As the title says, I need recommendations for a starter pressure canner. Last fall, we planted some fruit trees and it looks like we may have a pretty good crop of apricots, peaches, and apples.

We are just starting to learn about canning and haven't bought any gear yet.

What would you recommend as a starter kit? We plan on doing pints and quarts.

Bruce

You won’t need a pressure canner for those fruits, you need a water bath canner, which is just a large kettle.

Go here National Food Preservation UGA

Don’t use granny’s recipes, only use the link I gave you and as well the Ball Book, buy a new copy of the Ball Book, it’s the bible so to speak.

But to try to answer your question, I have a Presto pressure canner and also 2 All American Pressure Canners. My opinion is to buy an All American. They are very well built and don’t use a gasket. The problem with a gasketed pressure canner is the gasket breaks, gets lost, and you won’t have one on hand when you get going.

You’ll need a jar lifter, funnel, magnetic lid lifter, ladle, stirrer to poke out air bubbles, a few other things, these are cheap and can be bought in a kit. These and a water bath canner can be bought at Walmart, hardware store, etc, nothing really special about them.

Go here too, Ball website, excellent. Ball Website

Good luck to you, and enjoy.
.

I plan on trying my hand at canning everything. Fruits is just what we will have on hand soon and need a way to preserve the bounty. I'm looking forward to learning about all of it.

Bruce

Water bath works well on most every thing but corn,you need a pressure canner for that,wal- mart is where I got my second one,sears for the first one but I lost that one in a divorce.
Go big with both and propane frier for a heat source.
I use three and set up an assembly line.

We use a large kettle for most of our hot water bath canning, but you can use a pressure canner too. The large kettles are more common, and you can pick up a jar rack that fits them.

here is an inexpensive starter set for hot water bath. Hot Water Bath Canner Kit

We just started our pressure canning last year, primarily for potatoes, but I had some free time and started canning just about anything my wife wanted to pick up from our CSA.

This is a relatively inexpensive starter for a pressure canner.

Pressure Canner

All American, nuff said.

I have to disagree with 45 Cal a little. You really need to pressure can green beans, corn and asparagus. We pressure cook tomatoes as well just to speed up the process. We have both, a Presto and an All American pressure cooker and they both do well. the gasket on the Presto usually lasts 2 seasons.

Jim

The wife just got the Presto one for last Christmas. The Same One DanPatWork posted.
She could not see spending the money for the All American one. Up to that point she has been using a Presto pressure cooker. That worked well with the pint jars.

You can get a lot of good information from Starry Hilder You Tube Canning.

https://www.bing.com/videos/se...434A8415D938BB5A4BA5

quote:

Originally posted by Jimbo54:
I have to disagree with 45 Cal a little. You really need to pressure can green beans, corn and asparagus. We pressure cook tomatoes as well just to speed up the process. We have both, a Presto and an All American pressure cooker and they both do well. the gasket on the Presto usually lasts 2 seasons.

Jim

You have to pressure can anything that isn't sufficiently acidic (pH below about 4.6). This includes meat and many vegetables (if you don't pickle them before canning - pickling generally makes them acidic enough that hot water bath canning is safe).

The reason for this comes down to botulism.

Hot water bath canning will kill botulism bacteria, but it will not kill botulism spores - so if you hot water bath can something contaminated with botulism spores, even though you've sterilized all the bacteria, a new population of botulism bacteria will form and poop one of the most potent neurotoxins known to man into your food.

Botulism bacteria and spores are particularly common in dirt, so anything that touches dirt (like root vegetables) is especially susceptible to contamination, but ANYTHING can be contaminated.

However, botulism bacteria can't live in an acidic environment with pH below about 4.6.

So, you have two options for preventing problems with botulism:

1. Can things that are acidic enough that botulism isn't an issue.

2. Can things using a high enough temperature to destroy botulism spores, which requires pressure canning.

My aunt learned this from fortunately not-too-painful experience. She hot water bath canned a large crop of potatoes (100+ jars worth), which are not acidic enough to prevent the growth of botulism bacteria, and come out of the ground, and so are particularly likely to be contaminated. Fortunately, no one got poisoned, because the growth of the botulism bacteria in the jars was vigorous enough that the increased pressure caused a bunch of the jars to explode, creating a huge mess in her pantry and alerting her that there was a problem.

This is where the old thing about not eating swollen metal cans (or jars with the button popped up before you open them) comes from - the swollen can generally indicates that the food wasn't sufficiently pasteurized and botulism bacteria has been growing in it, pressurizing the can to the point that it expands.

