Lou McLeod: How to Can Food at Home – 8 Steps for Safe Canning

How to Can Food at Home – 8 Steps for Safe Canning was first published on Total Survival

How to Can Food at Home - The difference between water bath canning and pressure canning, basic equipment for home canning, general canning tips & recipes.

Home canning allows you to preserve almost any food – even entire meals. Once your jars are sealed, all you need is a cool, dark space to stash your bounty. No electricity is required for storage (unlike freezing) and no water is needed to serve (unlike dehydrating). This makes home canned goods an excellent storage food for times when the power is out or water service is interrupted. If you can cook basic recipes, you should be able to can food at home.

In this post I’ll discuss how to can safely, basic equipment for home canning, and general canning tips.

8 Basic Steps to Can Food at Home

Decide what food you want to can.
Find a safe canning recipe for that food.
Assemble your canning supplies such as a water bath or pressure canner, jars, lids, funnel, jar lifter, etc. (See full list below.)
Gather your produce and other ingredients and prepare according to safe canning guidelines.
Process your home canned goods in a boiling water bath canner or steam pressure canner for recommended processing time and rest time.
Remove jars from canner and place on a towel to cool (12-24 hours). Try to avoid tipping jars too much as you remove them from the canner so you don’t get food in the jar seal.
Check seals on jars. If jar has not sealed properly, refrigerate and consume within a couple of days. Remove rings for storage, wipe any spills or drips.
Store jars in a cool, dry location, out of direct sunlight. Use within 1-2 years for best quality.

Recommended Resources:

How Does Home Canning Work?

In simplest terms, you put food in a jar and heat treat it to kill off microbes that will spoil it. When processed correctly, all air is driven out from the headspace (the area between the top of the food and the jar lid), and a vacuum is formed. No air + no microbes = preserved food.

Originally, this type of preservation was done with tin cans, thus the term, “canning” versus “jarring”. The Mason jar was introduced in 1858.

There are two types of home canning – water bath canning, and pressure canning.

Water Bath Canning

Water bath canning is used for canning high acid foods (foods that have a pH of 4.6 or lower). This includes:

Fruits
Most soft spreads
Tomatoes (with added lemon or citric acid)
Pickles and other high acid foods

For water bath canning, you can use a commercial water bath canner or any large pot, as long as you have enough room in the pot to cover the jars with at least one inch of water.

You must not allow jars to sit directly on the bottom of the pot, or they will be more likely to break. (One option to keep jars off of the bottom of the pot is to make a “rack” of canning rings.) You can use your pressure canner for water bath canning – just leave the vent open.

If you plan to do any amount of canning, a standard water bath canner is fairly inexpensive and well worth the investment.

Pressure Canning

Pressure canning is required for low acid foods (foods with a pH higher than 4.6). This includes:

Meats
Seafood
Poultry
Dairy products* (canning dairy is not generally recommended)
Vegetables
Soups and Meals

Why do we need to pressure can these foods? Clostiridum botulinum – otherwise known as botulism toxin – which can be deadly. This bacteria lives in soils and sediments, so it’s everywhere, but most of the time it doesn’t cause trouble, because it lives with lots of other bacteria.

Here’s the problem – botulism grows at temperatures between 40-120°F (5-49ºC) and oxygen levels below 2 percent – like the inside of a sealed canning jar. High acid foods (pH ≤ 4.6) keep botulism spores from germinating into live cells.

To destroy the botulism spores, low acid foods must be processed at 240-250 F (116-121 C) under pressure of 10-15 pounds per square inch (psi) at sea level. Always follow a tested recipe when canning low acid foods.

Below I cover some basic canning equipment that you can buy online or in most hardware stores. You may also be able to find some of it used.

How to Can Food at Home - The difference between water bath canning and pressure canning, basic equipment for home canning, general canning tips & recipes.

Basic Equipment Needed for Home Canning

Starting at top left in the above photo and working clockwise.

Water Bath Canner – Water bath canners are used for canning high acid foods (having a pH of 4.6 or lower). They are a large pot with a lid and a rack in the bottom to keep the jars off the bottom of the canner.

Jelly Strainer Bag – The white baggie thing in the middle of the photo is a jelly strainer bag. I love this thing. Not only to I use it for straining jellies, I also use it for straining stocks and herbal infusions.

