Because there is massive pressure involved, many newbies are completely intimidated by it and, with the recent bombings using pressure canners, the fear is even worse. Serious modification.
There are so many safety features in place to alert you of any trouble far before it gets hot enough to actually explode. Then, there is the knocker. This is a weight that is placed over a steam spigot. When your canner gets to 15 pounds of pressure, this little weight starts making noise and gets louder the higher the pressure gets.
If left alone, it would eventually pop itself off and the steam would spew out. While steam is dangerous, the canner will not explode. Note that for most foods and altitude locations, you process at pounds of pressure. Finally there is the plug on top. A small, black rubber plug that will pop itself out if the pressure gets too high as well.
The hole is larger than the steam spigot you place the knocker on to. Between both of them, the steam will escape long before the canner will fail. Mind you, the food inside may not be any good. Water bath canning is meant more of a way to heat everything up so it will seal.
The process simply helps in the sealing process and is generally much faster than pressure canning. Pressure canning enables you to can low acid foods that could be dangerous if they were canned in a boiling water bath seriously dangerous—think botulism.
It also requires a pressure canner, which is a very specialized piece of gear and not the same as a pressure cooker.
If you want to store more alkaline foods such as soup stocks, un-pickled vegetables, or meat in sealed jars at room temperature, you must process them in a pressure canner. Here's why: Although Clostridium botulinum and the toxin it produces is are killed at the temperature of boiling water, its spores can survive those temperatures. And guess what kind of environment they need in order to hatch? Someplace with moisture and without oxygen—exactly the environment they get within sealed canning jars.
A pressure canner is capable of heating the food inside the jars to hotter than the temperature of boiling water, hot enough to kill off even the spores of botulism. That is why it is essential to use a pressure canner for low-acid foods. Both boiling water bath canning and pressure canning create a vacuum seal that prevents molds from entering the jars. But as with store-bought canned foods, once the jars are opened they must be stored in the refrigerator.
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That's why we want you to save money and trees by subscribing through our earth-friendly automatic renewal savings plan. It cans the food at a temperature that is higher than boiling temperature so it allows you to can food faster than in a water bath. One of the most important things to be knowledgeable about is the fact that not every food works well for both methods.
For example, low acid foods have to be processed in a pressure canner because they cannot be safely processed in a water bath canner. This is because the bacteria cannot be killed at simply boiling temperatures, but it requires a higher temperature to kill off all of the unhealthy bacteria. When the cans sit on the shelf afterward, if the bacteria are not fully killed, spores can form and become unsafe to eat. Overall, while both the water bath method and the pressure canning method achieve the same results, they do have a lot of differences.
The water canning method is a lot less costly, but it does take longer. On the other hand, the pressure canning method is faster, but it does require more expensive equipment. Whatever method you choose to use, make sure that you use the proper foods that can be safely prepared with that method. You do not want to end up with unsafe food products sitting in your pantry.
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