Well, on the plus side, my wife has been asking for my agreement on her getting Botox treatments for her frown lines

Bruce

quote:

Originally posted by old rugged cross:
All American, nuff said.

This ^^^ It’ll work for pressure or water bath canning. Your grand kids will fight over it down the road.

quote:

Originally posted by RNshooter:
Well, on the plus side, my wife has been asking for my agreement on her getting Botox treatments for her frown lines

Bruce

I know it's a joke, but I'm still kind of blown away that the most toxic substance known is intentionally injected to reduce wrinkles.

A full Botox vial (more than is typically used in a treatment) contains less than 1 nanogram of botulinum toxin. NANOgram! 0.000000001 grams!

1 microgram (not milligram) is plenty to kill someone. It is literally a million times more toxic than arsenic.

I decided to buy an All American 921 from a member that made me a kind offer.

Spare parts? Not necessary? I know the unit itself will be good for generations but everything requires maintenance, I would think.

Bruce

Another vote for All America - built like a tank, no gasket to wear out. Several sizes available, we have the 915 (15qt model) which holds 10 pints or 7 quart jars. I can green beans, tomatoes, and pickles. I don't have to pressure can the tomatoes necessarily, but otherwise need to add acid which changes the flavor in my opinion.

Gentlemen looks like I took some heat back up there.Well that is ok ,and I hope I don't get sick from all that water bath tomatoes and green beans I helped mother with in the early fifties
to last year when I put several dozen quarts of tomatoes and green beans
We banked our potatoes[that got you wandering],sugar cane ,sweet potatoes .
We canned crouder peas and butter beans[water bath]
We did not have a pressure cooker so corn was fried in a cast iron skill while it was fresh.
Rest was fed to hogs and milk cow and chickens.
We ate lots of free range chickens and was usually 200 running the Three acher gardens.
We did lots of trading excess also

Botulism is not actually all that common, but if you get unlucky, it is bad news.

From what I have read, it seems like thorough cooking breaks down botulinum toxin, so the biggest risk is water bath canned meats and vegetables that are taken out of the can/jar and eaten without being cooked again. Don't take my word for it. I wouldn't eat potentially contaminated cans/jars no matter how much I cooked them after taking the stuff out of the cans/jars. Just isn't worth it.

Here's a 2018 article about a German couple that got botulism from home canned green beans. They were on life support for five months and in the hospital for most of a year before eventually recovering

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/he...ned-green-beans.html

Here's a 2015 article about a church potluck where potato salad made from home canned potatoes killed one person and put 24 more in the hospital.

https://www.foodsafetynews.com...bout-canning-safely/

Sure, you probably won't ever have a problem, but why take the risk? If you do have a problem, you are going to be really sick or die - or worse, so will the other people you fed it to.

Low-acid foods should only be pressure canned.

Bruce, if you just want to be sure you can send it to All American to be tested and calibrated. In a lot of places the county ag extension office can usually test them. I would probably put it together with some water in it, put the weight on the 10# setting and purge steam for a few minutes. After a few minutes close the relief and watch it build pressure. See what the gauge is reading when the weight starts dancing. If it is really close to 10 I would call it good.

If you haven't jumped on the insta-pot bandwagon look for a Carey pressure canner. Electronic pressure cooker certified for canning. The nice thing is it will do 4 pints or quarts which is helpful when you don't have a big batch to do. My wife doesn't like dealing with the All-American so she uses the Carey. She also doesn't typically can big batches like I do.

I use our canner all the time. When we put 1/2 or a whole beef in the freezer I will take the cheaper cuts, cube and brown them and then can them. Easy chili or stew that doesn't take long to put together.

Enjoy, Mark

Congratulations on the pressure canner, that’s wonderful.

There are lots of comments above about this and that, so I’m going to stress going to NCHFP
again. This is the definitive resource of how to do Food Preservation and what is safe and not safe as well as how to get the best tasting results. Spend some time going completely through it, especially the How To Section.

Have fun, enjoy, be safe, best wishes to everyone.

EDIT: are you in Las Vegas? You can get your new canner checked for free at the University of Nevada Cooperative Extension there, as well as many other locations. Here’s a link http://www.unce.unr.edu and more specifics Link. You can click the Locations tab too. This is a great resource.

Thanks everyone for all the helpful comments and links. I will definitely be stopping by the Cooperative Extension. We are already familiar faces there since planting fruit trees, last fall. We take every unidentified insect and brown leaf to them, for advice. Very knowledgeable and happy to help the rookies out

I am really looking forward to putting by some good food!

Bruce