Don’t worry, this chapter spares you the pastoral portrait that usually accompanies the subject matter, mainly because I don’t have any nostalgic stories to relay. No cute grannies in the kitchen hovering over pots. No childhood spent lounging under apple trees (though I did have a grapefruit tree fort). When I began this book a year ago, I had never seen anyone can anything, and I had minimal experience eating such treats.
I’m not complaining. Actually, Bertha Burnham (my not-so-domestic gram) made blackberry jam once. She laughed as she recalled how the jam didn’t set (pectin problems), but they ate the failed syrupy jam all winter long over ice cream. Not too shabby.
Over the past year, I’ve taken a number of classes (including an online home food preservation course through the University of Georgia) and apprenticed with expert canners to get a grasp on the ins and outs of this cool science-project-turned-impressive-kitchen-trick. I now lead classes in my home and at food events for beginning canners.
Of the many ways to preserve food, water bath and pressure canning get the most attention and heat. You can preserve just about any kind of food using these two methods (some things, like all low-acid foods, may only be pressure-canned). In this chapter we’ll start with the preservation that you already do, involving the fridge and freezer, and then help you ease into the idea that canning is not beyond your capacities.
I’m not going to even try to be a comprehensive how-to resource on this subject. There’s so much to cover and so many other books and websites already do it well (see resources at the end of this chapter). I’ll defer to that excellent body of knowledge out there to steer you along the path of safe home preserving. I have included the things that most of those sources omit, the things that make first-time canners spend way too much time Googling and pulling their hair out.
I was in contact with Eugenia Bone as I wrote this chapter; she’s a master canner and one of the only authors of canning lit I’ve encountered who has her feet firmly planted in reality. She took the fear and mystery out of canning both in her book and in person. If you enjoy the magic factor that is a standard Ball book recipe, then by all means can away in magicland, but as you encounter real-life situations and ingredient scenarios that arise, a little practicality (and science explained) is a welcome treat.
Preserving Your Sanity
Most of us don’t live on the prairie; we’re not putting up an entire harvest’s worth of fruit and veggies. You are not likely to starve over the winter if you don’t can.
You’re buying as much seasonal food as you can afford (or grow on your back deck) and eating as much of it as possible fresh, and if there’s anything left, hopefully stashing some away for later. If you want to do full-day canning sessions with bushels and crates of produce, be my guest, but incorporating modes of smaller-scale preservation into your existing routine is a more sustainable route for your sanity’s sake. By putting aside (in the freezer or in a jar) some of what you buy or what you make for one dinner, you’re spreading your resources out efficiently. When tomato and apple seasons roll around, you’ll get the chance to decide how you feel about the all-day canning affair.
DIY Convenience
Homemade convenience products may sound like an oxymoron. If you’re wondering why you might consider filling your own jars rather than letting people you don’t know do it for you, here are a few reasons:
Knowing where your food comes from and what’s really in it is the best kind of health insurance you can buy (or make).
Eating local produce all year round (thanks to jars and hot water) supports your regional food system.
Homemade convenience is flat-out impressive and richens your kitchen’s ecosystem—pestos to develop flavor in plain old pasta, preserved lemons added to a salmon marinade, canned plums to add to baked goods, and pancakes all winter long.
You’ll have goods on hand to give as birthday and holiday gifts or to trade at food swaps.
It extends the season for food you can’t get enough of.
Making your own convenience and everyday products puts you back in charge of what you put in your body. Plus it positions you to better enjoy the real joy of cooking: not having to go to the store for every ingredient in a recipe.
Word to the Wise
A general rule of thumb for refrigerator storage of cooked leftovers is absolutely no more than three days. If you can’t remember how long it’s been in there, throw it out.
Where to Start
Start with the foods you actually eat. Whatever excites you is the most logical entrance to canning and preserving. That will dictate the method and equipment you focus on. Your next step should be to identify things that will improve things you already make.
What do you eat at night? For breakfast? First things first, go to your pantry and fridge right now and see what types of store-bought canned goods you already have.
The time to can something is not when it’s wilting and on the edge of the produce/compost zone. You should can produce that’s as fresh and close to harvest as possible. Like with most systems, your outputs are only as good as your inputs. Boiling something, while it kills the things that cause spoilage, will not do any flavor favors for less-than-ideal produce. Instead, use your wilting veggies to make stocks.
Preservation You Already Do
Uncharted Territory: Your Refrigerator
I’ve had a turbulent relationship with my refrigerator over the years. I horrified my mother on numerous occasions by telling her about leftovers I’d consumed many days after even liberal recommendations passed. As a result of marginal leftover consumption, I’ve had my share’s worth of food poisoning, which is no fun.
It’s probably not surprising, my obsession with wanting to know exactly how long things keep in the fridge. My mom, tired of hearing me groan about tummy troubles, says forty-eight hours; the USDA says seventy-two. I can handle this range.
A quick food safety primer:
Keep hot food hot and cold food cold. You get a two-hour window (one hour if food is sitting out when it’s above 90°F) to transport or safely eat foods before spoilers can bloom.
