| Archive for Downsizer For an ethical approach to consumption |
| boisdevie1 |
Preserving green beans and peas in kilner jarsI've got lots of jars and a non-pressure steriliser. Would an hour in the steriliser be enough? |
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| Erikht |
Re: Preserving green beans and peas in kilner jars
30 minutes in a hot oven would be enough. |
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| lottie |
There are still deaths from botulism every year in the States from people using non pressure oven sterilizing for veg---bit like Russian roulette really 
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| wellington womble |
You need a pressure canner for peas and beans - they are biggest botulism culprit. Freeze 'em. Or blitz them for soup, and freeze them.
Or make chutney. |
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| Erikht |
Or salt them. | ||||
| Sarah D |
Don't even contemplate it without a pressure canner, the real thing; you run a very real risk of botulism poisoning which can be fatal. You can't smell it, see it, hear it or taste it, don't take the risk. Freeze or dry the peas; you can pickle the beans like the American dilly beans - in vinegar with plenty of dill. Lots of recipes on American sites/Google for them. | ||||
| Bebo |
You mention the real thing. I was thinking of having a go with a pressure cooker. I'd only be able to do two or three jars at a time but I thought it would be the same as a 'proper' canner. Am I wrong? |
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| Sarah D |
You're wrong - a pressure cooker is a different animal to a pressure canner. I think a pressure canner operates at much higher pressure, but I'm not sure about the science of it, I just know the following are the godlen rules:
For veg, meat, fish and dairy produce, only a pressure CANNER can be used, or you run a very real risk of failure and possible death - no other way to put it! Only fruit and tomatoes ahve a high enough level of acidity (and even then, you should add a good squirt of lemon juice to tomatoes) to be bottled safely. For fruit and tomatoes, an ordinary large saucepan with a tea towel in the bottom and lid on is excellent for hot water processing. You can find the individual times for different fruits in a good preserving book/website. I've never used a pressure cooker, so wouldn't be able to advise as to how to go about bottling fruit in one. Also, important to invest in the proper bottling jars, lids and rubber seals. Edited after re-reading my onw post here: http://creativeliving.10.forumer.com/viewtopic.php?t=437 |
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| cab |
A pressure cooker on full pressure will reach 120C, which is the equivalent of a hospital autoclave, i.e. its certainly hot enough to sterilise the beans.
I'm not clear why it should be unsafe to use it to bottle beans and peas, but I'd think that a pressure cooker would cool down and warm up faster than a pressure canner, so you'd have to use a somewhat different method (you'd have to cook it a little longer presumably). There are plenty of recipes for doing this in older recipe books (just picked up a 1950s reprint of a post War one entitled 'modern pressure cooking', which has such recipes). So... Unless I'm missing something fairly fundamental, and that does happen sometimes, it should work, but it isn't the same as using a canner. |
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| Erikht |
A very important aspect of canning, or bottling as it is rightly called in UK English (tsk, tsk), is how the conserve is being stored after bottling. At degrees lower than 4 Celsius, there are no real danger for botulism, and they grow very slowly if the temperature is under 8. Also, an acidity of 4,5 pH or lower will reduce the dangers to almost nil. Likewise, water activity is important. With 16% salt in a conserve (or any organic matter), the water activity will be around 0,90 (1,0 is an untreated food item). The only dangerous bacteria that might be able to grow under these circumstances are Staphylococcus aureus aerob, but as this bacteria needs oxygen to grow, it should not really be a big problem(14 % salt should be just fine, really).
