Amelia Jeanroy - Canning & Preserving For Dummies

Heat extra water in a teakettle or saucepan as a reserve. You want to make sure that the jars are covered with at least 1 to 2 inches of water. By adding preheated water, you don’t have to wait for the entire canner to reheat before continuing.

While you’re waiting to fill your jars, submerge the jars and lids in hot, not boiling, water, and keep your screw bands clean and handy as follows.

Jars: Submerge them in hot water in your kettle for a minimum of 10 minutes. Keep them there until you’re ready to fill them.

Lids: Wash single-use lids in hot, soapy water, then dry and set aside until needed. Sterilize reusable lids and gaskets in simmering water until you’re ready to use them.

Screw bands: These don’t need to be kept hot, but they do need to be clean. Place them where you’ll be filling your jars.

Always use food of the highest quality when you’re canning. If you settle for less than the best, your final product won’t have the quality you’re looking for. Carefully sort through your food, discarding any bruised pieces or pieces you wouldn’t eat in their raw state.

Follow the instructions in your recipe for preparing your food, like removing the skin or peel or cutting it into pieces.

Similarly, prepare your food exactly as instructed in your recipe. Don’t make any adjustments in ingredients or quantities of ingredients. Any alteration may change the acidity of the product, requiring pressure canning (see Chapter 9) instead of water-bath canning to kill microorganisms.

If your recipe states something specifically, it’s there for a reason. If you don’t follow the recipe instructions to the letter, your final results won’t be what the recipe intended.

Add your prepared food (cooked or raw) and hot liquid to your prepared jars as soon as they’re ready. Follow these steps:

1 Transfer your prepared food into the hot jars, adding hot liquid or syrup if your recipe calls for it, and being sure to leave the proper headspace.Use a wide-mouth funnel and a ladle to quickly fill your jars. You’ll eliminate a lot of spilling and have less to clean from your jar rims. It also helps cleanup and prevents slipping if you place your jars on a clean kitchen towel before filling.

2 Release any air bubbles with a nonmetallic spatula or a tool to free air bubbles. Add more prepared food or liquid to the jar after releasing the air bubbles to maintain the recommended headspace. Before applying the two-piece caps, always release air bubbles and leave the headspace specified in your recipe. These steps are critical for creating a vacuum seal and preserving your food.

3 Wipe the jar rims with a clean, damp cloth.If there’s one speck of food on the jar rim, the sealant on the lid edge won’t make contact with the jar rim and your jar won’t seal.

4 Place a hot lid onto each jar rim, sealant side touching the jar rim, and hand-tighten the screw band.Don’t overtighten because air needs to escape during the sealing process.

With your jars filled, you’re ready to begin processing. Follow these steps:

1 Place the jar rack in your canning kettle, suspending it with the handles on the inside edge of the kettle.

2 Place the filled jars in the jar rack, making sure they’re standing upright and not touching each other.Although the size of your kettle seems large, don’t be tempted to pack your canner with jars. Only place as many jars as will comfortably fit yet still allow water to move freely between them. And always process jars in a single layer in the jar rack. If your recipe calls for the same processing times for half-pint and pint jars, you may process those two sizes together. Otherwise, don’t process half-pint or pint jars with quart jars because the larger amount of food in quart jars requires a longer processing time to kill any bacteria and microorganisms.

3 Unhook the jar rack from the edge of the kettle, carefully lowering it into the hot water, and add water if necessary. Air bubbles coming from the jars are normal. If your jars aren’t covered by 1 to 2 inches of water, add boiling water from your reserve teakettle or saucepan to achieve this level. Be careful to pour this hot water between the jars, instead of directly on top of them, to prevent splashing yourself with hot water.

4 Cover the kettle and heat the water to a full, rolling boil, reducing the heat and maintaining a gentle, rolling boil for the amount of time indicated in the recipe.Start your processing time after the water boils. Maintain a boil for the entire processing period.If you live at an altitude above 1,000 feet above sea level, you need to adjust your processing time. Check out “ Adjusting Your Processing Times at High Altitudes” later in this chapter for details.

After you complete the processing time, immediately remove your jars from the boiling water with a jar lifter and place them on clean, dry kitchen or paper towels away from drafts, with 1 or 2 inches of space between the jars.

If you are using single-use lids, don’t attempt to adjust the bands or check the seals — simply step away and allow them to cool completely. If you are using reusable lids, allow the jars to cool for 5 to 10 minutes and then tighten the bands securely, using a clean dish towel to protect your hands from the hot metal and glass. The cooling period may take 12 to 24 hours.

No matter what type of lids you are using, do not try to hurry the cooling process by cooling the jars in any way. This may result in unsealed jars or cracked glass.

After your jars have completely cooled, test your seals on the single-use lids by pushing on the center of the lid (see Figure 4-2). If the lid feels solid and doesn’t indent, you have a successful vacuum seal — congratulations! If the lid depresses in the center and makes a popping noise when you apply pressure, the jar isn’t sealed. Immediately refrigerate unsealed jars, using the contents within two weeks or as stated in your recipe. (See the nearby sidebar, “Reprocessing unsealed jars,” for do-over advice.)

FIGURE 4-2:Testing your jar seal.

Test a reusable lid by removing the metal band from the cooled jar and slightly lifting the jar off the work surface, holding on to just the lid. A properly sealed jar can be lifted by the lid. An unsealed jar — you guessed it — will allow you to lift that lid right back off again.

Jars may not seal for several reasons: You may have miscalculated the processing time, pieces of food may not have been cleaned from the jar rim, you may have left an improper amount of headspace, or the sealant on the lids may have been defective. The safest and easiest method for treating processed jars that didn’t seal is to refrigerate the jar immediately and use the product within two weeks.