to start with a small batch and see how you like the seasoning and adjust if needed.

Hmmmm, don't see a way to attach a pdf so it is copied below.

KETCHUP
 8 pounds tomatoes-cut in 4ths
 1 cup diced onion
 2/3 cup sugar
 ½ cup apple cider vinegar
 ½ cup white or rice vinegar
 1 T salt
 1 T garlic powder
 ¼ tsp pepper
 Couple shakes celery seed
 Couple shakes dried mustard

In crock pot on hi and covered, cook tomatoes overnight.

Add rest of the ingredients, cover and cook until boiling.

Once boiling, set lid off center to let steam escape and cook down until
seriously thick.

Puree in Vitamix and then can.

Makes around 3-4 pints. Recipe can be easily doubled/trebled etc.

Concerning your fear of a canner exploding, the all American canners are super safe.
And I can outside on a 2 burner camp stove, and I use an induction burner to sanitize and keep warm the jars.
It’s a great setup, doesn’t need much room and is efficient.
My husband built and outdoor table to put the finished jars on.
I love it.
Also I use a water bath canner if I’m canning plain tomatoes and a pressure canner if I’m making pasta sauce.

Shari, A pressure canner is not necessary for tomatoes as many others have said. So start out with a regular water bath canning and follow the instruction book. I've canned many jars of tomatoes, tomato sauce and fruits using both a regular water bath canner and a steam canner. I never added any additional acid to either tomato or fruit (apples, pears, peaches, nectarines, raspberries and jams from all the above, and grape juice and jam).  Never had a problem other than an occasional jar that did not seal properly. This usually happens if the rim of the jar is not clean after you fill it with food. I learned to wipe the rim with paper towel before putting the lid on and canning it. Another reason is accidentally using a used lid. Sometimes a used lid will seal but risky unless you don't mind eating the failed seal jar of food right away.  Keep it refrigerated and it will stay fresh for several weeks.  Or re-can the jar with a fresh lid.  Learn the basics and get some practice with different fruits and tomatoes to increase your confidence. You can do this!  Happy canning!

I too have canned an incredible amount of tomatoes over the years without adding additional acid but the fact is that the newer varieties of tomatoes are being bred for a much lower acid content and so I always add a bit of lemon juice or citric acid, now, just to be certain. I have never been able to taste either addition and neither has anyone in my family but the piece of mind is absolutely worth it.

Alicia Bayer wrote:I love my pressure canner.  I use both a pressure canner and a hot water canner, but I tend to use the pressure canner more often.  I especially love it for roasted tomato sauce.  I personally really dislike the flavor of tomato sauce and salsa with lemon juice or vinegar added, and I love the flavor of roasted tomato sauce.  I take all my garden tomatoes and cut them in big chunks along with chunks of onion, peppers, lots of basil, salt, pepper, garlic cloves, and then drizzle olive oil all over it and roast it until the house smells divine and everything is soft and cooked.  Then I put it all through the food mill and can it.  It tastes divine, better than any store bought sauce (here's the recipe).  I use this pressure canner/cooker/steamer (aff link) and I love it.  I purposely bought this one because I love that I can also use it for things like steaming tamales and other dishes where I need a great big pot.  I've had it for ten years now and use it every summer and fall.

At this point I use the regular hot water canner for applesauce and pears since the pressure canner makes them too soft, but the pressure canner for just about everything else.  I just find it fairly quick and easy and it doesn't  heat up the kitchen to the extent the hot water canner does when it's going all afternoon either.  I can also use it for water bath canning by just not screwing the lid on.  I use it for all kinds of things like -- juices, sauces, salsa, etc.  I love the taste of pressure canned salsa so much more than acid-added salsa.  I'm hoping to try doing beans in it sometime soon, since we use a lot of beans and I've heard it's very simple to make canned beans from dried with the pressure cooker.  

Alicia, please explain what you mean about using your pressure canner for water bath canning by 'just not screwing the lid on'.  Wouldn't that cause all the food contents to leak out?
Also curious about what everyone says about canning beans. I've never canned beans.  Are you cooking the beans first (after soaking) and then canning them or are they assumed to be cooking while in the pressure canner?  If that's the case, then don't they require a fair bit of water to help them expand & cook? Are the beans going to be thoroughly cooked if only dry heat and pressure are applied to them without much water?  I aim for best digestion of the beans and I never liked eating "undercooked" beans.  They give a certain "air" to the guts which is also called "bloating and gas" and are not very digestible with the proteins incompletely broken down.  Removing their lectins is helped by pre-soaking and rinsing like our forefathers did. Another name for that is "sprouting".  I've been "sprouting" everything these days - namely seeds, grains and nuts- in order to help my digestion process.  As we get older the digestion is often less able to produce the stomach acids needed and the gut lining may be compromised from a lifetime of exposure to chemicals (ie toxic roundup, antibiotics, medicines, heavy metals, etc) and not able to break down the proteins adequately which can trigger auto-immune issues/diseases.  Beans in the field are also sprayed with dessicants (ie glyphosates) I've learned.  Maybe some of you know what I mean?  Beans (and other seeds) naturally are covered with lectins which is to protect them from spoilage/rot until they are put in the ground and the warm earth and water removes the lectins so the bean/seed can sprout.  That is how the Creator designed it to work.  Mature/dry beans have 'shelf life'.  Fruit on the other hand does not have long 'shelf life'.  This is what I think of when I store seeds for planting later on.  Seeds have long 'shelf life' and that's a good thing!  The issue is more of keeping the bugs and vermin away from the dried seeds which they love to eat.  : )
So the question is - what is the healthiest way to cook beans and process them for eating? Is quick pressure canning from dried/raw the best way for beans or is the old fashioned pre-soaking and slow cooking over heat until nice and soft the best?  How is canning with water around the beans done ? Thanks!

