Equipment You Need to Start Home Canning

WHAT YOU NEED TO DO YOUR HOME CANNING

I will try to list some of these for you and if you like you can use it as a shopping guide. I am sure some of you will think that all are not necessary and can get by with less. That is up to you, my list is what we used to make our Award winning Jams, Jellies and Preserves.

One of the first items you will need to purchase is a canning pot. Canning pots are large pots that you will use to process your jars for longer shelf life. They almost always come with a rack inside, this rack is what you use to safely put your jars into a boiling water bath, and when the time is up, remove the jars. I have seen people try to make do with some sort or rigged pot, but this soon leads to injury and or failure. Procesing correctly is the only way you have to make sure your jars are sealed and have no tiny leaks. With proper sealing home made products have a very long shelf life. Some of your home made products are good for years. You can find canning pots at your local hardware store or grocery store or even Wal-Mart. When I refer to local hardware store I am not talking about the big warehouse stores. I use those store to buy many other items, but they don't stock home canning products.

The next items are sort of a team, measuring cups and measuring spoons. I don't know of very many cooks that can make their best with only guesswork for measurements. There is a big diffence in 1 teaspoon and 1 tablespoon. Just like there is a big difference in a 1/4 cup and a cup. Something else you might think you don't need, but really do, is long wooden spoons. All the fancy shiny spoons you might have will not work in home canning. There are two big reason, 1. The wooden spoon will not get hot while stirring your projects. Most of our projects require lots of stiring and mixing. A metal spoon gets too hot and will burn you. 2. A wooden spoon is used to watch the liquid drip off to see if it is jelling. This is called watching to see if it sheets. Your grandmothers did not always have Sure-Jel or Can-Jel to make their jellies set up. They had to watch their spoons and look for sheeting.

Canning Jars are a necessary item Reusing jars from home is the number one way to have a failed project. The resaon is that most people use metal utensils to get jelly out of a jar. A single scratch on the inside could cause your jar to crack when it is reboiled. Canning jars come with domes and rings to seal your homemade items. The dome is the flat circle with a shiny side and an underside with a rubber gasket attached. This gasket makes the seal, and the dome is curved down when the jars are set. You also have the rings that hold the domes to the jars. Before you boil your jars the rings should be finger tight; that is not hard tight or loose. If you have the rings too tight the air can't escape from your jars and form a seal, or the water might get into your jars if too loose. After your jars are processed, sealed and cooled, you can go back and take the rings off and clean any water that might still be there. This will keep the rings from rusting. Rings are reusable but not the domes.

Good pot holders are valuable, as they keep you from burning yourself during the whole process. Whether you are cooking or removing the jars from the water, hot pads or pot holders are just the thing. Something new I have seen in the market for this use are gloves that are made to protect your hands even in ovens. I wish I had had those back when we had our business. No matter how hard you try to keep from burning yourself, it still happens.

Unbleached Muslin - you will need this to strain your liquids. This will give you the clearest jelly. Do not use chesse cloth; this will still allow tiny pieces to get in your strained liquid. One of the nice things about the muslin is that you can wash it and reuse it forever. Go to a fabric store and buy 2 yards of unbleached muslin. At home cut into pieces about 18 inches square. This is a good size to work with. Next wash the cloth 3 or 4 times without fabric softeners (you don't want your hard work to taste like fabric softners) then dry. In the last wash use a cup of vinegar in place of soap or fabric softener. This rids all the soap from your muslin. Don't use the little sheets in the dryer either.
If you are going to be giving your finest made items away as gifts you will need to make yourself a label to put on the jars. You need more than the name of the product, you need your name, and in some cases the ingredients. You want your name on the label because every time your friends eat from it they will think of you. The ingredients are a good idea as so many people have food alergies, and you don't want someone to eat something that will make them ill.

Canning, Kosher or Sea Salt. Table salt has iodine as a ingredient. Iodine can change the color of some of the things you can. It makes a bigger difference when you are putting up vegetables and pickles. The edges of the pickles can turn a dark color and not look the way you want them to. I am sure that some people will say that they have used table salt with no adverse changes in the products. All I have to say is we have not been so lucky. Some of the things we made did have brown looking edges and we were unable to sell them. It is your choice, but I would recomend sticking with the type of salt most canning books suggest.

The next item on your list should be a good cooking pot. This is a vital item in cooking. Just like a good frying pan to make fried chicken, a good jelly pot is needed. You need a pot that is strong enough and high enough. Strong in that it distributes the heat evenly and tall enough that something will not boil over. You have not really cleaned up a mess, til you try to clean spilled/burned jelly off your stove. For these two reasons, you should maybe get a bigger pot than you have just to keep down the mess. One more item that you will find that you can't work without is a jar funnel. This is a funnel that you use to keep from spilling the hot fluids. It fits the jar mouth and is wide at the top for ease of use.

A kitchen timer is vital to making good jellies. It has to be big enough to hear and see. It really helps if it is not mounted on the wall. It also has to be flexable, something that you can set for 10 minutes or set for 45 minutes. You don't have to buy a digital timer, an old fashioned one worked for us for over 15 years. The best thing is the small timers are inexpensive. It is your choice for the size and model.

Last, but not least, you need a jar lifter. It is something that you will use for many things while canning. The #1 reason is taking hot jars out of boiling water. Sometimes when you are trying to lift 8 jars out of the boiling water in your canning pot, it is too heavy. You will have to take out a couple to allow you to lift the other jars safely. Don't try this with anything else, especially tongs. You will burn yourself. Boiling water leaves a very bad burn.



Here are a couple more items you may need: A good Ladle to transfer your products from the pot to the jar, a long thin non-metalic spatula to slides into your filled jars to release any air bubbles, a kitchen scale, food brush for cleaning, large collander, a food mill, food chopper or grinder, juice extracter, a candy thermometer.




There are other items needed to make other types of canned products. I will give you another list for putting up relishes and pickles and other such items. But for now the above list will get you started.



My next blog will be about making Pepper Jelly, one of the most popular jellies we made and sold. It is also the most misunderstood. So very many people think it is scorching hot because it is red in color. I will tell you the truth about the color of pepper jelly.