There are two kinds of spoilers in food. Spoilage bacteria are behind the natural method of food decomposition that causes food to go bad. Food looks and smells funny (or gross), which makes the food unappealing but not necessarily harmful. Pathogenic bacteria are the ones that make you sick (foodborne illness, commonly referred to as food poisoning). You can’t see, smell, or taste these bacteria. (And, by the way, mold is not bacteria. Molds and yeasts are both fungi naturally occurring in foods and are destroyed at temperatures between 140°F and 190°F. Mold requires air, food, and moisture to thrive.)
If you have specific questions about what’s safe in the fridge, consult the USDA Food Safety Education website, fsis.usda.gov/Food_Safety_Education/index.asp; the fact sheets are a great resource.
Hip Trick
I’ve had an embarrassing amount of experience with food poisoning (that is, before the universal law of leftovers truly set in for me). If you’re tender-bellied (or have plans to travel somewhere iffy) buy a small bottle of Oreganol and keep it with you. It shouldn’t cost more than $20 and it’ll last forever. Three drops of the super-potent oil in a small glass of water or juice will knock out any unusual suspects in your stomach.
The Frozen Tundra: Your Freezer
I know you have a freezer. It probably has frozen peas, a bottle of vodka, and maybe some batteries in it. Or it’s quite possibly stocked so full that you have no clue what’s really inside those foil-wrapped packages and mysterious freezer bags. Either scenario is not particularly helpful to you.
The freezer can be a really useful tool in stashing excess, both already cooked leftovers and ready-to-cook fruits, vegetables, and meats. When it comes to successful freezing, excess moisture is enemy number one (and usually the reason your freezing endeavors fail). Excessively watery things like leafy greens, potatoes, and milk products balloon up with ice crystals in the freezing process. When thawed, their cell walls, stretched and destroyed, reflect this ballooning, leaving these kinds of things limp, lifeless, or undesirably chunky.
Avoid Freezing These Items or Leftovers That Contain Them
- Potatoes (mashed or whole).
- Leafy greens (though my mom is on a successful chives freezing spree; she uses the thawed chives in things where a limp chive won’t make a difference, like mashed potatoes or in soups).
- Cucumbers, radishes, and cabbage.
- Milk products.
- Whole eggs. You can separate and freeze whites, they freeze well alone. Or beat together the yolk and white, add a little salt or sugar, and freeze it.
- Cooked pasta and rice. Only cook enough for one meal at a time; frozen-and-thawed versions end up mushy and lifeless.
Put a Lid on It
Freezing halts spoilage by removing liquid water from the cells of the food and replacing it with ice crystals. When considering what to freeze, the question is quality, not safety. Successful freezing minimizes opportunities for large ice crystals, which deteriorate the quality of your food, to form.
Keeping foods in as airless a package as possible is your best bet for avoiding freezer burn. This is why you don’t want to use the standard (not freezer-quality) plastic bags or standard pop-on lid Tupperware containers (without added protections) for longer-term freezing.
Here are a few tips on how to freeze stuff so you actually want to eat it later.
Use rigid, airtight containers made of glass or plastic for the freezer. (Most standard plastic Tupperware and take-out containers are not airtight, but a layer of plastic wrap placed on top of the food before adding the lid can help minimize the food’s contact with freezer air.)
Any straight-sided canning jar can be used for freezing. Wide-mouth pint or half-pint jars are the best since contents can expand evenly upward during crystallization. (The regular-mouth jars that have a smaller rim than body can break when contents expand inside.) Leave at least an inch of head space when filling the jar with food, and leave the lid loose for the first few hours in the freezer. I broke a few too many glass jars before I finally learned this lesson.
Some foods (many fruits and small-kernel vegetables) benefit from a quick, container-less freeze on a cookie sheet and then should be placed in airtight, moisture-resistant containers. This allows the ice crystals to form evenly around individual berries or kernels and minimizes damage to the cell walls when thawed.
Have a stash of quart-sized plastic freezer bags on hand. Gallon-sized bags are handy for loaves of bread and larger quantities of fruits and vegetables. Reusing freezer bags for other areas of the house is fine, but try to stick with only new bags when freezing food directly in them. (Normal wear and tear creates small holes in bags and increases the chances of freezer burn.)
Double up protection when freezing something in laminated paper, like your butcher-paper-wrapped hamburger meat, by wrapping it in foil or placing it in a freezer bag.
Lightweight aluminum foil is generally inadequate for home freezing; look for brands labeled for freezing.
Divide up large portions of food (soups, casseroles, meat roasts) into smaller containers for freezing. Cool food in the refrigerator before placing it in the freezer; this will keep ice crystals small when you eventually place it in the freezer.
Don’t forget to label your frozen goodies with contents and date. It doesn’t take long to completely forget what’s in those frosty little containers tucked in every nook and cranny.
What is Blanching and Why Do We Do It?
Blanching involves dipping vegetables in boiling water for a minute or two and then transferring them to an ice water bath before sealing for freezing. The boiling water inactivates enzymes that affect color and the breakdown of vitamins, and the ice water dip stops further cooking and damage to cell walls. Thus blanching helps keep foods true to their original color, and retain nutritional value when frozen.
General rules for freezing common foods:
Fruit. Space apart on a cookie sheet and freeze for ten minutes, then throw into freezer bags once frozen. Keep no longer than six to eight months for best quality.
Vegetables. Blanch the vegetables (see sidebar), then dry them completely. Freeze in small portions for use. Keep no longer than six months to one year for best quality.
