Started really upgrading my food storage recently, in multiple parts, built a full butcher shop for processing deer and such, complete with meat saw, grinder, vac sealer, dehydrator, and stainless tables and commercial sink. Built a storage room and shelving for food and prep storage, now I’m into gardening a canning. I expanded our garden, and yesterday picked up a nice used 50” land pride pto tiller. Right now I’m working on canning equipment.

All American is supposed to be good stuff, I looked on Amazon, but they run $300 plus. Found a all American 25 qt canner locally for $75.00. Woman said she’s got tons of canning equipment and a food mill too and willing to give me “ a hell of a deal “ on it all. Getting pics later, and picking it all up tomorrow. I’ll put a stove in my garage kitchen / butcher top and get another 6’ stainless table and do all the canning in the garage where there’s more room.

Now I need to learn how to can food !  

A arfcommer buddy lives 2 miles away and his wife cans tons of stuff, and a few other relatives do too, so I can get hands on teaching too, just looking for tips and suggestions.

Let’s hear those tips !

Get good seeds for your garden.  I order mine from Baker Creek and Seed Savers Exchange.

I just read your post over in GD. I'll 2nd the recommendation of getting the Ball Blue book of canning. You got a great score on the canner!

Not sure how old it is, but you may want to have the pressure gauge calibrated. Our county extension office provides this service.

I second this. Good seeds make gardening so much better. I am actually setting up a seed company myself so I have done ALOT of research on the business of seeds. Baker Creek is great as well as Seed Savers Exchange. I also like MIgardener. Invest in a soil block maker for seed starting. Plants that start out in blocks transplant much better than the typical methods. Do you plan on saving your seeds?

Buck - where-bouts are you in KY? Are you on Telegram?

OK Buck, we want pics of your score (if it went through).

May need a new gasket for the canner lid (Presto stuff readily available), avoid thermal shocks with hot jars, wind and drafts.  Buy quality Ball lids for jars, inspect for nicks and chips.  Pay close attention to head spacing when filling jars. Pressure can meats and low acid, water bath others per government specifications.


Example:

https://extension.umn.edu/preserving-and-preparing/canning-quick-reference-chart#:~:text=Reference%20chart%3A%20pressure%20canning%20or%20boiling%20water%20bathing,%20%208%20%2029%20more%20rows%20

He is not going to need a gasket for his canner, All American does not use them.  He may possibly need a rubber overpressure safety plug depending on it's age.

The ball blue book is a good book to start with, but one may very well come with the supplies.

If you don't have many, or any at all, grab lids whenever you see them.  Every place local to me has jars, rings, and combos to spare, but just lids are extremely scarce.  That or get into reusable ones.

ETA - look through this thread from some interesting egg canning

Pickled Eggs

Yes, but when I read "tons of canning equipment", I don't rule out an old Presto being in the mix.

Canning tips:
    Don't take shortcuts. Pressure canning isn't hard, but there are steps that require time, mostly time waiting for the next step. For instance, before you let the pressure build up, it must vent for 10 minutes. Don't skip a step because you don't want to wait.
    Related to the above tip - don't hurry the cool down/depressurization step. The food in the jars is super heated, so when the pressure drops you have liquid that is now above the boiling point. This will cause the contents of the jar to sputter out and possibly the jar breaking. I have an all American 921 and an old national #7. I wrap a towel around the old national because it's smaller and cools faster. The towel let's it cool, but it cools slower.

Congrats on the all American deal! I never find deals like that.

Meat is super easy to can though, I don't know why people roll the dice with water bathing it. You literally put the meat cubes in a jar, add liquid so the space is right, put the lids on, and can. The result is a nice jar of stew meat that is already cooked and can be used in a variety of recipes.

He should have both a pressure release jiggler and the guage. On an all American (and others if you get the 3 part jiggler) the guage is mostly helpful in knowing when and how fast the pressure goes up and down. As long as you are putting the jiggler on the right pressure it will keep it there and be safe.

Our county extensions don't do pressure guages anymore. I thought when I decided to can I would be able to pick up used supplies, seeing as how I'm in the south. Nobody I know cans. I've never seen a used canner in real life.

