As I was growing up, I remember mountains of produce and days spent processing enough food to keep our family of 8 through the winter. Mom didn’t have air conditioning or even a ceiling fan. It was hot work and long days. Both my mom and my grandmother kept their canned goods stashed in a dark, cool corner of the basement, away from the wood stove. Mom told me that her mom used to do all her canning on the wood cook stove. Every fall they’d butcher and can up a mess of pork and chicken, along with the garden produce during the season (no freezers or refrigerators available back then). Mom was a little girl during the Great Depression and WWII. Before she passed we talked about the “ration points” mentioned in the poster above – she still had some tucked away in a bureau.
At the moment we’re not facing rationing, but food prices are expected to continue to increase. Home canning allows you to preserve almost any food in season, and even to can entire meals that are ready to go straight from the jar. Once your jars are sealed, all you need is a cool, dark space to stash your bounty. 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.
Basic Equipment Needed for 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). Fruits, most soft spreads, tomatoes, pickles and other high acid foods can be safely processed in this canner. Different commercial options are available, but you can also use 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 is to make a “rack” of canning rings in the bottom of the pot. IMO, real canners are fairly inexpensive and well worth the investment if you plan to do any amount of canning. You can use your pressure canner for water bath canning – just leave the vent open.
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.
Do I Really Need a Pressure Canner?
If you want to can vegetables, meat or meals – YES. I pressure can more green beans than anything else out of my garden. They’re my boys’ favorite veggie.
Is It Hard to Use a Pressure Canner?
Not really. It takes more patience than anything else. With a water bath canner, you lower jars into boiling water and start your timer. With a pressure canner, you must let the canner exhaust steam for ten minutes. Then you put the pressure regular in place.
See the little round black thing on the right? That’s the pressure regulator. once the regulator is on, you wait for the pressure to build. Once the pressure gets high enough, there’s a little button (the air vent/cover lock) that pops up to stop steam from venting (at least on my canner).
Once the button sets in place, you wait for the pressure to build some more, until you reach processing pressure. Then you hold itat pressure for the required amount of time. Then you turn off the heat and let the pressure drop to zero on it’s own (the little button will also pop back down). When the button is up, you can’t open the lid. This helps prevent you from doing something stupid by either burning yourself and/or busting all your jars. Complicated – no, time consuming – yes. Mom told me it’s a lot faster than when gramma had to water bath can everything for a really, really long time.
Will My Pressure Canner Explode?
Not very likely, unless you use some plastique. It may be possible with older canners, which have been damaged or were improperly forged, but recently made steam pressure canners are pretty tough. Mine is equipped with a locking mechanism, others bolt shut.
Pressure canner lock
You can’t operate the canner unless it’s locked tightly, and that is some pretty thick metal. It also has a little overpressure plug that will blow if the pressure gets too high.
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.
Canning and Preserving Recipes
Home Canned Salsa That Tastes a Lot Like a National Brand – Except Better
Pickle Relish Sweetened With Honey
No Canning Required Dill Pickles
Rhubarb-B-Q Sauce and Rhubarb-Orange Compote
Preserving Asparagus Three Ways – Freezing, Drying and Lactofermenting
Peeling, Canning and Drying Peaches
Preserving Strawberries Four Ways – Freezing, Drying, Fruit Leather and Kombucha
Making Applesauce, Apple leather and Dried Apple Slices
Spiced Crabapples and Honey Cinnamon Crabapples
Jams and Jellies
Currant Almond Jelly with No Added Pectin
Low Sugar Strawberry Jam and Strawberry Banana Jam Sweetened with Honey
Strawberry Banana Jam and Strawberry Rhubarb Jam
Elderberries – How to Make Syrups and Jellies
Plum Preserves with Honey and Cardamom
Peach Jam Two Ways – Peach Vanilla and Fuzzy Navel
View other posts in this series here.
Featured on Homestead Barn Hop #47 , Fat Tuesday and Simple Lives Thursday #83.