Meats. Large packages of fresh meat may be broken down into dinner-sized portions, or double-wrap the existing package of already-portioned meat products. Keeps no longer than four to nine months. Thawed meat will lose liquid fast when cooked, so longer cooking times at lower temperatures are better for retaining moisture.
Bread. Wrap a completely cooled loaf in foil and place in a freezer bag. We slice our bread before freezing so it’s easy to grab a few slices at a time for breakfast toast or sandwiches. (With only two of us in the house it’s hard for us to eat an entire loaf in the two to four days before it gets stale on the countertop.)
The National Center for Home Food Preservation website (see “Resources” in this chapter) has detailed guidelines on how to freeze specific ingredients and food items properly.
Hip Trick
Grandma Mannie told me her favorite way to eat summer corn all winter long is to buy a bunch of it at the farm stand or market, boil it as you would if you were eating it right away, cut it off the cob, and place the kernels into freezer bags in dinner-sized servings. All you have to do is pull out a bag and heat it up to enjoy summer’s tastiest treat even when it’s snowing outside.
Eight Smart Things to Freeze
- Meat bones from individual dinners to make stock when you have enough of them stashed, and then any leftover stock you can’t use within three days.
- Homemade bread crumbs from stale bread.
- Coffee, tea (both cooled in the refrigerator first), and syrup from fruit preserves in ice cube trays; they make fun additions to beverages or tasty mini ice pops.
- Excess pesto, also placed in ice cube trays to freeze (then stored in freezer bags). Pop one out for some homegrown basil pizzazz at the height of winter drear.
- Dinner-sized portions of precooked meals, a tool that will save money—and your sanity—during busy workweeks. I like to freeze future dinners right away since you might not get to the meals before it goes bad in the fridge (and I hate fridge guilt).
- An extra jar of preserves or jam you made but didn’t process in the water bath (see recipe later on in the chapter).
- A ball of bread dough in between its first and second rises. You got hip to doubling the batch during busy weeks in the last chapter. Thaw it in the fridge, set it out to let it rise again, and then bake. Plan-ahead bread!
- Corn flour (masa), whole-wheat flour, or any other flour with high oil content (ones that include the bran and the germ). Freezing keeps them from going rancid, and the added heft of dry grains/flours helps the freezer retain cold better than empty air. You’ll save money on your electric bill and free up room in your pantry.
Bringing Food Back Up to Speed
Reheat leftovers at 165°F to safely kill any bacteria that may have formed in the fridge (this won’t happen in the freezer). As you might remember from Chapter 1, we are a non-microwave household. Our toaster oven and range top get a lot of action.
If you didn’t have the foresight to thaw your dinner in advance (by placing it in the refrigerator until it thaws, which is the best method), then place the food in an airtight bag (translate: any new plastic bag that seals with a zipper or slider) and run it under cold water until it’s ready to be reheated on the stove. Or just take the food out of its freezer container, put it in an oven-safe pot, stick it in the oven, and heat at a low temperature (250°F) until the food reaches 165°F. Eat promptly.
Word to the Wise
When you thaw something in the fridge, be sure to set it in an empty bowl as a precautionary measure for when its ice melts. A puddle or tidal wave in the fridge is not a useful addition to your kitchen ecosystem.
I Will Never Can
I dedicate this section to my mom, nearly all my good friends, and anyone who’s ever uttered those four words. Convincing yourself that canning is not too involved is perhaps the biggest challenge you’ll face.
I’ve picked a few sweet and savory ways to eat your way through the seasons (and beyond) that you don’t have to process in a water bath canner. But first, let’s cover some basics of hygiene and bust your sterilization myth fears.
Even though you don’t have to process the jars—which tends to spook most potential canners—you might consider sterilizing the jars for these three recipes. You’ll want hot jars for packing hot food in them in the case of the rhubarb and pickle recipes, and you’ll prevent any potential spoilers from decreasing the fridge life of your goods.
Hip Trick
Vacuum-seal meat you want to freeze by submerging the filled freezer bag in a bowl of room temperature water (maybe the water you used to wash your lettuce or other produce) and being careful to not let water seep into the top of the bag.
I recommend only using new freezer bags for this, or slight holes that result from wear will let water (and freezer air) into your bag.
Preserved Lemons:
Stashing Winter’s Harvest
I took a chance on these. When I first entered my Meyer lemon craze—when they appeared during winter months at my co-op—I hadn’t a clue how we would use preserved lemons. But they smelled so good that I compulsively bought as many as would fit into my bag on every grocery-acquisition occasion. Sometimes the most fun part of preserving food is the forced expansion of taste and utility.
Preserved lemons are a staple in Moroccan cuisine, which we rarely make or eat, but it turns out the intense lemon burst improves everything that touches our table. We use them in salad dressing or for an infusion of flavor in a meat, fish, or vegetable dish.
This is a great first-timer activity because preserving Meyer lemons is so easy, and the lemons are so acidic that it’s impossible to grow any unwanted toxins in the jar.
Preserved Meyer Lemons
Meyer lemons are über-fragrant natives of China; they’re a cross between a mandarin orange and a lemon. The skin is softer than traditional lemons, and pleasantly edible. Meyer lemons are grown in the United States’ more tropical regions (California, Texas, and Florida) between November and March. If you don’t see any in your local grocery during these times, you can always use any organic lemon; just grab a few extra for juicing, since they’re not nearly as juicy as Meyers.
