Canning Methods

The 2 methods to process home canned food are water bath canning and the other pressure canning. Water bath canning is used for high acid recipes.  Pressure canning is used for pretty much everything else.  Pressure canning takes much less time to process food.

Pressure Canning

It is widely known now that adding acid to low-acid foods helps kill harmful bacteria, but what if you don’t want to pickle chicken?  Long-term shelf stable safety relies solely on temperature and time to kill harmful bacteria.  This means we must go higher than boiling water temperature.  A pressure canner reaches temperature of 250 plus.  Those temps are obtained by air pressure.  Unlike water bath canning, pressure canning isn’t relying on water temperature to preserve the food in jars.  You are relying on the temperature of the air inside the pressure canner.  If there’s no ability to reach a temp of 240 degrees or higher, there’s no safe way to safely preserve chili, soup, meat, stews and wonderful vegetables.

Water Bath Canning

This is the popular canning process for many canners.  Acidic foods such as jams. pickles, and salsas require only boiling temperatures to 212 degrees to kill bacteria safely.  A large stock pot is needed with a rack for jars to keep them from banging into each other which cracks the jars.  Water needs to cover every jar and is heated to a rolling boil to make sure that 212 degrees is reached. The specific amount of time to process is decided by what you’re actually water bath canning. Water bath canning can be tricky since it takes 3 hours to process most things and water must be kept boiling and covering the jars.

Altitude Adjustment

The higher in altitude you are, the longer it takes water to boil because the air pressure is lower.  Water also evaporates faster but gas expands more.  For those that live in higher altitudes, you must learn to adjust your cooking and baking recipes.  Pressure canning process time per recipe remains the same, but pounds of pressure must be adjusted based on feet above sea level.