I bought what I thought was an All American Canner at the flea market last week and after doing some research it is fact an All American Sterilizer. The only differences I noticed are the pressure relief safety and the pressure relief valve. My question is can this be used for canning? I don't see why not myself. My next question is should I change to a pressure weight vs the screw type control valve?

Thanks

Creekrider

It really depends. If it's a very old sterilizer, then it may essentially be a pressure canner in all practical respects. Most however are meant to run at a higher temperature and PSI to achieve more reliable sterilization, often with an extra allowance for variability, and hence may not be suited to home canning. The increase in PSI or temperature may necessitate altering the canning recipe (which is dangerous, and shouldn't really be done) or it may contribute to an increased rate of damage to canning lids/seals/product. Additionally, a modern sterilizer will likely ONLY run at 15PSI+, as opposed to a pressure canner which should be able to run at 5-10-15.The minimum for a sterilizer is 250F at 15PSI for 15 minutes, manufacturers will generally make sure that they run at higher PSI or temperature to ensure Murphy doesn't pay anyone a visit.

You can also use a pressure canner as a sterilizer, by increasing the operation time as necessary and adding in a healthy margin of error into the time for variance. The items you're sterilizing may under some circumstances require additional time as well. Just an FYI.

ETA: found a thread that may have some use for you. Converting "All-American" sterilizer into a pressure canner

That's not quite accurate. What that is, though, is a statement made to people that you assume are too stupid to operate lab equipment properly. Pressure canners can be pressed into service as sterilizers, preferably one that runs at 15 PSI, but allowances MUST be made for the variances in temperature and PSI found in canners, and those allowances do not necessarily follow a linear scale. On top of that, additional allowance should be made for margin of error in equipment/operator. It's common in the third world, specially in austere or disaster settings, to improvise in this regard.

In the real world, more lives are at risk from malpractice than lack of care and it's easier to tell people to buy tested equipment specifically designed for the task though, rather than encouraging people to understand the mechanisms at work. It's also easier to trust the engineers and developers to calibrate the system correctly rather than some lab technician.

Thanks for all the help, I think I am going to call All American on Monday and see what they have to say.

Just got off the phone with Wisconsin Aluminum Foundry ( All American Canners ). They were very helpful, and the representative I talked to explained that the pre 1995 cookers had the same style pressure valves as the sterilizers. She is also emailing me the manual in PDF for the model I have.

I have included a link to the customer support phone number for anyone else that may need it.

WAFco Consumer Customer Service