This recipe comes from Eugenia Bone’s book Well-Preserved: Recipes and Techniques for Putting Up Small Batches of Seasonal Foods and yields 2 pints.
Here’s what you need:
10 Meyer lemons
½ cup kosher salt
2 wide-mouth pint mason jars or volume-equivalent smaller jars
- Sterilize your jars by bringing them to a boil in a pot that will allow them to be submerged. Boil for 10 minutes.
- Simmer (not boil) two new mason jar lids. This warms up the gummy seal stuff.
- Slice stem ends from 6 lemons and quarter lengthwise from pole to pole.
- Juice remaining 4 lemons.
- Distribute lemons between the two still-hot jars, interspersing 3 Tablespoons kosher salt into each jar. Don’t pulverize the lemons getting them in the jar, but really do pack them down. You don’t want air pockets between the lemons.
- Top off jars with lemon juice, leaving about ½ inch head space. Your lemons should be mostly submerged.
- Add 1 Tablespoon more of salt to both jars.
- Wipe rims of jars clean with a clean, damp cloth. Lid the jars and place them on your countertop to develop brine for two weeks. Invert jars every other day to keep salt evenly distributed.
After two weeks on the counter, put jars in the fridge to halt the fermentation process. Use within six months for best flavor, but they will keep for up to a year in the fridge.
Sweet Preserves:
Spreading Spring On Toast
Making a small batch of preserves or jam to eat over the next few weeks is not unlike the act of buying a (pricey) jar of jam at the store. How often do you buy a jar of jam to keep indefinitely on the pantry shelf? You buy it to eat it; duh. Once you open it, your jar of jam has a number of weeks (sometimes more than a month) in the fridge until the fuzzies appear.
You can make any jam, jelly, preserves, or other sweet spread without canning it in a water bath. The first step, cooking the fruit and getting it to gel, is completely independent of the water bath processing step (the way to hermetically seal the jar and keep it stashed on the pantry shelf, which I describe later in this chapter).
This super-small-batch method is perfect for when finances restrict you from buying more than a pound of produce at the market, when your home harvest is small (kudos to all the rhubarb home growers out there), or for previewing flavors in a spread you might want to make in larger quantities later. Your jam or sweet spread will be the better for it, since you’re only boiling your tender fruit once. And a homemade luxury item is wildly impressive to whip out the next time your pals come over for drinks.
How to Sterilize a Jar
Pop it in the dishwasher with the heated dry cycle selected
or
Boil it for 10 minutes in a stockpot that allows for water to reach the tops of the jars (and not boil over the edge and onto your range top).
Rhubarb Hibiscus Vanilla Preserves
This is a two-day recipe, which is actually easier for busy people to incorporate into their schedules. The first slot involves preparing the produce and can be done in the evening or in the morning, and the second part just involves cooking the fruit for all of 15 minutes. That’s it. You’ll get about 1 pint.
Cut into ½-inch cross-sections (of stalk) 1 pound rhubarb (which ends up being about 2½ cups) and place in a heavy-bottomed pot.
Add:
1½ cups granulated sugar (raw is fine)
1/3 cup dried whole hibiscus flowers, chopped into small pieces
Scrape seeds into the pot from:
½ vanilla bean, sliced lengthwise (if you can’t find a vanilla bean use ¼ teaspoon of a pure vanilla extract or just skip it) and toss bean pod into the pot. Cover with lid and let fruit macerate (fancy word for let the sugar break down the fruit a bit) overnight or for at least 6 hours. If you are using vanilla extract skip it here; you’ll add it after you cook the preserves.
When you return to the pot, most of the sugar will be dissolved. Add 1 Tablespoon strained lemon juice (about half a small lemon) and place mixture over medium heat to dissolve any remaining sugar. Stir with a good rubber spatula (or wooden spoon) to keep sugar from scorching the bottom of the pan. Bring to a boil.
Once the mixture is boiling, it will take about 10 minutes for it to thicken up. Once that happens, remove the pan from the heat and let it sit for 5 minutes before ladling it into a hot pint jar (or two half-pint jars). If you’re using vanilla extract, add it just before you put the mixture in the jars.
Stick the jar in the fridge after it has cooled for an hour on the counter.
(If you want to water bath can this, you may double the recipe [or not] and process jars for 15 minutes in water bath canner. This is the one instance where it’s okay to double a sweet spread recipe, since I wrote it as a super-small batch. Don’t increase it beyond double though because otherwise it may not gel properly.)
Fridge Pickles: Crunch Your Way Through Summer
Unless you have a whole plot’s worth of cukes (or some other vegetable that appeared en masse in your CSA share), small batches of fresh pickles are ideal for fridge storage. In most cases you have room for the small yields—three pints or a couple quart jars, at most—and you probably already have a few jars of store-bought pickles taking up real estate. Evict these lowly tenants and replace them with home-pickled equivalents.
Making fresh pickles (by that I mean not fermented) is pretty easy. You’ve already mastered the skill set if you can successfully bring anything to a boil.