The all too usual combination of lacking hygiene and idiocy is probably the most dangerous aspect of conserving food. |
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| Sarah D |
Right-oh, I'm bowing out of this one now. I've said my piece, and I'm right on this, so if you want to take risks, go ahead, but don't say I didn't tell you so. | ||||
| cab |
The only thing that I can envisage really going wrong with canning beans in this way is that you wouldn't have either enough acidity, possibly enough salt, and you may not manage a good and even heat distribution due to faster heating and cooling in the pressure cooker rather than a pressure canner. As I understand it both work in the same temperature (hence also the same pressure) range, i.e. 115-120C. The other concern would be whether or not there is enough capacity in there to really get away with multiple cans that aren't clunking about. Thats a risk, not only of not getting everything up to pressure but of breaking things. I do bottle a few things in the pressure cooker; sometimes I'll put a batch of beans and bacon (in tomato sauce) on to cook, with extra ingredients in a kilner jar and put that in there with the rest of the stew, and cook it till its good and dead, Requires a good wash, the jar, when its cooled down of course, being covered in sauce. I also do tomatoes that way when I have a glut, usually with some basil, salt and very thin slivvers of garlic. Very nearly a sauce for having with pasta just in itself. The pressure cooker book I recently found is lying in the loo at home, I'll look up what it says about beans later on. |
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| wellington womble |
The only difference I can see between my pressure canner and my pressure cooker (other than size) is that the pressure canner gives you an absolute pressure reading (ie in KPA or bars) and the cooker only an relative one. So with a pressure cooker, you can't be sure what pressures you are reaching and for how long, so it's not 'safe' to can in it.
Canning is pressure-cooked. Bottling is just heat - they aren't the same, even though they are both done in jars! |
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| lottie |
You've got a dial pressure canner but they also come with weights like a pressure cooker---depends which brand you get--I just don't understand why people would take risks for a 1lb. of beans when they aren't starving--it's like dicing with fungi unless you are an expert--cowards tend to live longer if more boring lives  I can bean/meat stews but I always use a pressure canner and throw in some acidic veg very often.
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| Bebo |
http://missvickie.com/canning/cookercanner.html
Done a bit of googling and Sarah D is correct in terms of current advice. Supposedly pre-1980something pressure cookers were considered OK to use and 10 minutes was added onto the canning times. Looks like I need to find out about shipping costs from the good old US of A for one. |
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| cab |
The pressure is governed by how much weight you've got on the cooker, so its a constant in a pressure cooker just the same as it is in a pressure canner. The difference is not the pressure, its the capacity to have a numerical measure of that. |
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| cab |
That page confirms my suspicions, note this part:
If you're 'overcooking' the produce, and ensuring that you're staying at pressure long enough, then the pressure cooker is safe. The reversal in advice on whether its safe to use a pressure cooker for this is not because the laws of physics suddenly stopped applying, its because the older advice on cooking time could not be applied to newer, lighter pressure cookers. Note that pressure cookers, good old fashioned Prestige Hi-Domes, are still employed in some labs as back up autoclaves; cook something in there at full pressuer (hissing loudly) for 20 minutes and its considered sterile. With a tough, pressure stable jar inside you may need to reconsider how long, of course, because you need the innards to get that hot too. |
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| Bebo |
What I wanted to do was use up some of the burgeoning tomato glut by making up a pasta sauce with garlic, onion, celery, carrot and chilli (all very finely chopped) and liquidised tomatoes reduced down. I then wanted to bottle it rather than taking up freezer space.
Unfortunately my proper 1litre bottling jars don't fit in my newly acquired pressure cooker so I can't even try it by doubling the processing time! |
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| cab |
Just looking at the 'complete book of modern pressure cooking'. For green beans, says leave 1/4 inch at the top of the jar, pre-cook the beans for a minute, add 1 teaspoon of salt and cooking water, and cook at 10lb pressure (thats the middle weight of a Prestige hi-dome) for 40 minutes (so that would be get it hot, cook it on full hiss for 40 minutes).
Heck, I don't think I want to eat those green beans
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| Bebo |
OK I've done it. 23quart Presto Pressure Canner on its way from California for the grand sum of $170 dollars including delivery. | ||||
| Sarah D |
That doesn't seem a bad price, including delivery. Just one thing - will you *please* come back and say how you get on with it? I know lotties uses hers for meat stews , but I suspect quite a few of these bought in moments of enthusiasm are lurking somewhere, little used. I'd like some real feedback from someone in this country as to how they get on with preserving sauces, meat, fish, etc, as well as vegetables, which is what it's designed for. I'm not sure that even *I* do enough preserving to warrant one, but would love to be proved wrong, as I think it would be a good addition to the kitchen. If I lived in the middle of nowhere with limited access to markets and shops, and/or raised my own meat, I would definitley consider one.