I got my old national on ebay and replaced the old worn out pressure guage and release (they didn't have jigglers when that one was made I don't think) with the same ones on my all American and got a few gaskets.

I have a little box of spare parts. I have extra over pressure plugs, a spare lid bolt, extra vent tube and a few gaskets for that canner.

Oh, I've tried the reusable lids and didn't have much luck. Others love them. I could get them to seal but not stay sealed, I keep my meat a long time.

I have old lids and never had a problem even though supposedly the rubber sealing goop is supposed to age. I store all of my supplies in a dark room, I sealed extra gaskets with my food saver after smearing a little food grade silicone on them but I don't know if that's really necessary.

In the past I've posted pics of my two canners. There's nothing wrong with those old prestos, they still make spare parts.

The biggest gripe I have with them is that the new ones seem to all come with a one weight pressure jiggler when they could be sent out with nice 3 part jigglers.

I kind of prefer the sound of the all American, it's a nice satisfying rattle, not an ambiguous hiss. One reason I like both guage and 3 pressure jiggler.

I like my old national (now presto) for small batches, I use a towel to slow depressurization because that canner is smaller, but there have been many times I've crunk them both up when I've had lots of venison to can. I use two labeled timers and also jot times on paper (in case I drop a timer).

To clarify, the old nationals don't look like the new prestos, but back then it was the name of the company.

Glad to see you got the tiller!

Forgot to update. Been busy.

Moved a fence and doubled the size of our garden,  got a land pride pto tiller for my little kubota, tilled and planted the garden. Corn, cantaloupe, watermelon, potatoes, onions, brussel sprouts, broccoli, squash, zucchini, cucumbers, tomatoes, beets, beans, corn, strawberries,

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The H looking post set up, everything to the right of that is new garden area. After the gardens done I’ll add 20-30 tractor buckets of manure and till it in. Didn’t have time this year, due to spraying roundup and killing grass, and adding manure would bring in a ton of grass and weeds.

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Scored a ton of vinyl coated chain link fencing, currently installing it to keep raccoons and rabbits out of the garden. Combined with a hot wire from the cow pasture electric fence, should work well. Got a big roll left over so I can still expand the garden even more .

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My free gates didnt match, but should work well enough. I worked my ass off to get the gaps as tight as possible. Laid a 6x6 under them to prevent digging under, I’ll put 6” of the chain link under ground to help stop digging on the fence as well. Iv got a bunch of traps I got for .50 cents each from the scrap yard, as well as live catch traps, and thermal, so coons won’t be a problem anymore. Neighbor a mile away killed 23 raccoons in his garden in a week.

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I also scored biggly getting that canning gear. Got a full set, for $150.00 I bought…the all American 25 quart, another 23 quart, a small one, 2 hot bath canners, and for another $100.00 a bunch of house wares, sewing machine, knives, dishes, blankets, sewing / knitting stuff, cosmetics, decorating, kitchen stuff, cookers, popcorn popper, hot plate, electric skillet, coffee pot, quesadilla maker, coffee carafe, etc.   and a wide variety of other stuff. Women seemed happy.

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I ordered 2 ball canning books from eBay for $12.00 each, later today I’m picking up approx 10 cases of jars and some spare lids, and 10 more cases Friday on payday. That should get me well prepared for now, but I’ll buy another 10 cases first of each month. I’d like to have 300-400 jars and enough lids for 4-5 years put back by canning season.

I’m hoping to get / build a small green house next year and grow from seeds. That would be cool, and save money, but out local place has cheap plants, tomato plants a square are $2.25 this year, as we’re all the other plants,

Near Owensboro. Not on telegram.

@jpl

Yup ! Love it ! Thanks for the advice !

Hit my local rural Walmart,  and did my fall shopping 5 months early i took all the quart jars they had, scored 8 cases, also got a case of 1/2 gallons and 7 packs of lids, also scored a box of 30/30.

Friday / payday  ill hit some more walmarts , planning on getting at least 12 more cases of quarts, 2-3 cases of pints, and a few more cases of 1/2 gallons, and enough lids to do everything 2-3 more times. Best i can tell, all i need now is a canning funnel, and a weight for my other big canner.

