How To Can (Jar) Fruits and Vegetables: the Basics | .....Aaron's EnvironMental Corner.....

DIY – How To Can (Jar) Fruits and Vegetables: the Basics

Filed Under: Do It Yourself on September 3, 2009

Home canning is nothing to be afraid of. It’s not hard and it requires only a few basic, low-cost tools to do. Some guides and recipe books make it appear that the process is complicated and exact. This is generally not the case.

Canning acidic produce like pickles, tomatoes, and most fruits is quite easy. The only time things get complicated is when you are doing the more advanced pressure canning of non-acidic items. In that case, a recipe and some experience (or someone with experience) is a good idea. Most of the time, though, making jams, jellies, pickles, and other basic canning is not hard at all.

The tools you’ll need are basic: jars, lids (they come in two pieces), a canning pot (or large stock pot), a rack (or something to keep jars off the bottom of the pot), and whatever ingredients you plan to use in your recipes.

No item on that list costs more than $10 to buy. In fact, the entire canning set up in our house cost only $10 in total at a yard sale and includes everything above except the produce to preserve.

Sterilizing Lids
This part is important and is one of the major reasons many canning attempts fail to seal properly, thus spoiling the preserves. The lids for jars come in two pieces: the lid and the ring. The lid is the flat part with a rubberized ring around the underside to seal with the glass top of the jar.

The ring is the part that screws on to hold the lid in place until it’s sealed. Rings are interchangeable amongst jars of the same type, so once your jars are sealed, you can remove the rings and use them on another jar. This is why lids and rings are often sold separately.

Once a lid has been used, it’s not likely that it will work well if used again. The rubber breaks down and the lid is often bent by the can opener when pried off the jar. If your lids are in good shape when removed, however, it is possible to re-use them, but that’s a more advanced skill that is best suited for another time.

To sterilize lids, all you need to do is boil water and put the lids (not the rings) in it. Let the water boil for 2-3 minutes with the lids in then take it off the heat. Don’t remove the lids from the hot water until you’re ready to put them onto the jars. This keeps any “bugs” in the air from getting onto the sealing portion of the lid and turning into mold later, breaking the seal. The hot lid will sterilize the lip of the jar as well.

Sterilizing Jars
This is not complicated and just means washing them in hot water with soap. Treat the jars as if they were drinking glasses and you’ll have them clean enough for canning. The lip of the jar is most important and when re-using jars, they should be inspected for chips, cracks, or other damage. Damaged jars shouldn’t be used for canning.

Setting Up Preserves In Jars
The rest of canning is mixing and processing your produce for canning, then putting it into the jars, boiling, and letting them cool and seal themselves.

When adding the ingredients to the jar, leave “head space” or a blank space between the contents and the top of the jar (lid). One eighth to one quarter of an inch is normal. A rule of thumb is that if the contents are primarily liquid (like with pickles), you should leave more space so the liquid can expand while being boiled. I like to leave a little more than a quarter inch in that case (about the width of a #2 pencil). For preserves (jams, jellies) and thicker things, a little less space is OK.

The way canning works is that the liquids inside the jar will expand as it’s being boiled and then contract again when it cools, creating a small vacuum and pulling the lid down, creating the seal that keeps outside air and bugs out of the preserves.

Once the liquids are in the jar, wipe the rim with a clean cloth to remove any debris and then take a lid from the hot water and place it on the top of the jar. Ad a ring, tightening it hand-tight.

Using the Canner and Boiling
When you have enough jars done, put them in the rack and put them in the canner (pot). Make sure the water level is above the tops of the jars by at least an inch and then bring the water to a boil.

If the water is already boiling before you ad the jars, you’ll want to “acclimate” them to the water so they don’t crack or shatter with the sudden temperature change. This is not usually a problem with modern glass tempering, but it’s better safe than sorry. Most canner racks can “rest” on top of the canner so the jars are only partially submerged. Leaving them there for a few minutes before dunking will heat the glass to acclimate it.

When the water reaches a boil in the canner, time the canning process according to your recipe (usually 15-20 minutes). Then remove the rack with the jars and let cool. Putting the jars on a solid surface like a cutting board, wooden shelf, etc. will help. You can repeat the process for more jars with the water boiling.

Within ten minutes to half an hour of removing the jars from the boiling water and letting them cool, you’ll probably start to hear them “pop.” This is the lids settling and sealing as the contents of the jars cool enough for the vacuum to form inside.

Checking Seals and Storing
After a couple of hours, check your lids. They should be slightly concave. Pressing your finger at center should result in nothing. If the lid gives or springs back up, it’s not sealed. If the lid doesn’t seal within 12 hours, you can either put the jar into the fridge and eat it soon or try to re-boil it and get a seal. If you’ve done everything right, you shouldn’t have more than 1 in 20 jars not sealing for you.

Some people like to turn their jars upside down and set them on their lids and rings. Sometimes, if you do this after eight or ten hours from taking them from the canner, the lids will seal when you turn the jar back over. In my experience, this doesn’t work often, so I rarely bother, but you can give it a try.

Storing your preserves is all about keeping them as “quiet” as possible. If you take the rings off to use again (I recommend this once you’ve stored them, as the rings are often vulnerable to rusting), make sure the bottles are in a location where they won’t be disturbed. Knocking the edges of the lids can pop the seal, opening the jar and leading to rot.

A cool, dry pantry, is best and it should not have a lot of natural light getting into it often if you want to maximize preservation time. Make sure to label the jars by either writing on the lids with a marker or putting masking tape or other labels on them. This label should always include the date (month/year) the preserves were made.

All jarred (canned) preserves, whether vegetable or fruit, should be used within five years.

Conclusion
Hopefully this little tutorial has given you an idea of how canning preserves works. Putting food into jars to store it is a long tradition and works extremely well when done right. Specific recipes for various types of preserves are available all over the Internet, in recipe books, and in the minds of older people all over.

Here on Aaron’s EnvironMental Corner, I’ve steadily been (and continue) posting my favorite recipes for preserves along with how-to’s for each. Whether it’s peaches, jam, pickles, or whatever, preserving your garden’s bounty or your great finds at the farmer’s market is definitely the way to go.

With jars and lids costing less than $1 per set and pectin and other ingredients being even less than that, you can have a great larder of canned goods from your garden for extremely low cost! Plus it’s healthier, tastes better, and the process of canning can involve the whole family!