Dill Pickled Cukes
Modified from Linda Ziedrich’s book The Joy of Pickling: 250 Flavor-Packed Recipes for Vegetables and More From Garden or Market
Yields 1 quart
Instructions:
Place in a clean, quart-sized mason jar:
8 whole black peppercorns
2 cloves garlic, chopped
2 dried hot peppers (usually found in spice or ethnic food section of your grocery)
2 teaspoons dried dill seeds (or 3 to 4 fesh dill fronds)
Pack about 1 1/3 pounds of Kirby (4-inch pickling cucumbers), halved, quartered, or kept whole into the jar; this is really just as many as you can fit in there, so weight doesn’t ultimately matter. It’s handy to pack most of your cukes in vertically and then position a few pieces horizontally over the top to “seatbelt” (term and idea courtesy of WellPreserved.ca bloggers Dana and Joel, not to be confused with the book Eugenia Bone wrote!) the cukes in and keep them from bobbing up out of the vinegar brine.
Combine in a stainless steel saucepan and bring to boil to dissolve salt:
1 cup water
1 cup white wine vinegar (distilled white vinegar is okay, too)
1 Tablespoon pickling or Kosher salt
Remove liquid mixture from heat and pour it into your cucumber-packed jar leaving ½-inch of space from the top rim of the jar. If your brine doesn’t cover the top of your cukes, just top it off with water (this is safe to do here because you’re just fridge pickling and thus don’t need to worry about the acidity level in the jar).
Wipe any vinegar spills from the rim of the jar, throw a lid on it and hide it from yourself in the back of your fridge for a couple weeks (or until you can’t stand to wait any longer) and try to eat them within six months. We’re lucky if they last a week after we crack them open in our house.
Putting Up
I didn’t grow up canning food (or “putting up,” as some canners call it), and up until a year ago I had never even seen anyone do it. It’s initially mysterious and potentially dangerous if done haphazardly. I decided that my first exposure should be through participant observation. I was a newcomer to NYC, so I resorted to the Internet.
Social media outlets like Twitter and Facebook are probably the last places you’d think to look for the how-to on canning and preserving food. After nearly a week with zero response to my emails, tweets, Facebook pleas, and even Craigslist ads, I began to assume that everyone who cans at home must live on the West Coast, or somewhere that’s not New York. I was discouraged by the overwhelming nonresponse until I got a single tweet from a guy who had pickle pride (and not so much the urge to invite a stranger over for 5 hours on the weekend).
I proceeded to do what any Internet stalker might do: I checked out his Twitter profile and Googled him. Then I emailed him. Telling him about myself, my project, and my previous experience with anthropological fieldwork was my best attempt at climbing from the rank of “demanding stranger” to “invited guest” at his next canning session. Also, this follow-through takes social media from the limited, faceless arena into the realm of true human community.
After a couple more emails and his discussion with the “canner in chief,” his wife (which I’d have given anything to hear: “Honey, so remember how I have a Twitter account…?”), I was sitting at a kitchen table with my new friends, just five or six days after our first noncommittal, faceless interaction.
If I could find the one pickler in NYC who was (sort of) willing to welcome me into his home, surely you can find someone near you who’s putting food up. Take a class if it makes you feel better, but it’s not required. You just need to see someone actually doing it to remove some of the fear and stigma loaded into home food preservation.
Botulism Blows
Your first question is about botulism, I know. Botulism, the disease caused by the bacteria Clostridium botulinum, is the main reason why more people aren’t running to the hardware store to buy $12 worth of supplies to put up big or small batches of seasonal foods to enjoy all year long.
The canning literature doesn’t do much to reassure people; the pervading theme of introduction-to-canning books is usually “Follow these rules exactly or you’ll die.” Truth is, you’re probably more likely to have a run-in with botulism if you keep garlic suspended in olive oil in a jar on the counter, or let baked potatoes come to room temperature wrapped in aluminum foil.
Roughly twenty-two cases of botulism are reported in the United States per year from foodborne sources, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, many of which result from unsafe kitchen practices such as those mentioned in the paragraph above. I’m not taking this risk lightly by any means, but once you understand the precise scientific conditions required to activate Clostridium botulinum spores, the fear becomes more manageable. The bacteria spores need all of the following five conditions to activate and release the toxin into your food:
- Anaerobic (airless) environment
- Low acid level (a pH above 4.6)
- Higher temperatures (usually higher within the “danger zone,” which is 40–140°F)
- Moisture
- Food
Doing the opposite of any of these will inhibit activation of the toxin spores. In many cases you’ve hermetically sealed a high-acid mixture (most fruits have a lower pH than 4.6, and all pickles are acidified to below 4.6), and botulism can’t activate there, period. If you should have any questions about your pressure-canned low-acid foods, just boil the food for ten minutes before eating it to ensure safety. Or you can always place anything that’s questionable (or that doesn’t seal) directly into the fridge within a couple hours of processing.
Water Bath Canning
This method hermetically seals jars through the ingenious use of boiling water. You already know that you don’t have to can it if you don’t intend to store it on the shelf, but if your fridge is full or if you want to make a bunch of shippable holiday presents, you’ll need to process the jars in a water bath.
The natural, normal spoilage of fresh produce is caused by microorganisms, which are present in large numbers in foods as well as in the air. Processing the jar destroys these spoilage microorganisms and, as previously mentioned, the only foods you can in a water bath are high-acid things, so the bacteria that causes botulism can’t germinate. The jar is sealed off from the surrounding air by means of the rubber flange on the lid (of most kinds of jars) and secured in place by a band.