Shari, the book you mention, "Rebel Canners Cookbook: Preserving Time Honored Methods" would be a cherished book in my little library. Our ancestors did indeed have great ways of making all sorts of products that we no longer find on the shelves at the grocery store because... of the fears you mention.
1/The time it will take. Canning, with or without a pressure cooker is actually a great time saver: You make many meals at one time, and when you are sick with the flu, you will love the ease of warming up a can of your own soup and curl up in bed..
2/ following the guidelines perfectly. Yes, that’s important, but start small, with easier recipes. I would not start by making sausages or cheese, or “aging a pheasant”, like my grandpa did. [It involved hanging it by the feet on the porch until the brain came out of the nose! It was delicious, super tender and I didn't get sick at all!] but canning tomatoes, that’s a cinch, and quite forgiving. You can also water bath acid foods such as tomatoes.
3/ The “possibility of blowing up the kitchen if I make a mistake”. This happens when folks start food on the stove and walk away. The canner runs out of water and the pressure builds. But there is a petcock and a safety valve[/u] so this does not happen. It will mess up the ceiling, for sure, but do not fear that it will blow up like a grenade, with fragments all over the place. (You sound too cautious to let this happen anyway). Use a timer that will alert you that the food is done and respect the time. Hang around, watch TV, read a book so you can hear the timer go off.
4/ The space needed to store all the equipment. Actually, you will need [u]more shelf space to store all the stuff you will prepare. I’m running out of room myself so I made some shelves in the garage for “stuff that can freeze without problem”. The canners, pots and pans you need to use in the summer to can stuff, empty jars are in that category. So is rice, sugar, flour, spices, dehydrated items [in tight jars, of course!] all the liquors I make from the fruit I pick [alcohol prevents freezing, so...]
5/ Messing it up and poisoning my family. That one is a biggie but notice that commercial food does have recalls, so “buying from the store” is only marginally safer and won’t you feel better knowing that you have good food in those jars and you will be able to name all the ingredients?  When food turns bad, it will usually look spoiled or smell spoiled. I use the lids that pop down when the air inside is exhausted. If the lid is popped up or if you have the slightest doubt, don’t chance it. It is not worth it. Once in a while, one jar won’t seal because of a nick in the jar’s edge or in the lid. The others may be perfectly safe. Just use this one first. I should be safe to use if you refrigerate it and eat it in a week or so. [Again, the look and smell test is useful].
And depending on the size of your family... buy the big canner. Getting the small one and then having to make more batches is frustrating, and canners are the kind of thing that you will pass on to next generations.
Good luck to you. tell us how you are faring.

I’ve used my pressure canner to “water bath“ can tomatoes .

What I do is put a couple inches of water in the canner.  I put the rack in, something that lifts the jars up off the bottom.  The rack is important because you want the water to have full access to the heat exchange that happens where the pot is exposed to the heat.  The water absorbs the heat, equalizes  and distributes it evenly throughout the vessel through boiling, and evaporating at the temperature at which this process occurs at that elevation.

I put the appropriately packed and sealed jars of tomatoes on the rack.  

I put the lid on the pressure canner as if I were starting to pressure process, the lid is on, the gasket is engaged, and except for the place the steam escapes… where I would put the weight once the air had exhausted… the pressure canner is sealed.  Once the water is boiling and releasing steam, I start timing.  I adjust the flame under the canner to be sure the water continues to boil, and do the full recommended processing time before turning the burner off.

The contents of the jar do not boil away because the temperature inside the canner doesn’t rise above boiling, and the (small amount) of pressure inside the canner remains constant.

When I do it this way, I don’t have to bring the full canner of water to the boil.  It saves time.

When I can dried beans, I soak the beans and rinse them (essentially sprouting them).

Then I pack the jars, leaving headspace.  Then I process them, appropriate for size of jar, elevation and recommended time and pressure.

This is adequate time for the beans to cook all the way to very soft.

When I first did this, I was living at sea level, and had never heard of antinutrients.  I packed dry beans in the jars, with water ham whatever seasonings to end up with soup, and processed per time and pressure recommended by ball blue book.

Without presoaking, the beans were fully cooked, soft and very tender.

I only pressure can in pints because of the shorter time requirements.