Choosing a pressure canner? ... Got it!

[ORChick]

OK, so I think I may be getting a canner - but I need help. So I'm calling on all you experts out there. Please?
First and foremost - I have a glass top stove (oh, how I wish I had my old 5 burner gas stove again - but getting gas to this house would be a major undertaking) so I think that probably I should be looking at a Presto. Do you agree? And how do like yours, if you have one?
Second - we are a small family - just us two - so can you give me information on what size canner you have, and how much you can process in one batch?
Third (or maybe just an extention of #2) - this would probably be mostly for stocks and soups, and maybe meat and fish (if I can find a good deal); I don't particularly like canned veggies, and DH only likes canned peas - and I don't think I could ever have enough of those to want to can any . So probably I wouldn't ever be wanting to do huge amounts at a time.
I brought this up this evening with DH, and he just nodded when I said it might be a good idea, and would save freezer space; he did not imply that I was crazy - which is sort of odd (because I think that I might be ).

 

[miss_thenorth]

With a glass top stove, I wouldn't know. Are there certain types of canners that will work on them? For some reason, I think scr8pn has a glass top stove. May be when he comes aroung he'll chiime in. Other tahn that, I have a Mirro, and it seems to do the job just fine.

 

[freemotion]

Glass top stove....Presto.

1. I have the 23 quart (two of them) and I canned hundreds and hundreds of jars of stuff on my glass top stove with no problems. The problem with big canners is the shape of the bottom of the pot...Presto's canners will not damage the glass top.

2. I can do 7 quarts or 20 pints (you can stack pints and half pints) and 26 half pints per batch. You can do as few jars as you want, too. Babysitting the canner is a pain, so I always want as many jars in there as possible to make it worth my time. With the electric stove, you have to fiddle with the heat a lot, so you have to stay right next to it all the time. Which is ok, you can get a lot of things done in your kitchen, but.....I always want as much in that canner as possible. Most things that I pressure can (containing meat) need 75-90 minutes of pressurized processing. That takes over 2 hours.

3. Once you get started, you WILL be doing large amounts. You will love the convenience of having a bizillion pints of various soups, stews, chili, meatloaf, etc, for quick meals and you both don't have to eat the same thing. Or the convenience of throwing a meal together with the ready ingredients....broths, meat chunks, cream of mushroom soup....the possibilities are endless!

I love my canners. Love 'em. I am very popular right now with all this liverwurst.....

 

[ORChick]

Thanks Free. I think I would also want to fill the thing if it were going anyway, which is why I'm not sure I would want a huge one. As mentioned on one of Annaraven's threads - she with her Italian DH, and I with my German one - there is a different mindset to food in other cultures: they have different taste memories, and American Standard Fare is not comfort food to them. DH is not too fond of cassarole type things, and, over the years, nor am I anymore. Which is why I haven't really considered the canner before this. However, by clearing the freezer of stocks and soups there would be more room for other things, and the soup things would be more convenient if they didn't need to be defrosted. And, with research, I could probably find a way to can some of the things he does like that are, by nature, long cooked - like gulasch, or beef rouladen, or cabbage rolls.
I'm still in the research stage, and value any and all information.

 

[adoptedbyachicken]

Like you I'm looking into this right now, and I too have a glass top stove. Things I have gleaned from those near me that have and use their pressure canners lots. These folks really do make fantastic use of their canners and like me work full time and run a farm so pressed for time like me, which is why I asked them. So take it for what it's worth to your situation:

Get a propane burner and do it outside. Most canning is done in the summer when you don't want to heat/steam your house up. Propane is easiest to regulate so you get the pressure right and it stays there. The propane burners are at every camping place or army surplus and cheep. You can get any size burner you want, or several burners in the same unit.

Get a large canner. They say we think you will not use it and we are wrong. Get 2 or even 3 large canners, one to be perking or cooling while your filling jars for the other. Maybe one small canner for doing half pints if you think you will go that way. When the tomatoes or whatever are a great price and you have the day to get them canned you can accomplish amazing amounts if you have a system going where your loading up while another is cooking and onward. If you have to do it hours a day 8 days in a row to get through you will not bother after a few goes. It will interfere with life or work too much. Have a canning day and get er done. Even now when they are doing meats after hunting they are still working outside, or in the shed with ventilation of course. However have the draft free place ready for the jars to cool after being taken out of the canner.

Watch out for canners with seals if you buy used. Make sure the seal is still manufactured. Many have been discontinued and so your stuck with a useless canner. Best are the new ones that don't need a seal. Even new you need to check the availability of the seals so you know if you need one how to get it. Check hunting and fishing or army surplus places for canners too, they often have them at better prices.

Easy on the spices, they really are easy to overdo with pressure canning apparently.

I'd love to hear what other here have to say about those hints I got. I have been wanting a propane burner anyway due to having the glass top so that's not hard to convince me on, but some of the rest seems like too much to me.

 

[ohiofarmgirl]

Get a large canner.

aint that right. or better yet - get two. i'm gonna get a second this spring. once you get everything going its such a pain to be limited and still having to stand around. mine only fits 7 (??) quarts at a time. i'd rather get it all done at once.

and

FF (was that you??) gave me the biggest secret to success which is not to take lid off for several hours or overnite even if its cooled down... almost all of mine seal now. so having a 2nd one would at least let me do another round instead of waiting until the next day.

