Can Did
October 31st, 2009Tiny Jars of Magma
Okay, I have canned. Maybe.
I filled four half-pint jars with various peppers. I was going to use water and salt instead of vinegar, but I decided to use lime juice. I have so much. Why not use it? It doesn’t jar recipes the way vinegar does.
This pressure cooker is not easy to regulate. Apparently you have to twiddle the stove knob and find just the right position to get the pressure you want. This is not easy. It’s like steering a freighter. It takes a long time to respond, so you tend to over-correct. The canner spent a good deal of time at 14 psi, and then it spend some time at 9. The goal was 11, which I reached for most of the process.
There are things I don’t get. Headspace, for example. What happens if you screw up the headspace? I tried to leave an inch above the peppers, as per the recipe, but peppers stick up sometimes.
What’s the deal with air bubbles? The whole top of the jars were full of air. I’m not sure why I care whether there are bubbles elsewhere. I am trying to find out.
I didn’t can any Trinidad Scorpions. I realized half-pint jars are pathetic for peppers. You can get like eight of them in one jar. I’m going to use pints for the Scorpions. I figure I can put up at least two pints. What I’ll do with them, I can’t say. It might be fun to can them in pineapple juice instead of water or lime juice or vinegar. I don’t know what color the resulting deal will be, however.
I’m going to cool the jars down and see how they look. In a day or two I’ll open one to see what the peppers are like.
I have to make pork sausage! I have to. Surely you can understand that. And pickled beans. And pickles.
Maybe in a month or two, I’ll look into food dehydration.
October 31st, 2009 at 12:37 PM
You might want a face shield, tongs and a pair of gloves to can the Trinidad Scorpions.
October 31st, 2009 at 12:39 PM
You probably should not give out the Trinidad Scorpions to Trick-or-Treaters.
October 31st, 2009 at 2:22 PM
If the jars of peppers are nice you coud use them for gifts. I would have used a sweet pickling liquid on them.
October 31st, 2009 at 4:54 PM
My Mom would always do her hot peppers in oil. I never cared for peppers but my husband loved the ones my Mom made. She’s been dead for going on 20 and my husband still raves about those peppers.
November 1st, 2009 at 12:16 AM
Lemon juice should work but I always use a saltwater brine mixed with vinegar so I can better control the amount of acidity or at least be able to guess where it is. I think the 11 psi is the minimum. If you go over no big deal but you shorten the canning time. Under and you have missed the minimum temperature.
November 1st, 2009 at 1:11 AM
My grandmother used to can all the time. She made a lot of sweet pickles of different sorts, which we kids only kind of liked, and all sorts of jams, which we really liked — especially the blackberry jam. She was raised on a farm in Vermont.
OT: I’ve moved my blog to Spleenville.com. It’s going to stay there forever (or the internet version of forever, however long that is).
November 1st, 2009 at 9:27 AM
If you screw up headspace, your jars may leak, not seal, or explode. Much like wood floors, you have to leave room for expansion. Try boiling the peppers in the liquid you’ll be canning them in for a few minutes, they shouldn’t float to the top since you’ve already “cooked the air out of them”. Oh, and an inch is just below the bottom ridge on the mouth of the jar.
November 1st, 2009 at 9:40 AM
Did you have to write this?!? Now I can’t get the idea of canning some pickled watermelon rind out of my head!
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Apparently, enabling can go both ways…
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Guess I better check the Sunday ads for sales on pressure cookers.