On 3/4/2015 4:41 PM, Fran Farmer wrote:
On 4/03/2015 4:18 AM, Derald wrote:
Fran Farmer wrote:

Green beans don't freeze well in home freezers but
they're tolerable in January, when there's not a fresh bean in sight
unless one is willing to pay exhorbitant prices for those things the
grocery stores sell.

:-)) On the few occasions I've bothered to look at sites online that
showed the prices of food in the US, I can't believe how cheap it is.
You would not like the prices we pay in Oz.

snip

Pressure canners have only fairly recently
become available int his country...
Goodness; I find that surprising but I do remember seeing, in an
online catalog, types of containers no longer used here. Seems to me
the lid-sealing arrangement differed.


I'm sure the pressure canners haven't been available here because really
there has never been a real need for them. Most of our country is snow
free all year round and only a small part of the country gets any snow
at all and so our shops all stock large quantities of fresh fruit and
veg all year round. It's all affordable even the tropical stuff when in
season. Our climate generally allows keen gardeners to produce fresh
product all year round to some degree. For example, I live in a cold
climate but I still can eat something out of my garden even in the
depths of winter. David H-S who live sin amuch warmer climate can grow
far wider range than I can but perhaps he is too warm and humid for
growing good apples.

Australia also des't have the sort of hunted animals that USians often
'can'. Any Australian who did shoot a kangaroo is far more likely to
use it for dog food than for eating himself and if you told him that he
could probably 'can' it as USians do for deer, he'd think you were
trying to pull his leg.
Actually most US hunters preserve their catch by freezing the meat. I've
been a hunter since I got my first rifle at five, that's about 70 years
ago. We never canned meat, took to long in the pressure canner and
wasn't all that tasty when opened.

Worked with a number of folks from Oz back in the eighties in the Middle
East, none of them appeared to have hunted anything but several were
avid fishermen. Their main hobby was hunting for beer. G Good workers
and, generally, good people. Passed through Oz once when I was a young
man in the flying Navy, good beer there.

The common preserving method used here was known as the Fowlers Vacola
method (hot water bath) and that covered the sort of preserved food most
households ate here ie fruit. Preserved veg was never popular when home
preserving was a big hobby/domestic habit.

A friend tried to explain the Vacola method but I never understood it
completely. We hot water bath fruit, jellies and jams here but use a
different jar, one with a ring and a self-sealing lid when boiled.
Here's a website that has all the info on that: http://nchfp.uga.edu/

George Shirley wrote:
A friend tried to explain the Vacola method but I never understood it
completely. We hot water bath fruit, jellies and jams here but use a
different jar, one with a ring and a self-sealing lid when boiled.
Here's a website that has all the info on that: http://nchfp.uga.edu/

The vacola system is quite simple. The jar has a shallow slot around the
top. You stretch an annular rubber seal into that slot. You then pack the
jar and put a metal lid on it that sits on the rubber seal. You add a metal
clip that holds the lid down tight and process in the normal way. When cool
you take the clip off. The lid now magically stays on as the processing
drives out the air from the jar but as it cools the seal prevents it from
re-entering. So you have a sterile vacuum sealed jar. In the case of fruit
it will last for years.

--
David

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Corporate propaganda is their
protection against democracy

In article ,
"David Hare-Scott" wrote:

The vacola system is quite simple. The jar has a shallow slot around the
top. You stretch an annular rubber seal into that slot. You then pack the
jar and put a metal lid on it that sits on the rubber seal. You add a metal
clip that holds the lid down tight and process in the normal way. When cool
you take the clip off. The lid now magically stays on as the processing
drives out the air from the jar but as it cools the seal prevents it from
re-entering. So you have a sterile vacuum sealed jar. In the case of fruit
it will last for years.

ie (and hardly surprisingly) fundamentally similar to the ball-jar
method, except that the seal is separate, rather than fused to the (for
ball jars, "use once, per official guidelines") metal lid. The function
of the vacola clip is served by the threaded ring on ball-jars.

Harking back to the all glass jars with glass lids and separate jar
rubber rings, which I have a bunch of but don't use for canning
(officaldom's concern with those is that one might not find a failed
seal as obvious, since glass lids don't "pop" in as the metal ones do
when sealed.) I have relegated mine to dry storage duty.

I have canned meat exactly once, to make "real mincemeat" - and that's
the only thing that would lead me to can meat (and hasn't for 25
years...)

--
Cats, coffee, chocolate...vices to live by
Please don't feed the trolls. Killfile and ignore them so they will go away.

On 3/5/2015 11:11 AM, Ecnerwal wrote:
In article ,
"David Hare-Scott" wrote:

The vacola system is quite simple. The jar has a shallow slot around the
top. You stretch an annular rubber seal into that slot. You then pack the
jar and put a metal lid on it that sits on the rubber seal. You add a metal
clip that holds the lid down tight and process in the normal way. When cool
you take the clip off. The lid now magically stays on as the processing
drives out the air from the jar but as it cools the seal prevents it from
re-entering. So you have a sterile vacuum sealed jar. In the case of fruit
it will last for years.

ie (and hardly surprisingly) fundamentally similar to the ball-jar
method, except that the seal is separate, rather than fused to the (for
ball jars, "use once, per official guidelines") metal lid. The function
of the vacola clip is served by the threaded ring on ball-jars.

Harking back to the all glass jars with glass lids and separate jar
rubber rings, which I have a bunch of but don't use for canning
(officaldom's concern with those is that one might not find a failed
seal as obvious, since glass lids don't "pop" in as the metal ones do
when sealed.) I have relegated mine to dry storage duty.

I have canned meat exactly once, to make "real mincemeat" - and that's
the only thing that would lead me to can meat (and hasn't for 25
years...)

Same here, have several of the glass lid jars, up to one gallon (what
the heck did they can in a jar that big?) Very good for keeping grains
and cereals from getting old quick.

I've never canned meat, family got their first Deep Freeze (actually the
name on the plate) in 1951 and it lasted until Mom went to the nursing
home in the early eighties and might still be with the neighbor that
bought it. My folks didn't can meat either, before home freezers they
had a "locker" at the ice plant in town to keep lots of meat in.

I do make pear mince meat and really like it.

Warming up rapidly again, seems the pear tree and the other plants will
keep their blooms. Hopefully it stays that way, we have about two weeks
left for possible frost.

Sauerkraut is doing well sitting in the unused bedroom that is a cold
room at the moment. The bucket is in a plastic tub, just in case.

Note: rec.food.preserving is a good spot to hit for home food
preserving. Some folks on this spot ride that one occasionally too.