Small Batch Canning

[DrakeMaiden]

Do any of you do this regularly?

I usually adjust my canning recipes to whatever volume of food I have on hand, but I always thought you weren't supposed to do that, because dividing recipes in half or less can skew your recipe just a little (when dealing in smaller volumes you need to measure especially accurately, as there is less margin for error) and you are supposed to be very careful and can according to the book!

The other day I decided to only can one small jar of dill pickles because I only had two fresh little cucumbers and a ton of lovely dill that I didn't want to waste. It was also an experiment because the last time I made dill pickles they didn't turn out very well, and so I was trying out a different recipe.

I searched on-line and found that people do this all the time. Here is a nice blog post about it.

Like others mention, it is very satisfying to put any bit of food away that you can.

 

[moolie]

I regularly borrow several "small batch canning" books from my library (I love my library!), I'm sure people have always done this.

One that's very nice is Canning for a New Generation: Bold, Fresh Flavors for the Modern Pantry

I also like Put 'em Up!: A Comprehensive Home Preserving Guide for the Creative Cook, from Drying and Freezing to Canning and Pickling and The Complete Book of Small-Batch Preserving: Over 300 Recipes to Use Year-Round

I think the reason most often given for not tinkering is that doubling a recipe totally messes up jam and jelly-making, because the recipe won't cook down appropriately.

 

[DrakeMaiden]

Thanks, moolie, I should check those books out!

I noticed that with the pickle recipe I used that all the measurements were easily divisible by 12, to make round measurements, so that is what I did.

 

[moolie]

Gotta love it when it works out like that