Canning Vegetables
All About Canning Vegetables
Canning vegetables is not hard but it is time consuming and you need to have the right equipment. Only tomatoes are acidic enough to be canned in a boiling water bath. That means all other vegetables require a pressure canner. If you have your own backyard garden every year, a pressure canner is a really good investment that you will be thankful to have. Without a pressure canner, botulism or food poisoning can and does occur.
Every year before beginning canning vegetables, be sure to check your pressure canner to make sure it is in proper working condition. Do a test run without the jars to make sure the temperature gauge is working properly and that all the seals are tight. The seals around the cover need to be replaced every few years. How long they last depends on the amount of canning that you do.
Make sure that the vegetables you can are fresh. Wash them thoroughly to remove all of the dirt. Also wash all of your canning jars before using them. You need to use canning jars with two-piece lids that are made specifically for canning. Don’t try to reuse jars that other products came in, such as peanut butter, pickles, or mayonnaise. These are not designed for use with two-piece lids in a pressure canner. Canning vegetables with these reused jars can cause serious illness because they cannot seal properly. They also will most likely break under the intense pressure in the canner.
When it comes time to pack your jars with vegetables for canning, you can use raw or hot pack methods. Raw vegetables can be packed tightly because they tend to shrink in the canning process. Vegetables such as lima beans, corn, and peas take on water and expand in the jars so they should be packed lightly. For canning vegetables by the raw pack method, you pack them into hot jars and add hot liquid. The hot pack method means that the vegetables have been brought to the boiling point or are even partly cooked before they are placed in the jars.
Make sure that all of the vegetables in the canning jars are covered with the liquid. If not covered, they will change color and become blackened. As for headroom, or the space between the top of the vegetables and the top of the jar, leave at least an inch. You can find reference charts online that more specifically tell you how much headroom each kind of vegetable needs. Once your veggies and liquids are in the jars, take a plastic spatula (not metal) and run it around the inside, between the vegetables and the side of the canning jar. This eliminates air bubbles.
The next step is to place the jars in the rack in your pressure canner, and follow the instructions that came with the pressure canner for how long to vent steam, what pressure is use, and how long you should cook at that pressure. When done, remove from heat and let the canner drop down to zero pressure before opening it. If the jars are properly sealed the lids will be on tight and have a slight indentation in the center. Any vegetables in jars not sealed should be refrigerated and eaten in 48 hours. Canned vegetables should be stored in the dark.