I’ve been trying to learn how to can things in preparation for what had better be a great crop of pickling cucumbers. So last night, I managed to produce three (and a stupid half) jars of Blueberry Honey Jam from frozen blueberries. So far so good, although my kitchen got so humid that when I opened the fridge it made fog. (I just typoed that my fridge made God, which would have been a whole nother can of worms, except last night after the wierdness of this canning thing it wouldn’t really have surprised me very much.)
So, here’s my question. In the Canning Books of Death (who knew there were so many ways to die just putting food by?) it always tells you to boil the jars before you fill them, but it doesn’t exactly say what it means by that. (I’ve also read that you can put them in the dishwasher on heated dry, but my dishwasher doesn’t tell me when it’s done and I just guesstimate and I don’t want to have to watch the stupid thing.) Do you just put water in there, like, up half the side and stand them upright? Will that sterilize them? Are they supposed to have water on the inside too? Obviously they can’t have their lids on, because their lids are in a seperate pan. How much water do I need to boil these jars?
It’s a rather pressing question, because it takes a really long time to get it boiling, of course. If you do them lying down in the water, will the water inside the jars affect your food? If you can stand there drying superheated glass jars, you’re a stronger man than I by far. Just what is necessary to get these things sterilized?
Also, what technically counts as a boil in one of those big pots? It was probably half an hour between when the pot made boiling noises and I saw bubbles moving around at the bottom and when it was actually boiling at the top - roiling water and all. I waited until I saw a lot of surface movement before I started timing for my processing, which I didn’t think would be a big deal for this jam but for my pickles? I don’t want everything cooked to death, but I want it safe. I guess I should have kept it closer to boiling while I filled the jars, but like everything you do when you’re not sure of yourself it all took a lot longer than it should have. I did get a good seal, but I’m concerned I may have overprocessed.
My farmer grandmother is dead, my mother only made pickles once, and my aunts would think it was the dumbest question they’d ever heard in my life and blame my Yankee mother for not raising me right if I asked them, so I turn to you guys - somebody here has got to be a canning goddess, and I figure if you’re still around the botulism didn’t get you.
Not exactly sure what you’re asking, but here’s a Google return that should help:
Nothttp://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=sterilizing+jars+for+home+canning
So, according to that there should be water in the jars? (I mean, that’s what I did, so great and all, but it’s kinda hard to pour the water out with your jar lifter so you don’t kill youself on the hot stuff)
I have canned salmon many times, which is far more susceptible to spoiling than preserves, and I just put the jars through the dishwasher with heated dry. Don’t need to add any water. Your dishwasher doesn’t have a light that goes off when it is done, or a knob that turns to “off”?
Mom always boiled the jars with water in and around them. She would then lift a jar with strong rubber tipped tongs and tip it to pour the scalding water back into the pot before lifting the jar all the way out and putting it upside down on a freshly cleaned tea towel to air dry (takes only a couple of minutes for water that hot to evaporate off).
Boiling means boiling. Large bubbles breaking the surface of the water. Yeah, it can take a long time.
My job when we were canning was to take a tea towel wrapped around my finger and wipe the edges of the filled jar clean before mom and I put the lids and rings on. Small fingers were an asset for this job. Steal a neighbor’s kid if you don’t have one of your own. (My other job was to take the blanched tomatoes and pop their skins off under icewater. But that’s the only fun part of canning, as far as I can tell, so you might want to save that for yourself.)
Okay, thanks - I guess it just takes forever to boil. Now, another question - some pickle recipes tell you to wait six weeks or so before you try them, so they get properly pickled I guess. They don’t all say that. Should you always wait anyway for pickles? And how long?
Pickling is a process. The chemical changes don’t happen all that fast, especially if they’re whole (gherkins, frex). I’d follow the directions, if I were you.
I remember when my stepmother made “bread and butter” pickles. New pickles tasted very different from those that were properly aged.
