Sixty-six quarts of stewed tomatoes and tomato-based soup-stock are in the pantry. There are enough tomatoes still on the vine for another 14-to-21 quarts if we needed them.
I decided that I like vinegar better than citric acid for lowering the pH. To my taste buds, the acetic acid in the vinegar is not as harsh as the citric acid. 2 ounces of 5% vinegar per quart adds 0.3% acid to the tomatoes.
No frost is predicted for tonight even though they predict a low of 36F, clear skies and no wind. That is usually enough to frost low lying areas with no tree cover. Maybe they figure the day was warm enough to provide some protection. It is not a big deal to me if our tomatoes get killed.
Interesting blog post
Provided for entertainment purposes since I did not verify the information.
This blogger contends that USDA Technical Bulletin 930 supports the idea that low-acid foods can be home-canned in the common water-bath (as opposed to pressure canned) if the person performing the canning meticulously increases the time-at-temperature by a very significant amount.
Key Point: Temperatures of 212F kill Clostridium botulinum spores but it kills them slowly.Key Point: The die-off is an exponential decay curve.
Key Point: The temperature in the center of the food being canned lags the temperature of the bath.
Key Point: The temperature of boiling tap water drops with increasing elevation. It boils at 210F at 900 feet of elevation and that makes a difference.
The risk in canning low-acid foods is that while the bacteria Clostridium botulinum and its toxins are destroy are destroyed at common canning time/temperatures, the spores are very resistant to heat and many of them remain viable. They germinate and grow in the oxygen-free, low-pH environment of the jar's content. Then the bacteria for spoors internally and release toxins when they rupture to free the spoors.
The current recommendations from the USDA are to pressure can low-acid foods, like meat, in a pressure-canner at a minimum temperature of 240F for an at-heat time of 90 minutes (for a quart) and to let the pressure-canner cool down below 200F by natural convection before removing the jars from the canner.
How much longer at 212F?
This is good information to have in your hip-pocket with the proviso that you pitch any jars that show signs of lids bulging .AND. that you cook the devil out of low-acid foods canned at 212F and the MUCH longer times. Boiling that food for at least fifteen minutes (soups, stew, chili) destroys any Clostridium botulinum toxins generated by stray spores that remained viable.
Why would you want to?
Austere conditions and a huge windfall like a horse with a broken leg in the middle of the summer.
Nearly all of the meat would go to waste if you only had one pressure-canner but it would be possible to get a gang of people cutting-and-stuffing meat into jars and canning hundreds of pounds of meat in canning-kettles improvised out of steel barrels heated over wood-fires.
Bonus image
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| My phone case broke. I ordered a new one. |
I have two thoughts:
ReplyDelete1. The first "modern" canning was under Napoleon and required cooking for hours, which left mush.
2. If you add salt, or something else, to the water can you increase the boiling point?
Jonathan
Yes with regard to the salt although you would want to wash the lids thoroughly for corrosion issues.
DeleteIf you were inclined, you could make a lid with a stand-pipe and each foot of stand-pipe would be roughly equivalent to every +1000 feet of elevation.
Or...you could just boil the jars longer than the three hours for the chicken in quarts.
Is that phone case a thermoplastic? If so you might be able to mend it with a soldering iron. Make a model of your phone out of corrugated cardboard, put it in the case, secure the case tight to bring the broken edge together and apply heat. If you know the specific type of plastic you might be able to reinforce it with some fill.
ReplyDeleteIt is almost certainly thermoplastic and it is probably ABS.
DeleteTent stakes are a good source of ABS for projects like that. https://www.walmart.com/ip/Coghlan-s-9-ABS-Plastic-Tent-Pegs-Bulk-with-No-Slip-Hook/38437620?classType=VARIANT&from=/search
I had wondered about the water boil canning for low acid foods. The canning books all say it’s not safe, yet I’ve read it seemed to be common practice a hundred years ago. No idea if people died of botulism due to canning errors or not.
ReplyDeleteI still use the pressure canner for low acid foods.
Southern NH
Gotta watch the mutations. Periodically a baterial species does a "level-up" (gaming term) that renders previously safe recipes as no longer sufficient to kill off the nasties at the previous time-at-tempurature regime. E-coli had two mutations, one around 1993 and one in the 200-oughts that could suddenly survive a LOT of the pre-1990s tried-n-true recipes. That was an era where we lost a LOT of half-gal jar recipes; when I last did my own pressure canning the only current recipies they still recommended for half-gallon jars were apple and grape juice. Old recipes that were safe in you grand parents day may not be safe against today's up-graded microbes.
DeleteWhen we can fruit we make it safe by adding copious amounts of alcohol. Works a treat. As it happens we have such large stocks of rum accumulated that we can treat it as effectively free.
ReplyDelete(We don't drink rum; people gave as rum as presents. Turns out that rum is OK with fruit though.)
Some time ago, came across a video made by a woman who was friends with an Amish woman who claimed that they NEVER use a pressure canner.
ReplyDeleteTheir time in boiling water bath was like 90 to 150 minutes for
varius low acid foods.
Try apple cider vinegar - it is less harsh than the normal malt vinegar and does impart its own flavour.
ReplyDeletePhil B