Oh yeah, walmart check out chick says shes got a 23 quart canner shes selling in a yard sale, planning on asking $7.00 for it. I told her to bring it to work sat morning and id give her $10.00 for it.

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I'm not on Facebook any more, but there was a group on there called "Canning Rebels" that was an excellent resource.  The Ball Blue Book has changed a lot over the years and some things were deemed "unsafe" that are perfectly safe and have been removed.  Things like how to can meat, milk, soups, stews, etc.  A lot of other "lost arts" related to food preservation are on there.

Well worth a look.

The All American canner alone was worth what you paid for it all.  I am glad you can put it to use.

If the traps do not work for the coons I believe you posted in another thread a few days ago where a agricultural poison type was listed as a possible solution.  If you go that route, keep the poison away from all non target animals - like the dog in you picture.  Using the poison listed in that post would not lead to a condition where a vet or doctor could help you if the wrong animal or person got into it.

I prefer using a dog to alert & a 22lr myself.  I don't like the poison.  I have cats, dogs, & children.  Besides being illegal for that use, most every animal likes the sweet tasting sugar product it would be mixed with as bait.  Some folks I have heard of use it for large unfenced patches of sweet corn, where it is not possible otherwise to prevent coon damage.  Much larger patched than what a garden usually produces.

I'd suggest this book as I haven't seen it mentioned here.  "So easy to preserve" out of the University of Georgia.

iv got 2 ball canning books in the mail from ebay. i bought some lightly used ones for $12.00 each with free shipping. my amazon cart has some canning funnels in it and some strains as well. my 23 quart canner needs the weight for it, so ill have to order that. i might also order a new guage for the all american to make sure its working right. tomorrow ill grab another load of jars, focusing mainly on quarts, with a few cases of pints and 1/2 gallons thrown in, and a few hundred lids too, and sat pick up that other 23 quart canner from the walmart chick. .

ill be working on that damn chainlink fence for the next 10 days or so, pain in the ass installing it and burying the bottom 6" but should be worth it long term. iv got another big roll of it so next year i can double the size of the garden again if i want, go from approx 40x60 to approx 100x40.

its coming along slowly.  Gates are done, i got the gaps as tight as possible to keep raccoons out. there will be a center locking bar that locks the left gate closed, between the gates that will close that gap up a lot more once installed.  so gate and right side of fence done. ( Im doing the front first, the part that extends into the yard ) the rear will be attached to cedar fence posts, the electric hot wire installed last.

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Garden is looking good.  Curious what you'll do, if anything,  to keep deer out? They have occasionally jumped right over 5 feet of electric wire here, but I can't source 12 foot posts locally, and I'm not interested in putting up two runs of fencing ro prevent jumping

We have several herds of deer, but they tend to stay in the crop fields, and have never bothered our garden before. If they cause issues I’ll put up solar powered motion noise makers, or shoot them.

Early bird gets the worm.

Hit walmart at 6.30am this morning. They had restocked the 30/30 ammo n canning jars i cleared out on wednesday. I cleaned them out again today. Lol.

3 boxes of remington 150g 30/30,  

12 boxes of lids

10 cases of quart jars

2 cases of pint jars

1 case of 1/2 pints.

Between last weds haul and todays iv got a pretty good start to my canning supplies.

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The new garage shelving i build out of salvaged tornado lumber is coming in really handy.

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The gardens still alive !  Chain link anti-coon fence is coming along nicely too !

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The Walmart chick came thru.

16 quart pressure canner $7.00.  Also got another box of 30/30. That makes 5 trips in a week where Walmart had 30/30 ammo in stock.

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@buck19delta

Just wanted to share. I was scrolling Facebook a minute ago and started reading a post. Guy talking about his garden "upgreyyed". I'm like huh, I know where that word comes from! Started looking at the pics and recognized them. Apparently we are members of a few of the same groups! First time recognizing a fellow Arfcommer.

I know.....cool story bro!

Me too.  I even sent you a greeting Buck!!!