Well, I figured that about the process, it’s just funny that not all of the directions I’ve got tell you to wait, or for how long. I wish they just said, you know, “Anything you pickle - two months” or something. I remember waiting and waiting and waiting for my mom’s bread and butter pickles that year she made them. They were awfully good, too.
You can also chemically sanitize with dilute bleach, but if you are doing a boiling water canning, you might as well boil to sanitize. Bleach can leave a residue which can create an off flavor. When I can it is usually like this:
Start the canner, full of water, on the largest burner on high. Take a break to review the recipie. Prepare the food at a nice restful pace. Place jars in boiling water in canner (and boiling means lots of turbulence and steam and some splashing) and start 10 minute timer. Now, if you have planned everything right, your recipe is about 10 minutes from done, if not, always err towards having the jars boiled before the food is ready. Once the food and jars are ready, I take out one jar, dump the water back into the canner, put food in the jar, lid, place back into canner. Repeat until cans are all full. My sister, OTOH removes all jars at once and places them upside down on a clean towel and then fills them. Once the jars filled and in the canner, wait for boiling again (turbulence, steam, splash, etc.) and start your timer again.
I control steam and humidity by using a lid on my canner unless I am putting things in or takeing them out, by opening windows if weather allows, and by making sure to dump the canner as soon as I am done processing…it takes a loooong time for all the water to cool off, if you dump it, it doesn’t evaporate into your kitchen. As a food safety professional, I have to say that you should always err on the side of safety. If you pickles are a little overcooked, they will still taste wonderful. If they are a little undercooked, they can kill you.
My favorite pickles are the naturally fermented kind that are made in the sun. They do this throughout Eastern Europe, Central Asia, and I suspect many other places. They have a very nice lactic rather than acetic flavor, and can be enjoyed in as little as three days. You don’t have to can them, or anything. I just put them in a giant 1 gallon jar, and place them out in the sun for 2 or 3 days.
Thanks, guys, this has been great advice. Just tried the easy carrot pickles from Small Batch Preserving, one of them didn’t seal. If I want to reprocess, can I just sterilize a new lid and process as normal, or do I have to dump the contents, sterilize the jar, reinsert the contents, put on a new lid, and process? (I know the lid must be new.)
There are many different recipes for pickles, and the time needed varies greatly. The kind my mom usually makes are done after two days. I’d say that if your recipe specifies a time, trust the recipe. If it doesn’t specify, well, it doesn’t hurt to leave them longer.
And I’ve heard all sorts of terrible, horrible things that can happen if a jar isn’t sealed. I think that they’re mostly in the category of “the jar didn’t seal, and then it stayed out for a while”. But given the potential risks, I wouldn’t feel comfortable with anything less than throwing away the contents, re-sterilizing, and re-doing the recipe entirely with new carrots. Besides, carrots are cheap.
Depends on the process. If it was cold pack (you put in room temperature carrots and added brine) you can do that again. If it was hot pack (you cooked carrots for a while in brine and then put them in hot) you have to do that again, which will yield very mushy carrot pickles. If there is nothing wrong with the jar or the band, you can reuse them, the jar should be resterilized. You can refrigerate the unsealed jar right away (no later than the morning after) and keep it refrigerated during the pickling time and eat it out of the frige. Most importantly, you should try to figure out why it didn’t seal.
Nah!
You check the seals on the jars before you put them away in the cellar. Any that didn’t seal are just ones that you get to eat up right away. If you eat them up in a coupl of days (and keep them refrigerated during that time), they’ll be fine.
Of course, any unsealed ones that you find in the cellar weeks later must indeed be thrown. Usually they’re so moldy & awful anyway that you’d never consider eating them.
This is based on what my mother has been doing in canning for 60+ years now, and my helping her for the last 30 of that. And the whole family has survived quite well eating that canning.
If I want to reprocess, can I just sterilize a new lid and process as normal, or do I have to dump the contents, sterilize the jar, reinsert the contents, put on a new lid, and process? (I know the lid must be new.)