Canning Costs and Electrical Efficiency

[moolie]

There are members here who use steam canners and have for years, but from all that I've read regarding food safety they're not 100% reliable if you use conventional canning times as listed in recipes.

When you place a jar of food in hot water and boil it, it gets the contents of the jar to the right heat at a different rate than steam does. From what I've read, steam canning can't heat larger chunks (like peach halves or whole plum tomatoes) in near the same amount of time that boiling water can, in some cases you'd need to double the time (or even more) for the food in the jars to get hot enough.

But YMMV as always, I just personally won't use one.

eta: Just googled "steam canner safety" to see if I could find what I had read before about temperatures and found a few links with info worth reading:

http://histakes-food-storage.blogspot.com/2009/05/steam-canner-not-entirely-safe.html
http://www.foodinjars.com/2011/01/canning-101-should-you-use-steam-canners/
http://www.simplycanning.com/water-bath-canner.html#axzz1jy4W5U12 (scroll down to the steam canner bit)

 

[k15n1]

Interesting conversation!

Can I beg you to look at these, fellow canners?
http://www.google.com/products/cata...csAYT7DcJMy2tweZmKjACw&sqi=2&ved=0CGAQ8wIwAQ#

The amount of electricity and water savings is incredible! And stoves are BIG energy hogs. Of course, it also saves a pile of time since the water heats up so much more quickly. And you know how valuable time is during canning season...

The point of this thread is that canning is very energy effecient compared to freezing.

I don't know much about low-pressure steam canning, which is supposed to be equivalent to the water-bath method. I doubt that it makes a huge difference. Especially if you're canning multiple batches with the same pot of boiling water.

There is some research by Aprovecho [1] that shows some ways to improve efficiency, but they're mainly not useful for canning. The take-away is that you should cover your canner while getting it up to boiling.


1. http://www.aprovecho.org/lab/pubs/rl/perf-stud/doc/59/raw

 

[me&thegals]

The point of this thread is that canning is very energy effecient compared to freezing.

Yes, I understand that

I'm just trying to point to a canning method that helps save even MORE electricity and water. I have canned for nearly 20 years now. Believe me when I say the time, water and electric savings are huge. Trying to heat 1-2 quarts of water is tremendously different than approximately 15 quarts or more of water, like the difference in the time it takes to get a pressure canner boiling compared to a water bath canner.

When I'm canning, I will have an entire counter of now room-temp applesauce to can, for example, and there's no way I can plunge those jars into just-boiling water in a water bath. I have lost jars over the years trying to push the temperature differential.

 

[MyKidLuvsGreenEgz]

Wondering how dehydrating stacks up, cost/energy-wise, to canning and freezing. Both a dehydrating machine and a solar dryer.

 

[me&thegals]

Well, solar would be free--whoohoo!!

 

[MyKidLuvsGreenEgz]

I meant that there's free dehydrating and costing dehydrating, so compare the costs of an electric dehydrator to canning and freezing.

Sorry didn't make myself clear.

 

[k15n1]

Wondering how dehydrating stacks up, cost/energy-wise, to canning and freezing. Both a dehydrating machine and a solar dryer.

Dehydrators that I've seen are rated for 600-900 W, but they generally only pull the maximum load when first loaded (according to what I read on the interwebs. Some guy tried it with a kill-a-watt meter). If it was on full power for 2 days, that would be 40 kWh, which is a lot more than canning. But it's probably under 100 W for most of the time, so I would estimate the typical usage around 5 kWh for a really big load that takes several days to finish. I think you'd have to divide that number by the wet weight of the food to compare it to the canning and freezing numbers. Unless you can get 50 lb of peaches in an Excalibur, the energy usage for dehydrating is higher than canning.

This is a lot of estimates and guessing, so it would be nice if someone who actually knows something about this could chip in!

I can't wait to get a dehydrator and put it to work next summer. If I feel guilty, I'll just hang a load or two of laundry. Electric driers use something like 4 kWh per load [1].



1. http://www.absak.com/library/power-consumption-table

 

[me&thegals]

How's everyone's canning going this year? I'm doing my usual canning and freezing, dehydrating only mushrooms and mint.

Canned:
jam for sale at market
tomatoes
salsa
pickles
dilly beans

Frozen:
pesto
beans
fruit (berries)
sweet corn
freezer jam for our own use
peppers

Dehydrated:
mint
mushrooms

 

[moolie]

Just the summer canning (since June):

lots of jams
lots of tomato sauce (about 150 lbs of tomatoes)
mild, medium, and Roasted Tomato Chipotle salsa (about 50 lbs of tomatoes)
Chili Sauce like my Grandma used to make (10 lbs of tomatoes)
beets
sweet pickle relish
vegetable antipasto
dilly bean pickles
mango chutney
ground bison
chicken chunks
split pea soup with bacon
turkey veg soup
borscht (soup)
beef barley soup
tomato soup
dill pickles
bread & butter pickles
peaches
carrots
potatoes

still need to do:
pears
apples
applesauce
crabapple jelly
crabapple butter
Newhouse Farm chutney

Oh, missed the freezing:
12 gallons of Saskatoon berries (gleaned and from the nearby u-pick)
2 gallons of raspberries
bell peppers (farmer's market, our garden ones are small and we've mostly been using them in cooking)

Haven't run the dehydrator for a while, but will soon be doing some fruit leather (apples and berries), some of the Saskatoons for berry "raisins" for home made granola, apple and banana chips.

 

[me&thegals]

Wow--that sounds delicious!

I need to do pears and apples yet also. Our electric bill was pretty high last month and even higher this month at $150, but I've been using the stove a lot for far more canning than usual for the markets, plus cooking down sauce, which I rarely make. DH also built a walk-in cooler, and the dehumidifer has been running, plus 2 fridges and 2 freezers, so maybe that's not such a bad bill after all.

Still doing the steam canning 5+ years later, and I very, very rarely have a jar not seal.