Looking forward to hearing about it. |
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| lottie |
If I was buying in stuff to can I wouldn't bother, but it's worthwhile to do your own meat and veg. I don't bother pressure canning fruit but use a very big water canner, much more cost effective. The main thing is to get one of the good U.S. canning recipe books , [ like balls blue book or an U.S.D.A. one]although the basic instructions / recipes that come with the canners are a good start | ||||
| tahir |
I've canned meat stocks, oxtail soup, various other soups, chilli sauce etc. I'd use it much more if I had the time | ||||
| lottie |
Agree with Tahir---chilli sauce is particularly successful | ||||
| tahir |
One thing that I don't really like it for is cooking in, I've tried saag and beef curry, not been happy with either. I think it's the fact of the constant abrasion as you stir in an open pan taht does it for the saag and the curry doesn't have that caramalisation from the sticky bits on the pan | ||||
| Sarah D |
HHHHmmm might have to revisit pressure canners.............. Ohd ear, off to Lehman's again
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| tahir |
The plan in our new house is to populate the larder with lots of ambient temp stored jars, if we had curry in a jar we'd use it rather than going down the chippy when we can't be bothered to cook. | ||||
| lottie |
That's exactly what we do  ----by the time we got a takeaway home it'd be cold anyway---freezers are fine but for a quick readymeal the pressure canned stuff is great.
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| Sarah D |
That's the beauty of bottling isn't it? Easy, quick, homemade and ready to cook, no energy used to store them.
I'm convincing myself here, and it's perilously close to my birthday......... 
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| dpack |
take no chances with c botulinus it has well tough spores and a liking for poor bottling .the symptoms and ld50 can be looked up as im queasy before tea trust me it is nasty
imho the veg will be very over cooked before you have a gnt of no bugs industrial ones are always overcooked ,salty ,acidified and useless freeze em or dry em or roast wasabi peas or pickled in vinegar 
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| Wingy |
I've been doing a bit of surfing tonight looking at pressure canners and found apart from Lehman's, Ace Hardware will ship to the UK, most others don't.
Bebo - has yours arrived yet? |
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| Bebo |
Still waiting. Unfortunately, the tomatoes aren't so I think I'll be making a mega batch of pasta sauce and freezing it rather than bottling.
Order mine from E-bay. http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/PRESSURE-COOKER-CANNER-23-QUART-PRESTO-NEW-IN-BOX_W0QQitemZ220266191950QQcmdZViewItem?hash=item220266191950&_trkparms=72%3A12%7C39%3A1%7C66%3A3%7C65%3A12&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14.l1318 It's cheap but I wouldn't order from it until mine has arrived so that you know that it's legit. |
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| Wingy |
Isn't it ridiculous that the shipping costs are more than the actual item itself. Presto seems to be the most popular/available brand of pressure canners online that I've come across. Have you used one before?
I've contacted Ace Hardware to find out how much shipping would be to the UK - I'll post here what they say. They're located in NY.  I'm at that point where one would be very useful indeed, as I'm constantly fighting with my freezers for room.
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| Sarah D |
MrD rates Ace Hardware very highly, but bought when was over there, good quality stuff, he said. | ||||
| Wingy |
I quite like the fact that you can choose which carrier Ace uses to ship the product(s), but because of that their shipping costs are higher. So... from Ace Hardware, shipping to Fife via UPS, DHL, Fed-Ex comes in at $166.89 = £86 according to Reuters online currency converter.
Taking into account the cost of shipping + product, it works out to £35 more expensive to purchase the same canner from Ace Hardware but that would be using a courier service rather than postal services. I don't know of anyone going to the USA in the near future and it's not on my holiday itinerary this year or next, sadly. |
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| Bebo |
It's here! Presto 23 quart pressure canner arrived this morning. I'm all excited now, but I'm working the next couple of days so I won't get the opportunity to play with it until the weekend. | ||||
| spirals |
Hi, we are in the market for something similar, can you give me the URL of the outfit you got it from as lots of US outlets are Con US (i.e US mainland only), thanks in advance spirals [deep in the bogs of ireland!] ( ) !
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| Bebo |
That was it spiral. It did arrive fairly quickly considering and I've used it a couple of times. |
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| spirals |
Thank you for the URL and the warning re botulism nasty stuff. (dja.) [spirals is an research entity - dja. is "the" person at spirals]. |