Tim and Jen Live Here

For those of us who did not grow up with a mother, grandmothers, aunts, neighbors who canned the year’s harvest in order to eat well over the winter, the concept of canning can be a bit scary. But in my desire to eat more seasonally and more locally, I decided last year to jump in with both feet and see what this canning business was all about. I bought Ball’s Home Preserving Book – a wonderfully complete guide to canning – as well as the necessary equipment, then started out small – canning applesauce and tomato-based pasta sauce. Tomatoes and apples were both in abundance in late summer and early fall, so they were logical choices.

The applesauce is wonderful, and the tomato sauce was pretty good. We ate it all, so it couldn’t have been too bad, but the recipe I found called for cinnamon and nutmeg, and those just didn’t quite work for me. Still, I’ll do both again later this year, but I’ll need a new pasta sauce recipe first.

This year I’ve been canning rhubarb. So far, everything I’ve canned has required only hot-water-bath canning. I bought a pressure canner in the hopes of expanding my canning repertoire, but you can do hot-water-bath canning with a large stock pot that has a lid.

The key issue when using water-bath-canning is the pH of your finished product. Fruits tend to be highly acidic (low pH), so they are unlikely to develop people-harming bacteria after canning. For less acidic foods, a pressure canner allows you to boil water at a higher temperature than normal, killing off more of those bacteria during processing. If you live at high altitudes where water boils at a lower temperature than 212F you may need to consult local canning guides for food safety. But here’s my process for canning highly-acidic rhubarb sauce using a water bath.

Start with a large pot full of chopped rhubarb. Bonus points if the pot is really pretty. Consult your recipe, then head to the grocery store after realizing you forgot to buy more sugar after you used it all up during your last baking effort. Finally arrive back home and add the desired quantity of sugar. I don’t remember the numbers now, but recipes are plentiful in books and online. Let them sit for a few minutes so the sugar can draw the juices out, then cook until the rhubarb is nice and saucy.

Meanwhile, assuming your stove is large enough, you can process both the jars and the lids to make them safe for canning. The size of your canning pot will determine the number of jars you can process at once. Fill it up with cans, then both surround and fill the cans to about 3/4 full with water. Turn up the burner heat and bring the water to near a boil, but don’t actually boil. Then, shut off the heat. Do the same with the lids to the jars. It’s not necessary to process the screw-on jar lids.

When your rhubarb sauce (or whatever you’re canning) is fully cooked, remove the jars from the water using a jar lifter (seen in the left of this photo).Dump the water back into the canning pot and place the jars on the counter. Use a canning funnel (the big, brown, plastic thing inside one of the jars) to assist in filling the jars to the recommended level in your recipe. In this case, the recipe called for 1/4″ headspace – or filling to 1/4″ from the top of the jar. The other recommended equipment I haven’t yet mentioned, but that can also be seen in the photo, is a glass of wine. If you’re going to spend your evening in the kitchen, why not enjoy a glass of wine?

You can use a magnet or any non-metallic gripping-type device to remove the lids from the pot of water you almost-boiled them in. After wiping the jar tops down, place a lid on each and finger-tighten the screw bands in place. There’s no need to wrench them firmly in place. The magic of physics will cause the lids to seal when they’re boiled and cooled with or without the screw bands.

Place the lidded jars back into your water bath and add water, if necessary, to make sure the water level is at least 1″ above the top of the jars. Place the lid on your canning pot and turn the heat up high. Bring the water to a full boil and allow to boil for 10 minutes. Turn off the burner and let the jars sit in the water for 5 more minutes. Remove, again with the jar-lifter, and set on the counter to cool. You should hear a very satisfying pop as each jar seals. If any jar fails to seal after 24 hours, either re-process (see your canning cookbook for specifics) or refrigerate and eat quickly.

Finally, prepare to do this all over again with strawberry preserves, since strawberries are the next great in-season bit of produce. And don’t worry when, once again, you’re all ready to start the canning process and realize that you’ve used up all your sugar making rhubarb sauce. Just squash and measure the strawberries and put everything else on hold until tomorrow. At least, that’s what I’m doing. Tomorrow, I’ll be canning strawberry preserves.