 

[CrimsonRose]

I have a glass top stove and use a mirro 22qt canner... and love it!

it fits I think 6 qts and 16pints or something like that... I usually turn the stove on high till it steams then put on the weight and turn the heat down to medium high then let it go!

Yes leave the lid on till it depressurizes on it's own... this keeps it from leaking all the water out of the jars... (learned that last year on this site!)

even if you don't think you will do much canning I would still get the larger one.... that way you have the option to do larger batches if you like or still can smaller ones too...

I like to make HUGE batches of soup or broth and canned chicken... It stays good for upto 2 years so do a big batch and get all your soup canned up in one big batch! Then you don't have to worry about canning stock again for a while... It really isn't anymore work to can 3 jars or 16 so why not can the 16 and not have the hassle of canning soup every few weeks? I also can a lot of pumpkin (since I can get it so cheep after the holidays) and I use it for breads pies soups and such one big pumpkin fills up my canner with 2 batches sometimes and I have to put some in the fridge to process the next day... if I had a smaller canner I would have to fire up 3-4 batches just to can one pumpkin! I want to save up and next summer or fall pick up another one so I can really get the job done come harvest time!

 

[ORChick]

adoptedbyachicken - I see the sense in all your tips, but .... (don't you hate it when people say that? ). I have a burner on my gas grill, so could do it outside; but I can imagine running out of propane halfway through; and the stuff around the burner (knobs, lid) kind of limit how big a pot I could use. Maybe a dedicated cooker would work better, but again, 90 minutes seems like a long time to be running off a little propane tank. As I am not really sure how useful this will end up being for me anyway I'm not sure that I want to spend the money for a canner AND a dedicated heat source, so I would want to, at first anyway, start with a canner that works on the glass top.
As to keeping the kitchen cool - I live in Oregon, its not a huge problem (Though I see that you live in BC, so it should be even less of one there )
And, using two in tandem ... how do you manage that with a standard size cooktop? I have only one large burner, and am not sure about shifting very hot pots about to get the second one onto the heat. How do others manage?
Also, I am retired, and I do not live on a farm. Certainly I have things to keep me busy, but I also can re-arrange my time as I want. So, if I dedicate a day or two just to canning, nobody is going to get too upset about it I don't have kids, and the chickens and cats won't feel too put out if I spend a day in the kitchen instead of with them .
And lastly, and as mentioned before, many of the things that seem to be on the standard list of canning just aren't things that I would be interested in doing. Canned vegetables are a non-starter here - except tomatoes, which I do in a WBC canner anyway. Actually, thinking about it, I might consider canning beets, but certainly wouldn't need dozens of jars. I am a mixed up sort of cook - I don't particularly like shopping, so I try to keep a stocked pantry; but, on the other hand, I generally cook from scratch, as needed. For that reason I find that the freezer is often a better way to keep certain foods, as canning cooks things so very thoroughly before they need to be cooked again.
So, anyway, thats where I am starting out from. All advice is welcome, and I appreciate it immensely, but I may not find all of it useful for my situation.

 

[Dirk Chesterfield]

Maybe a dedicated cooker would work better, but again, 90 minutes seems like a long time to be running off a little propane tank.

I exclusively can with a turkey fryer burner on my covered back porch. At the beginning of canning season I had a 1/2 full grill tank and accomplished 10 canning runs before having to switch to my reserve tank. I use an All American 921 canner, cold pack and run full loads so it takes about 30 to 45 minutes to achieve 10 lbs pressure. Half of my runs were meat and required 75 minutes @ 10 lbs. The other half were stock and apple sauce which ran for 30 minutes @ 10 lbs The single propane burner is very efficient. In my case a full tank could conceivably last two years.

After several years of canning on my electric GE stove my large burner broke due to the large amount of weight from my big Presto 23 quart canner (since retired). I switched to outdoor canning to keep the summer heat at bay and reduce the wear and tear on my stove. I doubt I'll ever go back to canning inside.

 

[adoptedbyachicken]

ORChick no problem! That's why I said take what works for you.

I was shocked that this might be a bigger deal than I was thinking, as in getting stuff and things to make a go of it. But I really do want to do lots of stuff as I learn how, so for me it would be best to batch big. And I live really near a desert believe it or not, so heat in the summer in the kitchen is a big deal! We get 30 C for weeks at a time when the bounty is around to be canned, I'd rather be outside on the porch.

One friend cans lots and says a propane tank lasts for many loads of meat, with a 2 burner. I have a burner on the BBQ too, but it's not very big and close to the edge of the BBQ so not good for a bigger pot either. But it will be great for the hot water to have the lids in I guess.

If you have the flex in your schedule to do a couple hours each day I envy you, I think the load of work all one day will be a bit much, but it's how I will have to do it.

My glass top has the one big one small too, I think it will be a no go due to being the infrared type that is on then off, duration being what setting it's on. I can't see that working well to maintain a pressure. The older ones, and the newer ones stay on apparently, at the adjusted power. That would seem to me to be better.