Creating higher-than-normal pressure in the jar forces hot air, steam, and possibly small amounts of liquid out of the jar from under the lid. This is a one-way process, out; the lid and rim do not allow air and cooking water to enter the jar from the outside. As the jar cools down after processing, a vacuum is created inside.
You can store this hermetically sealed jar on the shelf for up to a year, if you can manage not eating it for that long!
Pressure Canning
This is the method for killing microorganisms in low-acid environments via steam. I only do it with friends because I don’t have my own pressure canner, yet. A pressure canner is a special piece of equipment you’ll need to buy if you envision canning meats, broths, beans, vegetables (that aren’t acidified with vinegar), lemon curd, or other low-acid foods that need to be brought to temperatures higher than water bath canning allows for. Never attempt to water bath can these kinds of foods; utilize other methods of preserving, like freezing, if you don’t have a pressure canner.
There are two kinds of pressure canners, a dial gauge or a weighted gauge; both types have clamps that lock the canner, a way to measure steam pressure inside, and safely release the steam should the pressure become too heavy. The temperature inside a locked and properly operated pressure canner reaches above 240°F and successfully kills both spoilers that made their way into your packed jars and the dormant form (spores) of the bacteria that cause botulism.
Hip Trick
A pressure canner is a great thing to purchase with one or two friends. A new Presto brand pressure canner runs about $80 (and is well worth the investment when split two or three ways). You’ll save money and have it when you really need it (and get it out of the way when you don’t).
Essential Tools
Thermometer. I’ve had a hell of a time with cheap thermometers. My mom gave me a high-end digital one and I don’t think twice about it now; you can find a decent one for under $30 (try Taylor Precision products). That said, I survived and managed just fine without a fancy one for a whole year of cooking, canning, and bread making. Marisa, my friend who writes the Food in Jars blog, swears by her Taylor Pro Series combination thermometer/timer with a 4-foot-long probe; you can let the probe sit in the bubbling mixture on the stove and not burn your fingers.
Kitchen scale. I held out the longest on this one. The immediate gains from precision were lost on me, but I soon learned how helpful it is to not have to scout out equivalents online every time I prepare (or reduce) a recipe. Once purchased, it’s one of those appliances that you’re not quite sure how you got along without. Plus you can use your scale in baking recipes posted by weight. I’m not a real exactness monger, but an enhanced level of precision will serve as an additional buffer against failure.
Stock pot. Don’t buy a galvanized metal canner kit. You can’t cook anything else in that galvanized ordeal, and single-purpose kitchen equipment is really dumb. If you don’t already have one, scout out a good bargain on Craigslist (where I bought my 10-gallon enameled steel lobster pot). You can use any size pot, though, that fits your desired jar size, which is handy for smaller batches. But if you have the choice, taller is better since you want jars to be submerged in at least a couple of inches of water, and you don’t want the water to boil over the top.
Rack. This will depend on the size of your stock pot. If you bought a lobster pot (or any other big-ass stock pot), then grab the traditional canning rack with handles (a useful feature for finding sterilized, clear jars in a vat of boiling water). If you have a smaller pot, then buy a cake or pie cooling rack just smaller in diameter than your pot. Or instead of a rack, try a collapsible steamer basket or canner lids hooked together with kitchen twine.
Jars. Start out by using Ball or Kerr jars with two-piece lids; you can graduate to experimenting with Weck or single-piece lids after you get the hang of it. You’ll be best off getting smaller jars—pints and smaller. I have never actually processed anything in a quart jar; all the recipes I’ve encountered so far are for pints and half pints. Quarter pints are great for jams and sweet preserves. Be a smart shopper and source your jars used from Craigslist, estate sales, garage sales, and the network of grandmas looking to unload their stash. A good friend of mine knows I’m in a canning craze and snagged a full box of pint and quart jars for me for free from a woman who was getting rid of them.
Buy new jars in off-or end-of-season sales from your local Ace hardware store or big-box stores that you don’t mind supporting. The canning season is at its peak during summer and fall, so look for jars in late fall. If you go in on large orders of jars with friends, your local hardware store will probably give you a discount; they’re not making much of a profit margin on jars to begin with, so they’ll appreciate your business.
Extra lids. If you bought your jars used, or you’re consistently reusing your own jars (i.e., your friends are good at returning jars after you grant them canned goodies), you’ll need a stash of new lids. Don’t buy the ones that come with bands (unless you actually need the bands). Your house will soon be overrun with canning bands, and there’s no need to add more to the mix. A box of twelve wide-mouth or regular lids will run you between $2 and $4.
Canning utensil kit. You can find a set for less than $12 or buy a jar lifter and canning funnel piecemeal. These are the only essentials in the kit, although the magnetized lid lifter thingy is really handy.
Calculator. I have yet to can anything (besides peaches) in an overabundance scenario. You’re not likely to make full recipes from any of the Ball books or other put-up-the-whole-season’s-harvest books. So in the event you’re proportionately lessening the recipe…it’s highly ambitious (for some of us) to assume we can do mental math (correctly, at least) in the midst of following a recipe.
