Help on Pressure Canner?

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We have heard about some super-duper French pressure canner. Anyone know what I'm asking about? Would welcome other suggestions too. Money no object in this case. If you know of availability, that would be appreciated too.

-- BigDog (BigDog@duffer.com), February 21, 1999

Answers

Hi BD,

Are you thinking of the Duromatic cookers?

from http://www.thewhitewhale.com/ :

The New York Times says, "The Kuhn Rikon DUROMATIC, made in Switzerland, lived up to its reputation as the Mercedes-Benz of pressure cookers. It purred, came up to pressure quickly, was easy to regulate and opened and closed smoothly...The instruction manual and recipe booklet were exceptionally good."

This line of pressure *cookers* is fairly large, and they have bigger units that might be usable as canners (but I haven't found anything that said so). These pressure cookers use a replaceable gasket, as do most pressure cookers/canners. (We have their small cooker/frypan set on order.)

However, one that doesn't is the All-American Pressure Canner. It uses a metal-to-metal seal and has the pressure gauge and weights (as well as a blowout plug for safety).

We got ours from Kitchen Krafts (http://www.mwt.net/cgi-bin/tame/kk/preserve.tam)

Kitchen Krafts has lots of stuff for preserving food.

HTH

-- Dean T. Miller (dtmiller@nevia.com), February 22, 1999.


Hi, BD, have you checked Chefs Catalogue, online somewhere? I see Real Goods (realgoods.com) is advertising a fancy-schmancy pressure cooker, but it's from Spain. (With a 10-year warranty - chuckle.) It costs $99.95,no capacity listed.

-- Old Git (anon@spamproblems.com), February 22, 1999.

The All-American pressure canner is a best buy--have had ours over 25 years and still going strong. You can go to your nearest extension office in the spring and they will test your pressure guage for free or small fee...this year they said my gauge read one lb. low so needed to adjust when using. Biggest problem in using pressure canner is waiting between loads for pressure to go down..having two would be great but the biggest ones like ours takes up alot of room on your stove. I gently tease the steam release valve open with a wooden spoon....gently and slowly are the operative words or you will suck the liquid out of your jars....another tip is to always hold your newly canned jar over the canner for a few seconds...sometimes you have flaws in the jar you couldn't see but the bottom can just fall out and what a mess...have been there with grape juice...picture it!!! If a jar has been banged around it may now have undectable flaw to the glass that can break in your cannner under pressure. I feel the gauge pressure canner is easier and safer to use and you soon figure out just what setting your stove needs to keep it at the required pressure. Great satisfaction in a shelf full of home-canned food.

-- MUTTI (windance @train.missouri.org), February 22, 1999.

Mutti, you have just solved my canning problem. I've noticed that my jars have had some of the liquid sucked out, and I wondered why. Now I know. I've always just taken a spoon and flipped up the steam release valve, and I've had liquid in my canner which I have to clean before the next batch. THANK YOU for this tip. I've printed out your reply.

I too have an All-American and it is wonderful; built like a tank and no rubber seal to worry about. I canned years ago and then quit; now I've started again. Do you know of a canning forum? Anybody? Bernadine doesn't seem to have anything new since last September.

I'm grateful that this forum didn't shut off my post with a "You have made an unacceptable post," notice. I was trying to tell my problem about the water being "sucked" out but "suck" is a no-no word. It's really difficult to talk about canning, and sealing problems without using the word "suck."

-- gilda jessie (jess@listbot.com), February 22, 1999.


I forgot to say in my post that I was on a much different forum than this, where "suck" was banned. It was Gary North's very good Food Storage Forum, but you'd better not use "suck" or attempt to post your favorite chicken breast recipe for "breast" is also unacceptable.

-- gilda jessie (jess@listbot.com), February 22, 1999.


NOw, see, there are much more restrictively moderated fora out there.

c

-- Chuck, night driver (rienzoo@en.com), February 22, 1999.


Just ordered my All American from Kitchen Krafts. They are stunned by the massive number of orders for canners but still are able to ship in 5 days.

-- David (David@BankPacman.com), February 22, 1999.

GN won't accept "hell," either, silly bugger. I can't talk without an occasionall "hell" now and then (at least), so I gave up on GN's fora.

Re canning fora--I seem to remember some time back searching for sites and found several. Sorry, don't have the URLs, blew up my bookmarks file not long ago. Sucked out all the info, had me beating my breast in despair for a while.

-- Irreverent Old Git (anon@spamproblems.com), February 22, 1999.


The All-American is best. Thanks for the lead on getting the pressure guage tested. You can order direct from the factory, Wisconson Aluminum Foundry, located in Manitowoc, WI. Model 941 holds 18 qts at a time

There is a Usenet canning forum : rec.food.preserving They regularly post an extensive FAQ for that group, archived at DejaNews.

-- Mitchell Barnes (spanda@inreach.com), February 22, 1999.


Thanks for help, guys. We have canned semi-casually for years but our canner is old and was never really very good. Passed materials onto Ms. Big Dog and we will get at least one All American canner ASAP.

BTW, Ms. Big Dog had the wonderful idea a couple of months ago of advertising in local paper that we would "relieve" people of canning jars they didn't need (though we felt a mite guilty, I admit). This turned up 300 more canning jars of varied sizes from four sources for $.50 each, including 150 of the old-fashioned kind that take reusable rubber seals. We're LOADED.

Now, if someone call tell me what we're going to do with over $800 of seeds ..... (no, we know ....).

-- BigDog (BigDog@duffer.com), February 22, 1999.



About the contents being sucked out.....Wait until the pressure guage is at 0 or close to it before you tease the valve. And don't go to bed and plan to open the canner in the morning....the pressure will go all the way down.

Also....I canned 3 batches of sausage just recently. On the first batch, I put the food in the jars and OPEN into the canner, and heated all to simmer, then lifted the jars out and put the lids on....This batch retained all its liquid. The sausage was cool, and I needed to heat it up. ("Hot pack is best.")

With the other two batches, the sausage had just cooked, so I figured it was hot enough, and packed the jars and added the liquid, sealed the jars and these jars lost some (not a lot) of the liquid. The last batch (coolest) lost the most.

Also....the last batch.....I closed up the canner, turned everything up to blast and away we went....the first batch I let it come up a bit slower.

Also....when it says ONE INCH HEADROOM....measure your jar...and don't cheat. The denser the food the more headroom is needed. I did not pay attention to this until almost a whole batch did not seal.

I take the jars out as soon as the lid is off, and put them in a group on a towel. If the liquid is still boiling in the jar when it comes out of the canner, the seal will be fine....no boil no seal...

Ever try canning dried flowers? Dry...in the jar. Seal and all.

Got lids?

Mary P.

-- Mary P. (CAgdma@home.com), February 22, 1999.


For a canning forum with a Y2K flair try http://www.mrssurvival.com

-- Sarah (smondol1@powerweb.net), February 23, 1999.

David said: Just ordered my All American from Kitchen Krafts. They are stunned by the massive number of orders for canners but still are able to ship in 5 days.

-- David (David@BankPacman.com), February 22, 1999.

well, the next day, 2/23, when I ordered mine, they said the delay was now 3 weeks for the slightly more expensive model. I didn't ask about the cheaper model . ejj

-- ejj (ejj@peconic.net), February 27, 1999.


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