What is the deal with canning?

[broox]

I am totally ignorant about canning your own foodstuffs.  I read threads on here and it is like another hobby.  Is it cheaper than just buying canned goods, or is it the satisfaction of doing it yourself?

[enfield]

Don't know about cost, but I think home-canned food tastes better, plus I enjoy doing it. Being a poor hunter, I concentrate on veggies and buy my meat. :D

[itchytriggerfinger]

The biggest thing for me is you don't have all the crap in your own canning that you get in the processed foods.  We don't can a lot, but we do freeze a lot of things.  Freezing doesn't do much good for SHTF situations, but I'm an optimist and feel I will live a long life and die with my freezer intact :)

[Jonnin]

I am totally ignorant about canning your own foodstuffs.  I read threads on here and it is like another hobby.  Is it cheaper than just buying canned goods, or is it the satisfaction of doing it yourself?

 

Tomatos are probably one of the most noticable cases.... ever grow your own or had some that were?  Try a taste test side by side with the tasteless waterballs you get from a store (or even so-called local produce stands).   Everything you grow yourself tastes better because the soil and techniques used to mass grow things makes the result less good.  There are only 3 real ways to preserve your own once you grow it... dry it, freeze it, or can it.   Freezing stuff with lots of water expands the water and turns the poor veggie to mush.  Drying stuff is as, or more, aggravating than canning.  

[JWC]

Personally I like gardening and eating what i grow. I like having the stuff around to eat throughout the year and i hate wasting stuff from the garden. In a dire situation we'll have it. Canned goods aren't all that expensive but I don't have to buy the things that we grow and preserve.


I like the idea that I'm the only person that has touched my vegetables and my deer meat. I like to say to my wife "they ain't got no bathrooms out in them fields where they grow store bought vegetables. An illegal alien probably sh!t on that stuff"

[enfield]

We canned corn, green beans, tomatoes and pickles this year.  The larder is well stocked, and a power outage won't affect it.

 

My mother lived a good part of her life without electricity, so naturally she learned canning from her mother.  She continued to can all her life, I picked it up from her and my wife learned it from me. I also taught my wife how to diaper a baby and mix a bottle of formula.  :D

[JAB]

Growing up, my mom and especially my grandmother did a fair amount of canning.  She canned things like green beans and homemade, pickled beets (the ones she canned are the best pickled beets I have ever eaten.)  As others have said, the vegetables you can, yourself, will usually taste better and a whole lot more like 'fresh picked' than commercially canned things.  Also, my mom and grandmother canned jellies and other fruit preserves, sometimes.  Sure, those things might not be all that expensive at the grocery store but the jellies, etc. were often from wild blackberries (or, until the danged road crew cut them down the ONE year that they mowed that part of our road) wild black raspberries (the taste of those things put blackberries to shame and the jelly from them - best PB&J sandwich ever) that didn't cost us anything.  It is hard to beat 'free'.

 

Other than making apple butter one year, I haven't really canned fruit preserves.  Things I have canned include:

 

1.  Home made hot sauces made to my tastes - there are no store bought equivalents

2.  The aforementioned home made apple butter - mostly just to see if I could

3.  Home made chicken noodle soup (home made as in I even made the noodles from scratch)*

4.  Home made Brunswick stew (the crap most places now call Brunswick stew ain't - what many places serve asl Brunswick stew is more like plain ol' beef stew with barbecue sauce in it.  Yuck.)*

5.  Home made chili.*

6.  Fresh corn (I don't like really sweet corn to begin with and commercially canned corn is usually so sweet it nearly gags me.)

7.  Home made, smoked pork barbecue (just recently - haven't even tried it, yet.)*

8.  Chicken cooked on my smoker (also recently - haven't opened one of those jars yet, either.)*

9.  Home made chicken broth (I skinned and deboned the above mentioned chicken after it came off of the smoker.  Whenever I skin and debone raw chicken, I keep the skin and bones in the freezer until I have enough to fool with.  The broth I canned used the bones and skins from the smoked chicken plus what I had in the freezer so it was a by product that helped use those otherwise wasted parts.  I have not opened a jar of it yet.)

