Sunday, August 26, 2012

My First Canning!

Sterlizing the jars and lids -- note the lid isn't sealed on the canner. It's a 16 quart Presto canner I bought at Walmart that will do 10 pint jars or 7 quart jars. Importantly, it's small enough it's OK to use on my glass top stove -- the "Gold Standard" All-American Canners which are awesome are also so heavy they don't recommend using them on glass tops. The All-Americans, in addition to being U.S. made, don't use a gasket like Presto (an occasional replacement item), and they use a dial to control the pressure instead of weights like the Presto (something I'm sure I'll be tearing the kitchen apart one day trying to figure out what I did with them...).



The Beans, picked fresh this morning:


If I had chickens, they'd be loving the ends & culls in the background:


We be cutting...the "Santoku" style knife is nice!


Soaking in warm water and vinegar to wash them off. I then rinsed a handful at a time, putting them in the salad spinner colander to drain.


Ready to go in...


And finished:
They're floating, but that should be OK from what I've read. Maybe I could have packed it a bit tighter?

Like what I'm finding with a lot of stuff in the kitchen, it's not a lot of "work" or even that "time consuming" so much as it needs forethought and planning. I'll have to time the next time I do this, so I could be doing other things while the processing is going on.

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