Pressure Canner/Steam Pressure Canner – A steam pressure canner is required for all low-acid foods, such as veggies, meat, soups and stews. I don’t recommend canning things like bread, pumpkin butter or chocolate syrup at home. Botulism can be deadly. If I had a nickel for every time I’ve heard someone say, “Well I know so-and-so who has done it this way for years and they never got sick”, I could retire early. All it takes is one jar of food gone bad. What’s your family’s health worth to you? You should get your canner tested every 3-5 years at a local extension office to make sure it is holding pressure properly.

Kitchen Scale – Kitchen scales are a necessity when you get into recipes like salsas or sauces, but they also come in handy for gauging how many jars you’ll need for the amount of produce you have, for knowing how much syrup to make to cover your fruit or for measuring sugar for jams and jellies. The one I have used to be my grandmother’s. It’s been around a while (okay, it’s much older than my kids), but it still works just fine.

Canning Ladle – A big, stainless steel ladle that holds at least 1 1/2 to two cups of product will allow you to fill jars much faster than a standard kitchen ladle.

Chopstick or thin non-metal spatula – You need some sort of long, thin object to run around the outside of jars to remove air bubbles. We have chopsticks on hand, so I just use one of those. Don’t use a knife or other metal object, as you may scratch the inside of the jar and damage it.

Kitchen tongs or a magnetic jar lid lifter – Again, since I have kitchen tongs on hand, I just use those, but magnetic jar lid lifters can also be used. You want to hold your lids in nice hot water (not boiling) to get them ready to seal. It’s a little hot to stick your fingers into.

Jar lifter – Another must have – canning jars get wicked hot, so you really need a proper jar lifter to move them about.

Jar Funnel – A good jar funnel will make it MUCH easier to fill jars, even wide mouth ones. Big ladle, big funnel, and you’re done filling in half the time.

Food strainer – useful for making sauces. Mine get used most for marinara sauce and apple sauce.

Apple Peeler/Corer/slicer – I use this more for dehydrating, but if you’re interested in canning apple pie filling, this would be handy. (Norpro Apple Master)

What Foods Are Easiest to Can?

Full sugar jams and jellies are probably the easiest foods to start with, because they process for only short amounts of time in a water bath canner and are really hard to screw up. Low sugar versions are only a bit trickier. Plain tomatoes or tomato juice is also very simple, as are fruits and fruit juices.

General Canning Tips

Get your jars, lids and all your equipment prepped before you start preparing your product.
Work from one direction to the other – from right to left or left to right, depending on how your stove is set up. Don’t cross back and forth – it gets messy.
Keep everything hot. You’ll remember this tip very quickly if you lower a cold jar into boiling water, or ladle hot syrup into a cold jar. Jars break rather impressively and make a huge mess.
Always check and double check the edges of your jars and your lids. Any imperfection along the edge of a jar, and it is unlikely to seal properly.
Keep everything clean. You’ll have drips and spills, sure, but remember this is food prep, so try to keep your work space clear of outside contaminants such as hair or dirt.

For additional information on canning and other home food preservation methods, see “New to Food Preserving – Start Here“. Also, “The Natural Canning Resource Book” answers nearly every question I’ve ever had about canning.

Home canning will allow you to stock your pantry with quality food at affordable prices – with no mystery ingredients. If you have canning questions, just ask, and I’ll do my best to help. I’ve been canning ever since I was a little girl (many decades ago), and keep out to date on the latest canning safety guidelines.

How to Can Food at Home - The difference between water bath canning and pressure canning, basic equipment for home canning, general canning tips & recipes.

Canning and Preserving Recipes

Home Canned Spaghetti Sauce

Home Canned Salsa That Tastes a Lot Like a National Brand – Except Better

Homemade Ketchup – Canned

Pickle Relish Sweetened With Honey

No Canning Required Dill Pickles

How to Can Green Beans

Pickled Dilly Beans with Garlic and Cayenne Pepper

Gram Irene’s Pickled Beets

Rhubarb-B-Q Sauce and Rhubarb-Orange Compote

Preserving Asparagus Three Ways – Freezing, Drying and Lactofermenting

Pickled Peppers

Jams and Jellies

You can download a set of pdf instructions for making and creating your own low and no-sugar jams and jellies with Pomona’s Pectin (my favorite low sugar pectin) by clicking on the image or text below. Shared with permission from Pomona’s Pectin.

Pomona Pectin Directions