 

*Things like soups, stews and chili are pretty good for home canning in my experience.  I don't usually make them specifically to can but, instead, just make an extra large batch when I decide I want to eat something like that, anyway.  After all, you are doing all the work to make the soup, etc. already so why not just make a little extra and save yourself the work the next time you want that soup, stew or so on?  Besides, the stuff you make at home and can will taste a lot better than the nasty salt-licks that pass for some of the commercially available canned soups - and I guarantee you that no commercially canned chili is anywhere near as hot as my home-made (unless some company has started using habaneros and ghost chiles in theirs without my knowing about it.)  Sure, you could freeze those things but I have a tendency to forget things that are in the freezer and they can begin to freezer burn in just a few months not to mention that if the freezer goes out or there is an interruption in electricity that lasts several days (this can happen where I live) you have to worry about losing what is in the freezer but not the stuff you have canned.  Some people say you should probably not eat home-canned items after about a year.  I ate the last jar of that Brunswich Stew two years after canning it and it tasted just as good as the day I made it.

 

The smoked chicken and pork barbecue that I canned were pretty much for the same reason.  If I'm going to keep the smoker going for hours, anyhow (17 hours in the case of the smoked pork) then why not smoke a little extra and can it?  Of course, I'll have to wait and see how it turned out before I know for sure if it is worth doing more of in the future (I want to give it a few weeks in the jar before trying it so I can get a more accurate idea of how it will work long term.)

 

These home-canned items would be useful in a SHTF event but that isn't the main reason I like canning things.  For me, it is more about doing the work of making this stuff once but being able to eat it on multiple occasions.  I generally can in pint jars which is just about the right size for a serving so I can just grab a jar to take to work for lunch.  So, for me, it is at least as much about convenience and saving leftovers without needing refrigeration as it is about 'prepping'.  There is also something I enjoy about helping to keep the practice of home canning 'alive'.

Edited September 12, 2013 by JAB

[Andyshowfan]

IMHO, if you grow your own food and have the equipment then it is cheaper and definitely better tasting. The initial "dive" into canning is expensive but in the long run it is more cost effective. Plus I love the feeling  of accomplishment when I hear the "ping" of the lids as they cool  :pleased:

[broylz]

I started to pressure can some meats. 1lb in a pint jar. this allows me to have some shelf stable meats cheaper than store bought and I don't have to worry about the freezer when the power goes out.

 

that said, I do still have a bit in the freezer. long term power outage would necessitate using what I need from the freezer while I have the generator keeping it cold for a few days and canning whats left over those days on the propane burner.

[Timestepper]

I can because my wife and I have an affinity for brandied peaches. Think back and tell me the last time you saw brandied peaches for sale that weren't specialty items costing roughly seven thousand dollars an ounce. But I can pick 'em and buy a couple half pints of brandy and spend a couple of hours making enough to last me until next year. And the cost comes out to about a dollar per pint. Give some away as a Christmas gift and people will volunteer to buy everything you need for a full batch if they can just get an extra pint the next year.

 

My wife cans because she likes green beans, corn, tomatoes and strawberry & blackberry jelly. Year round. From her own garden where she can control what goes into them.

 

I guess we never even really thought of it as being a hobby because we've both done it, or been around people who do it all our lives. It's just that about twice a year we kinda' automatically start clearing stuff off the kitchen table to make room for the canning and pickling supplies and for a week or so the house smell absolutely wonderful and I gain sixteen pounds just breathing the air... 

 

 

:hat:

 

 

...TS...

[Guest 6.8 AR]

Canning, if done right, will last longer than canned goods from the grocery store. Like Enfield said, they taste better, also.

If your freezer loses its power, like in an emergency, the canned goods will come in handy. Stored in a cool cellar or basement,

canning has been the way people have lived for centuries. Many benefits to be had.

[Mark A]

I grew up in a canning family but after the grandma's passed it kind of became lost info.

 

We started a couple of years ago after my wife was diagnosed with cancer. She was very fortunate in that it was caught at an extremely early stage.

 

When she came home from the hospital she told me that she didn't want to put any more food in her body w/o knowing where it came from and what it had in it.

 

I was already doing a lot of cooking and freezing but to pull off what she wanted I needed to figure out something besides freezing. Plus, somethings are good long term frozen and  some are better canned. We keep both.

 

So, we grow what we can in our small garden and did a lot of research into a couple of local farmers that grow things very naturally. Basically we eat what we grow and we buy to can. It is just easier that way.

 

Mark

[Mark A]

3.  Home made chicken noodle soup (home made as in I even made the noodles from scratch)*

 

 

JAB, are you canning the actual noodles or canning the soup and adding the noodles to order? I ask because I read a lot of stuff about not canning noodle type products.

 

Also, now that you mentioned it on the internet the rules CLEARLY state that you have to share any and all hot sauce recipes. So come on, fess up...