Word to the Wise
When buying used jars intended for canning, be sure to feel around the rim for chips or cracks, which will prevent your lids from sealing. It’s best to use vintage canning jars as bins to stash grains or as décor since they might break during processing.
The Dirty Word in Canning: Modify
I have a tenuous relationship with recipes, as you know. And canning recipes are, unfortunately, sticklers for precision. But life happens—even in canning. What if you can’t find all the ingredients a recipe calls for, or what if it requires an extra trip out after a long work day for a particular spice or the elusive liquid pectin? Contrary to what everyone says, you can actually modify aspects of canning recipes.
Don’t confuse this with creating new recipes, which is unsafe unless you’re going to spring for an expensive pH meter (not drugstore strips, which are imprecise at best) to test pH levels. When you change certain elements of a written recipe, you must understand that you are altering the pH of the food. After you’ve done a little extracurricular reading (see the “Resources” section at the end of the chapter), you’ll start to understand what makes recipes safe as they’re written. Once you understand how a recipe is safe, then you may make slight changes to the things that won’t affect acidity levels.
Hip Trick
The best way to reduce a recipe is to see how much of the main ingredient you actually have (either by dicing and placing in measuring cups or by measuring weight, however the recipe lists it). Determine a ratio by dividing how much you have by how much it says to use (hint: the number will be a decimal less than 1). Multiply the quantities of each ingredient in the recipe by your answer.
For example, the rhubarb vanilla preserves recipe. I started with a rhubarb rose preserves recipe from Linda Ziedrich’s book, but I couldn’t find fresh rose petals in the middle of April to save my life. I did, however, find dried hibiscus flowers at my co-op. I swapped the two ingredients in equal measure, since I know it’s safe to swap a dried ingredient for fresh rose petals. Rhubarb is a high-acid fruit, and I understand the safety factors involved in the swap; whereas, had the main ingredient been figs (which are just on the edge of safe for water bath canning) I would not have ventured to change anything [in this case, I would have not been able to use this recipe]. Don’t be reckless with recipes, but know that you’re not nailed to the wall. Here are a few tips to develop a better understanding of safe modifications to recipes:
Your bible is “Approximate pH of Foods and Food Products.” Type this URL into your browser and then print out the PDF that appears: foodscience.caes.uga.edu/extension/documents/
FDAapproximatepHoffoodslacf-phs.pdf.
The FDA/University of Georgia Cooperative Extension may update the information, but at least you have a hard copy to stash away. These fantastic Web resources tend to disappear and then reappear in new formats, so try Googling the following terms to find similar lists in the event nothing pops up for you:
pH values food
pH values of various foods
Food pH
If you’re trying to gauge accuracy (since the interwebs are territory where anyone could post a list and say it’s correct), seek out a standard for something you know, like tomatoes should be listed as a range between 4.3 and 4.9, and judge your source by how they’re listed. The variance is due to differences in cultivars (a plum tomato is more acidic than a beefsteak) and varying degrees of ripeness. Compare pH levels of existing ingredients with any substitution ideas you have.
Quick Tip for the Unaccustomed
I talk about the acidity of foods, but understanding the numbers linked to highly acidic foods can be confusing. A good rule of thumb for not getting tripped up by the pH scale: the higher the acidity of the food, the lower the number on the pH scale.
Never alter ratios of acidifiers like lemon juice, vinegar, and sometimes actual fruit (oranges, lemons, or other high-acid components of a spread). It’s better to find an existing, safe recipe that includes the ingredients you have in mind and just alter the spices and herbs. Also, if a recipe calls for bottled lemon juice, don’t take liberties and use freshly squeezed lemon juice; a specific pH level must be achieved, and it requires the consistent pH of the bottled juice, not the variable pH levels of fresh juice.
Alter sugar and salt levels as you choose. Sugar and salt do not affect safety or alter pH levels of recipes. You use both of these things to maintain the texture of the fruit or vegetable. Sugar is crucial in the gelling process; if you’re set on reducing or using alternative sweeteners (like honey or agave nectar), Pomona’s Universal Pectin is my fave commercial pectin to have on hand.
Switch up spices and add dried ingredients (such as fruits and nuts) to your liking, though adding nuts to a spread will increase the processing time required, since it takes longer for heat to permeate a nut than a tender fruit. Look up similar chutney/conserve recipes (recipes that have similar proportions of those ingredients) to find out safe processing times for anything you alter into a chunkier state. Adding spices and herbs does not affect pickling brine ratios, but if you want the freedom to go wild and create, refrigerator pickles are where you should direct those intentions.
Make your own pectin instead of relying on a commercial brand (which may or may not be readily available to you). Pectin has nothing to do with safety, just aesthetics.
I’m a big advocate for reducing recipes to accommodate quantities of what you actually have, but you should never double a sweet spread recipe. Just make two batches if you have that much produce. Most sweet spreads won’t set properly if there’s too much in the pan.
Word to the Wise
Pomona’s Universal Pectin is not like other pectin products on the market; when you use it, follow the separate recipe directions on the insert in the box. Use another kind of pectin (or make your own) if you’re totally attached to a specific jelly or jam recipe in a book.
Troubleshooting and Tips for First-Timers
All the things I wish someone would’ve told me!
General tips and issues:
When reducing quantities in a recipe, calculate and record new amounts before you start prepping and cooking the fruit.