23 Responses to “Getting Started with Home Canning”
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Thank you for posting this. My mom passed on her Presto canner to me some years back, she had gotten it in the ’70′s, so I think it should still be good, but I’ve been nervous to use it as our ‘local extension office’ doesn’t test canners or gauges anymore. I ordered a new rubber gasket and the little top that goes ‘thwikthwikthwik’ as the old one is lost, but I’m still too scared to use it without having the gauge checked. I suppose I should count my lucky stars that the Presto company is only a 2 hour trip from me, but I’ve been too lazy to go over there. I’ve been really wanting to take this up, and your article is a good kick in the pants. So I suppose I should plan a day trip to Eau Claire for when the snow melts. Thanks.
BTW, I have this very poster in my kitchen next to my ‘pantry shelving’. I love it!
Paula – now’s the perfect time to get everything ready before canning season hits, instead of when your in the middle of a mountain of produce.
Thank you so much for this post. I’ve been thinking about starting to can this year if I can get my garden in order, but I’ve always been so intimidated by the thought of it! Not sure why . . . but your post has me excited to give it a try now!
Jean – you can do it! It’s really not that hard, it just takes time. If you can cook a simple meal, you got the skills for the the job.
Excellent article. I’ve canned for years using my mother’s equipment. Two years ago we moved across country and I had to leave her equipment with her (boo hoo). I’m planning a LARGE garden this year for the purpose of canning and this will serve as my list.
My two cents (or is it twenty now?) worth: if money is tight, skip the water bath canner and just acquire a pressure canner. You can use it like a water bath canner if you want, so no need for an extra pot. Plus it is FASTER. Way faster–I could can 2-3 batches with a pressure canner in the time it took 1 for the water bath canner.
If you are nervous about doing this for the first time, ask around to find someone to help. You spend a day helping them, giving labor and LEARNING how to do it! Maybe they will even help you in return.
Canning is a lot more fun if you do it with a friend. My boys help me out, but there’s just a certain something about sharing the kitchen with a mother, sister, or girlfriend.
I suspect my big pressure canner gets up to pressure significantly slower than the smaller models. If I had to buy one again, I’d pick a shorter model. When I was buying, I just wanted to make sure it was big enough.
This was an excellent article! I’m new to all of this and will be trying to start a garden this year. I’d love to hear anything you know about composting. I can’t seem to wrap my mind around it. I’m so concerned with attracting critters or with it smelling bad and we are in a slightly urban environment.
So glad I found this web site!! Thank you!
Hi Rose! Nice to “meet” you. I’m a messy composter. Living out in the country, I’ve got one main bin of compost going, but other piles tend to pop up here and there.
I can put your question out on the Facebook group and see what folks suggest. If you’re on Facebook, I suggest stopping by (https://www.facebook.com/CommonSenseHome) – we get a lot of interesting conversations going.
Worm bins might be a “neater” option, depending on your space and volume of compost.
Thanks for your kind words.
I have canned in the past and I like the idea that I can what I like to eat (same with the garden, plant what I like!). I have this next week off and plan to can “Refried Beans”. I did them last year and did not can enough (11 quarts). I really like them for breakfast with eggs!
Will return here offten to check out recipes!
Tom – oy! I’d better start publishing more recipes. I do the bulk of my canning during the growing season, but the site SB Canning posts recipes year round.
Home made refried beans are so much better than the prepackaged ones!
Oh, I would love to see anything and everything in your “Getting Started…” series. I learn a lot. I really would like to try canning fresh produce and things like that. My family budget is super tight right now. However, I’m saving all these blog posts, so I’ll know exactly what to do when funds are available
thanks for all of the good, detailed information 
Love and hugs from the ocean shores of California, Heather 
Hi Heather! I caught some flak from my local friends about not covering the basics, so I decided I’d better run a series that was targeted for folks who are new to all of this. It’s wonderful to see people asking so many questions and being so interested in learning.
I’ll try to regularly update the Homesteading 101 page at the top of the blog as new “Getting Started” posts go live. My plan is to try and get a new post live every Thursday – fingers crossed. Sometimes life gets a little crazy! Also, if you’d like an invite to Pinterest to be able to sort your pages online in a visual library, let me know. Or, if you’re already on, you can follow me.
Thanks for your enthusiastic comments.
My favorite thing to can is chicken stock! I use my pressure canner as my stock pot, its the biggest thing I own in the kitchen. My deep freeze is so full of healthy meats and butter, fruit and things like spinach and zuchinni which don’t can well, it saves me tons of room to have the stock canned.