 

Mark

[kckndrgn]

all great info.  I can as well, but I don't produce enough in the garden to really have much to can, especially tomatos.  So we go the local farmers market (at the agricenter) and ask the vendors for the "canning tomatos".  We can usually get a big box full of tomatos for about $7.00.  Now these tomatos are brused, busted and sometimes look really bad, overripe, etc.

 

Last time we went I think we spent around $30.00 for 95lbs of tomatos.  Spent the rest of the day juicing and canning them.  Need to make one more trip to the FM like that to be set for the winter.

[broylz]

need to hit up our local farmers market. haven't been there yet.

[BJB]

My family has been canning for years. NO one and I mean NO one can show me a processed can of beans that taste as good as my canned peanut beans. We also can salsa, tomato juice, pickles, grape-blackberry and apple jelly. But the beat is canned pork. You can can a whole hog and it will keep for years. We even make our own sausage. once started you wont quit, it just good food.

[enfield]

My mom used to can pork sausage - man it was good!

[gregintenn]

Home grown vegetables taste better than store bought.

 

When I can, I know what's in the can because I put it there.

 

Food, sodas, beer, etc. taste better from glass than from aluminum.

 

Electricity isn't required to preserve canned food.

 

It IS less expensive.

 

My children are learning something that may prove very valuable for them one day.

[Guest 6.8 AR]

My mom used to can pork sausage - man it was good!

My wife cans all kinds of pork. Still is good. :D

I think she can can anything, given enough cans and lids. She laughs every time I see it and ask her if she paid the

NFA tax on pressure cookers, yet.

[JWC]

IMHO, if you grow your own food and have the equipment then it is cheaper and definitely better tasting. The initial "dive" into canning is expensive but in the long run it is more cost effective. Plus I love the feeling of accomplishment when I hear the "ping" of the lids as they cool :pleased:

If you ask old kin folk you can usually round up most of the necessary stuff, like a pressure canner. Got mine from my aunt who don't mess with it no more. (Better i reckon in case the .gov is wathing pressure canner sales, which sounds dumb but wouldn't suprise me nowadays) She was glad to see it go, you'll find a lot of old women are scared of pressure canners and never trusted them. I sometimes just water bath can in it too instead of getting my other canner out. I look for jars and rings at estate sales. And there's usually seasonal clearances at big box stores. Anyone oughta be able to start with a $100 bill.

i like making jam, we got one of them Ball Freshtech Jam and Jelly Makers as a present and i think it's awesome. It only makes small batches, which is fine by us we go easy in the sugar anyhow, but it makes perfect jam and jelly every time if you follow the recipes. I made strawberry, blackberry, peach, and muscadine this year. Gonna make apple when good fall apples come in. I love the thing. We're on a little vacation with friends and i had some store bought grape jelly yesterday and that dang stuff ain't no count.

[Pat]

We do a lot of canning as well. Not as much this year unfortunately, all the rain put the hurt on our 'maters. Did pretty good though.

 

I'm wondering - just how long can home-canned food last? One or two of you seem to mention the stuff lasting longer than store-bought canned goods. Our canning books say to only keep stuff a year. I half-figure that's just propaganda and lies to keep us buying more canning supplies or store canned food, but that's just me!

[BJB]

I found a jar of beans from 2009 that taste as good now as they did then. It some how got pushed to the back of the shelf. but no problems. Most of our canning doesn't last much over a year with us eating off it and the kids filling a box every time they come over 

[Jamie Jackson]

We can for most of the reasons already mentioned. Knowing what is actually in the jar is a good feeling. Not having high fructose corn syrup in everything is an even better feeling. :up:

 

We garden organically, not tree-hugging-hippie-type-organic, but we use compost we make and Steve Solomon's COF or Complete Organic Fertilizer to enhance the nutrient availability in the vegetables and fruits we grow. The taste is simply outstanding.

We avoid pesticides as well. So far so good. Yes, we occasionally loose some of our crop. I just try and plant enough so that it's not a major negative on us.

 

We also use heirloom varieties whenever we have a choice. I have a German Queen tomato plant still yielding fruit, and the seeds are from the original I purchased in 2009.

 

Today I've canned 36 pints of green bean and have 11 quarts in the canner as I type this. The rest of the beans that are still on the plants I'll let go to seed for next year.

 

 

We too can a variety of meats. It saves us a bundle in that we will purchase 50 pounds of chicken breasts at a time when they are on sale (unfortunately they aren't free range and living in suburbia we don't raise our own), put the meat in the freezer and can it when we have the time.

