Home preserving

[michellew]

Does anyone here do it? What do you use, and is there a particular book that you would recommend?

I have been looking at the Fowlers Vacola (would love a stove top model but they are hard to find secondhand) but also pressure canners.

thanks

Michelle

[Eilleen]

yep I've been preserving. Using this book (link is to my blog showing pics of book - scroll down) to do it. I haven't been using the Fowlers - I'm just using screw top jars (with metal lids) that I've recycled from my parents. I've been sterilising them on the stove top and then using the oven to do it ala what the book says - its an old book (circa 1950s) and so its really basic and doesn't expect me to have any of the "latest gizmos" when it comes to preserving.

Haven't used a pressure canner but I'd love one!

[Toria]

If you have a stack of bottles but no lids, this place (link) sells new lids.

[kirrily]

Ohhh if I get some decent fruit from the trees in my new yard, I'm going to try this too. I used to help mum do it all the time when we were kids. Not sure what the trees are yet, but I think mum thought apricot, pear and something else as well as mulberry. Will know more when they get their leaves which I think they may have now.

When we did it, we just had the vacola jars/lids and a big boiler and did it on the stove top.

[Ali]

I do lots of it - I have an old vacola unit as well as a pressure canner.
I vary which one I use depending on what I'm preserving. Last year I preserved about 120 Kilos of tomatoes in various ways, mostly pasta sauce and tomato sauce and tomato puree for winter casseroles. I didn't do enough pasta sauce to last the year out, so this season I will have to do loads more! But the tomatoes I used were 10 kilo boxes of sauce tomatoes that I can get for about $7 so it isn't as expensive an outlay as it feels like.

I also did a couple of batches of mustard pickles (all gone now) , dill cucumbers (only one left!) marinated mushrooms (all gone) and various relishes. The only things that I did which I haven't eaten many of is the bottled fruit. I have loads of it, but we generally don't eat dessert here, so we haven't used more than one or two jars.

My pressure canner gets heaps of use too, I make my own baked beans (in homemade tomato sauce, or BBQ sauce - sometimes with meatballs in there too!) and every time I do a batch of those, they only last about 2 weeks before they are all gone. The kids seem to like them a lot more than the canned ones. I've done lots of soup and stock and chicken in the pressure canner too. I did have plans for doing meatloaf in the canner, and a few other casseroles, but since I started work I've found it very difficult to find the time to do it all - you need to have a large slot of time when you are home and able to watch the pressure gauge on the canner for an hour and a half and that doesn't happen when the only days you are home are school and kindy drop-off days!

Id say go for it though. There is so much stuff you can do, and it's all FREE storage for a couple of years once you've got things canned up (well, free as in no ongoing power cost - finding room in your house to store things can be tricky!)

I'll find some pics of my bedroom wardrobe and the linen closet, which have been taken over by jars *grin*




I have a few preserving books - I have bought most of them from Green Living Australia

They have good service. Also, there is an online course you can do for free in canning and preserving foods. It's run through an american university, which is actually a good thing, seeing as how HUGE canning and preserving at home is in certain parts of the US. THey have a great range of info. AHhh! I foudn the link LOL
National Center for Home Food Preservation

It's a great resource.

Also one of my fav. US sites for step by step canning recipes and photo guides is here Home Canning and Freezing

Lovely couple who can more than I could ever dream of doing!

If you have any more q's throw them in my direction - I've spent the last years and a half researching this stuff pretty extensively.

Ali

[michellew]

Thanks Ali. I have been trying to track down a stove top Vacola but keeping getting beaten at the last minute on Ebay.

I am mainly wanting to preserve tomato based things, and would love to do some cherries, peaches apricots etc so we have those available all year.

So do pressure canners do a different thing and I wouldn't be able to use it for the above?

[Ali]

Essentially you can divide food processing at home into two categories - low acid foods, which require a pressure canner to safely can, and high-acid foods, which require a water-bath to safely preserve.

To uncomplicate things further - a pressure canner is just a really big pressure cooker. It cooks the contents of your jars at 115deg.C (can go above boiling point BECAUSE it is under pressure). You can use a regular pressure cooked IF it has a pressure dial on it and is big enough to fit your jars in.

A waterbath is essentially what the fowlers vacola unit is. BUT if you are only doing a small amount of preserving at a time, you really don't even need one of those. I have a big aluminium pot from the cheap shop, that has a round cake rack in the bottom of it. That does exactly the same job as a fowlers vacola unit - you just need a pot big enough to handle the jars you want to preserve, and tall enough to cover the jars with about 2 inches of water whilst boiling. The cake rack in the bottom keeps the bottoms of the jars off the direct heat source and prevents them from cracking. You can even use a wedge of folded newspapers, or a wad of old tea towels in the bottom of the pot to stop that!

If all you are planning on preserving is fruit and tomatoes, then that is all you really need.

The trick with tomatoes is to ensure they are high enough in acid - when I preserve tomato-based recipes, i ALWAYS add a good tablespoon of bottled lemon juice to the top of the jars, before putting the lids on and preserving in the waterbath. The lemon juice doesn't change the flavour at all but it does increase the acidity in the jar and help prevent bacterial infections.

If

[Kris]

Wow Ali, you are a preserving queen!

We have been doing a bit of fruit but need to do more, love the pears and apples for making a quick crumble dessert.

Michelle, I can't remember where you are but we have a spare stove top vacolla (we use the electric one now that MIL bought us) Just have to check with DP in case he has plans for it.

[michellew]

Kris that would be fantastic if you don't need it anymore. I am in Canberra, but am happy to pay for shipping as well as the unit.

Michelle