Pressure canning just allows you to do so much more in the kitchen, like caning spaghetti sauce with other veggies in it, not just tomato sauce. Those things save me tons of time for weeknight meals.
And I always give jams and apple butter away as christmas gifts to my husb’s coworkers and all of my sons’ therapists and support staff at school. I can hand out 50 to 75 beautiful, gourmet gifts at a fraction of what it would have cost to buy them, and my stuff tastes way better.
My biggest hint for newbies. Advertise for things like jars and canners on Craigs’ List. I offer to pay 20cents a quart jar, 15 cents for pints, and get tons of offers. I have never had trouble finding people cleaning out their basements and wanting to get rid of their old stuff like that. And once you get into it, buying lids in bulk on Amazon is much cheaper than those small packs you find in the stores.
Rebecca – home canned spaghetti sauce is one of my “go to” meals that the boys can prepare themselves. It’s so handy to send one boy inside to make supper while the other helps me finish in the garden.
I give away quite a few jams, jellies, pickles and conserves for Christmas, too. I make up gift baskets (I find the baskets at thrift stores) for friends and neighbors. Even those who can enjoy the unusual flavors that I normally include, like lemon-ground cherry jelly and plum-rum-nutty conserve.
Thanks for the tips!
I love your site, I have been thinking about trying this for a few years. My husband and I have a plot at our community garden and have been pretty successful thus far. I remember my mom made the best homemade tomatoe sauce as a kid. My Great aunt made beach plum jellie and rose hip jelly. I am planning my garden but how do you figure out how much to plan for both the summer and winter ?
Also any tips on what size or brand pressure cooker to get? I just looked online and realized there a few options. Thanks !
Thanks, Molly.
As for figuring out how much to plant, there are quite a number of ways to plan out your garden, most of which involve x number of feet of row per person per vegetable. To be honest, I looked over the calculations and just shook my head – too much fussing for me. Besides, how is some formula going to know what you and your family like to eat?
What I do is to map out my garden each year and keep a rough sketch of how much of what I planted where. We eat fresh and preserve excess. During winter, I make a note of when/if things run out. Over a couple of seasons you get a feel for how much of everything your family will use.
For instance, I usually plant around 30-something tomato plants, and aim to can at least two batches of marinara sauce, two batches of salsa, one or more batches of stewed tomatoes, and possibly dry a few tomatoes. In a good year, I’ll be able to do this and more, and probably have excess to sell or give away. In a bad year, I’ll be lucky to cover the basics. We eat a lot of green beans. I know I need two fairly long double rows of green pole beans, and I need to can around 30 quarts (roughly one per week for the non-harvest season).
I haven’t heard of any real lulus as far as canners go. Weighted gauge canners are supposed to be more reliable long term, dial canners may loose accuracy as they age. All-American canners are the “Cadillac” of canners. They have a metal on metal seal and bolt closed, so there is no gasket to wear out.
I’ve been happy with my Presto. Just make sure that whatever you buy you can lift it (they are heavy), and that you can fit in whatever size jars you plan to use. The Natural Canning Resource Book has a detailed discussion of canner options. Note- pressure canners cannot be used on most smooth top ranges without an adapter because the range will automatically turn the heat on and off to avoid overheating the ceramic top.
I would like to add my encouragement to those who are interested but are intimidated by the pressure canner. Get started! Once you do you will discover how wonderful it is to have healthy, quick meals on your pantry shelves. I love to have pinto and other beans ready to go. Soups can be a lifesaver on those crazy weeknights when you have no time to cook but have to feed them anyway. Heat and eat chili and spaghetti sauce – who wouldn’t love that? Veggies at the ready. Just heat them up. My newest discovery is that kids absolutely LOVE canned boneless skinless chicken breast. It is so easy to do and can be made into any number of different meals. This is real convenience food!
Thanks for sharing you experience, Grace.
It is wonderful to be able to open a meal – ready to go!
Thanks for linking your great post to FAT TUESDAY. This was very interesting! Hope to see you next week!
Be sure to visit RealFoodForager.com on Sunday for Sunday Snippets – your post from Fat Tuesday may be featured there!
http://realfoodforager.com/fat-tuesday-february-7-2012/
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The most recent edition – http://laurawilliamsmusings.blogspot.com/2012/06/carnival-of-home-preserving-13-come.html – open until Thursday 6/7.
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