We have canned venison, pork, beef, chicken, sausage, and bacon in our pantry. We also have canned “meals in a jar”….chili, soups, Swedish Meatballs and a variety of other grab and go foods we’ve prepared.

 

We also take dried beans and pressure can them. They taste much better, imho, than the canned beans you pick up off the shelf. This will work well for older dried beans that are slow or difficult to cook…say from you long term storage foods you are rotating out.

 

 

As regards longevity of the canned goods…

We regularly eat our home canned foods that are 4-5 years old with no degradation in flavor or texture.

 

[url=http://grandpappy.info/hshelff.htm] Here’s a link[/url] to a few studies on the “Shelf Life of Storage Foods”…2 on canned goods and 3 on dry goods for those that may be interested.

 

I can’t see a down side to canning. Like handloading it gives one a sense of self worth.

Knowledge applied is never wasted. :2cents:

Edited September 15, 2013 by prag

[JAB]

JAB, are you canning the actual noodles or canning the soup and adding the noodles to order? I ask because I read a lot of stuff about not canning noodle type products.

 

Also, now that you mentioned it on the internet the rules CLEARLY state that you have to share any and all hot sauce recipes. So come on, fess up...

 

Mark

 

It has been a while since I canned chicken noodle soup but when I did I just made the soup (noodles and all), ate part of it and canned the rest.  Didn't have any issues.  I figure that Campbell's cans their chicken noodle soup with the noodles in it so why couldn't I?  Maybe mine worked out because the noodles were home-made and I left them a little 'firm' (pretty much al dente.).  I know I used semolina flour and it seems like I used an eggless pasta recipe (as I said, it has been a while) so maybe that figured into it, as well.

 

The hot sauces were also made a few years back.  I had a huge crop of peppers that year and already had more dried than I knew what to do with.  In more recent years, I haven't gotten as many peppers and so have mostly just dried them.

 

I made two sauces that year.  One was made with yellow habaneros and was intended to be similar to a Belize style hot sauce.  The following link wasn't exactly like what I made but it is similar.  The closest 'store bought' equivalent is something like a Melinda's, which is a Belize style hot sauce (created by the same Belizean woman who created Marie Sharp's - Melinda's was her first company and her American distributor double-crossed her and stole the Melinda's brand from her.)  This kind of hot sauce has less vinegar to overpower the flavor of the peppers or the flavor of the food to which it is added than something like a Tobasco sauce.  The stuff I made looked pretty much like the sauce iin the pic at the link.  I did a higher ratio of peppers to the other ingredients than this recipe and I didn't add any fruits because I wanted the flavor to be mostly about the habaneros.  I made it as a hot sauce but ended up eating a lot of it with just tortilla chips, like salsa.

 

http://www.food.com/recipe/belizean-style-habanero-sauce-hot-sauce-440697

 

The other one I made didn't have so much a 'recipe' as an inspiration (I am bad about just making stuff up as I go and not writing it down.)  The 'inspiration' for it was Jamaican Pickapeppa sauce but I wanted to do my own 'riff' on it and try to come up with something truly different.  Just going from memory, it had a can of (Jumex brand) tamarind juice, a can of (also Jumex) mango juice, a little lime juice, garlic, onion, cloves, ginger and a few carrots along with a variety of peppers (one or two habaneros, several serrano, one or two jalapenos and a handful of mild/sweet Italian cherry peppers.)  The idea of that one was more for a sauce with a big, bold flavor and not as much heat.  It came out really well and even people I know who don't care much for hot sauces, etc. loved it.

Edited September 16, 2013 by JAB

[JAB]

We regularly eat our home canned foods that are 4-5 years old with no degradation in flavor or texture.

 

Here’s a link to a few studies on the “Shelf Life of Storage Foods”…2 on canned goods and 3 on dry goods for those that may be interested.

 

 

Those studies were interesting but they didn't really say if the canned goods were commercially canned or home canned.  In a FAQ on their website, Hormel states that their canned meats - as long as the can is not rusted or otherwise compromises, will generally NEVER go bad.  They say that there may be a loss of nutrients and flavor and that the texture may change after the 'use by' date stamped on the can has passed but that they will be safe to eat pretty much forever.  Those are commercially canned products, however.  I have to wonder if home-canned products would last as long - although I defintely think they can last longer than some may assume and, if done correctly, will last a lot longer than the one year cutoff that some folks recommend.