Posted: 2/9/2008 4:48:26 PM EDT
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I am in the midst of my first pressure canning experience. I cleaned utensils and sterilized the jars and lids like I would for water bath canning. I filled my pint jars with my favorite chilli recipe minus the tomatoes and beans(which are already in cans), leaving 1in. of head space IAW the instructions from the Ball Blue Book. The jars are in the canner with the "10" side of the weight in the nipple just jiggling away. I should be taking it off the heat in about 70min. I figure it everything works well this will be a quick way to put together a home cooked meal in just a few minutes and a good way to convince my wife that we can safely can meat at home. I hope one of the resident canning experts will critique my project and prevent a trip to the ER if I have seriously fouled up somewhere. I will update later with an AAR, no promises on pictures as I am still a bit fuzzy on the photo hosting thing. |
| Thanks for the input. Two more lids did pop down, I may have just been impatient. I think I did cook em too long. I used the instruction for chopped meat out of the Balls Blue Book and left it run for 90 min. That may be appropriate for quarts not pints. We will try out the jar that didnt seal for lunch tomorrow and see how it is. |
Better than my first time......I pulled the weight off with a couple pounds showing on the dial gage. The quick change in pressure caused all the jars to boil over in the canner and foul the seals with tomato. I had to redo the batch and they were cooked a bit too mushy. Still fine for chili which is what I put them up for anyhow. |
With any recipe that has fat in it I wipe the jar rims with a clean cloth that's been dipped in vinegar before placing the lid........seems to help the sealage rate. Sounds like you did just fine though. 
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A couple of things, when the weight starts to jiggle is when the timer starts. The weight should jiggle 3 to 5 times a minute, more than that and you are over pressureizing the canner and over cooking the contents. When the canner depressurizes remove the jars, place on a couple of towels and cover with a couple of towels. This will allow the jars/contents to cool naturally and eliminate cooling off to quickly. Cooling to quickly and over pressureizing the canner will both cause a failure to seal problem. This is from over 40 years of canning. |
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Thanks for the advise. The chilli turned out very well. I was concerned that it would be way over cooked but it was just fine. I think I had the heat too high, the weight jiggled constantly and I suppose that may have contributed to the sealing problem. I do wipe off the rims of the jars but haven't used vinegar previously, I will do that next time. I plan on doing a couple more batches before it gets warm here. I have been out of home grown garlic for a while now but I still have some peppers left in the freezer. Instead of canning when its 90+ deg outside we have been processing veggies as we harvest and freeze them till the weather cools off, then we can the stuff and heat the house at the same time. In the coming years I hope to get the timing right so all the frozen stuff is canned in time for venison to go in the freezer. The venison doesn't seem to last long enough to crowd out veggies come summer though. Last years deer may have been small but he sure tastes good. Any recommendations for getting the mineral haze off of the jars and out of the canner? Thanks again. |