Hi, this is a question in relation to everybody that says not to cook in your pressure canner. We just bought a big Aluminum which we thought that could be used for both cooking and canning. It was expensive! Can we put a stainless steel pot inside the pressure cooker? A pot within the pot? That way we dont have to eat the aluminum.

Also, can we put meat in glass jars? as opposed to metal cans?

We dont know anything about using this contraption. Thanks for your advice.

-- Paul Konstantino (ptkonstant@aol.com), March 22, 2001

Answers

why cant you cook in a canner?? Mine has a removeable bottom, so you can cook instead of can

-- stan (sopal@net-port.com), March 22, 2001.

Paul: Yes, you most certainly can put the stainless pot inside the aluminum cooker. Some one wrote into Countryside Magazine about doing exactly that, successfully. There are some very good canning sites on the net, just do a search of Home canning, and you will get all types of recipe and instruction sites. Good luck! Jan

-- Jan in CO (Janice12@aol.com), March 22, 2001.

Yes, and yes. GL!

-- Brad (homefixer@SacoRiver.net), March 22, 2001.

My pressure cooker instruction booklet recommends using a second container inside the cooker for certain dishes like rice and has specific recipes for cooking puddings in individual dishes. It must be okay then.

-- marilyn (rainbow@ktis.net), March 22, 2001.

Yes to all the above posts. Just make sure the internal (stainless steel) pot doesn't have a tight fitting lid - in fact it shouldn't have a lid on the internal pot at all otherwise the steam pressure that cooks the food won't be able to penetrate to the food you are trying to cook.

As for meat in Mason jars - yes you can but make sure the meat is in some sort of liquid - gravy or broth are fine - don't use flour though. I use a seasoned meat stock with my meat products and process them at 10lb pressure for the recomended time. I use metric jars here in England so my processing times will be different from yours. You must remember to get the pressure right though. A higher pressure gets a higher temperature inside the jar and kills off the botulisum spores that would otherwise cause food poisoning.

Use proper preserving jars - Mason in the USA, Kilner in England - with two part lids - a snap lid and a sealing ring.

Have fun with home canning and I hope this helps in some small way.

Eric

-- Eric J Methven (e_methven@btinternet.com), March 23, 2001.