Wear comfortable shoes throughout the canning/preserving process, out of kindness to your legs. For certain types of spreads or recipes you might be hovering around the pot waiting for the miraculous gel for thirty minutes. I’ve never completed a start-to-finish canning operation in less than two hours; that’s a long time to be standing on a hard floor.
Timing is more important with some recipes than others. Read through the whole recipe many times to see where you may end up spending more time, and adjust your approach accordingly. If possible, prep the fruits or vegetables way in advance and refrigerate to split up back-to-back stages of prepping, cooking, and then processing.
Have something clean you can place your utensils or funnel on while you’re putting the food in jars. Sometimes it seems like you need five hands in the heat of canning, and an extra plate can do wonders for your sanity. No need to sterilize it; during processing you’ll be boiling out any airborne or potential spoilers hiding on the surface.
Wear your industrial-strength Casabella dish gloves (the ones you bought after reading Chapter 1) from the moment you drop jars in the canner for sterilization to the point when you’re removing processed jars of food. They allow you to grab a jar that’s marginally attached to the jar lifter or just serve as a buffer from the splashy rolling boil of the water. I don’t suggest reaching directly into the water with your gloves though. Even water-stop gloves can’t stand up against 8–10 inches of boiling water.
The Ball Complete Guide to Home Preserving book has a good problem-solving section, but here are a few things that eluded me or gave me a hard time as I began my canning adventure.
For water bath canning:
If you have trouble finding sterilized bands in your canner pot or discover the pain-in-the-ass scenario where bands slide beneath your rack during sterilization, try tying bands together loosely with kitchen twine or using a small metal colander to hold bands and submerging the lot in the canner pot.
When recipes recommend waiting five minutes to pull your jars out of the canner after the required processing time, it’s only for you; it doesn’t have anything to do with safety of the food, just your arms. And if you’ll be processing more jars and don’t want to turn off the heat, it’s fine to just pluck the jars out of the boiling water carefully.
Towels at the bottom of your rackless pot might actually hinder your processing time. Consider one of the ideas for a DIY canning rack.
Issues with sweet preserves:
I gave up on myself when it comes to skimming foam gracefully; it always slides right off the spoon. (Maybe I have an elbow malfunction?) Eugenia Bone demonstrated as we both stood in her kitchen that it just takes patience and persistence; keep at it with a broad metal cooking spoon.
The spoon test (dipping a spoon you’ve placed in your freezer to test jelly/jam sets) remained elusive to me until I realized that all the syrup is going to slide off the frozen spoon; it’s the last two drops I should be looking at. They should linger together on the long side of the spoon, which supposedly looks like a sheet to someone (not me). I realized my concord grape jellies had both set after I puzzled over two purple drops clinging to my frozen tablespoon.
For jams and preserves, an easier plan is to look for changes in the bubbles that alert you to gelling (they become larger and darker). Linda Ziedrich’s The Joy of Jams, Jellies and Other Sweet Preserves book gives pretty accurate times for when gelling should occur. And remember, if you’ve reduced a recipe, it will likely gel faster.
For pickles:
Vegetables bobbing out of the vinegar solution (near the top of jar) is unnerving but not unsafe. Invert and gently shake the contents every so often (after the first day) to redistribute the vinegar.
Resources
Books
Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving by Judi Kingry and Lauren Devine.
I use this book mostly to dredge up ideas for ingredients I have on hand, and to understand what recipe combinations are safe. The recipes feel a little mechanical when followed directly since they don’t tell you why you do things. After reading other books, though, you’ll appreciate this one for what it has: lots of recipes!
Canning and Preserving, in the Homemade Living series, by Ashley English.
Excellent pictures of the often-confusing things involved in canning. I especially love the photos of each of the various kinds of sweet preserves since there are so many to keep track of!
On Food and Cooking by Harold McGee.
For all the food and chemistry geeks out there, you must own this book. It’s a constant reference that I use to understand why food behaves in certain manners, the historical origins of foods, and how to store foods successfully.
The Joy of Pickling and The Joy of Jams, Jellies and Other Sweet Preserves by Linda Ziedrich.
My go-tos for a food-centered approach to canning. She helps you understand why certain foods are safe to put up and how to play up flavors (not just follow a recipe).
Well-Preserved by Eugenia Bone.
I wish I could insert the first forty-five pages of Eugenia Bone’s book Well-Preserved directly into this chapter. It’s a smart, practical introduction to canning and preserving that would benefit any hip newbie both for canning and for the kitchen at large. Read all the introduction sections, even if you think you won’t be curing and smoking meats; there are extremely helpful bits of science behind food and food safety discussed with each type of preservation.
Web
foodinjars.com
Get hooked in with the canning blog scene through Marisa’s excellent website.
csrees.usda.gov/extension
Find your closest cooperative extension office for canning classes, food science/safety questions, and general information.
uga.edu/nchfp
The National Center for Home Food Preservation is an excellent resource on all types of food storage and hosts a free, self-paced online course for canning.
canningusa.com
Watch the nifty videos featured on this site.
foodsafety.psu.edu/preserve.html
Another great place to search for questions that arise with home food preservation. This one is hosted by Penn State.
web1.msue.msu.edu/imp/mod01/master01.html
A great database from the Michigan State University Extension Office on preserving food safely.