I am hoping that there are a few people here who also pressure can who can help me find the answers to some of my questions.
I recently achieved a long-term dream of owning a pressure canner. The main reason I wanted one was that when someone offers me a baby 15 lb bluefin tuna, or 10 lbs of albacore I could can that fish and have lovely canned fish and tuna as much as I like. Oh and beans and soups and stuff too.
We have so far successfully canned enchilada sauce, pinto beans, lima beans, garbanzo beans (hummus whenever we want!), beef stew, chicken and veg soup, split pea soup with ham, and veggie soup with lima beans and ham. My work lunches are now awesome.
Ok so my confusion is specific to the All-American type canner - where the pressure gauge is just for reference, and its actually the jiggler weight that controls the pressure. The manual states that one should let the jiggler jiggle for "1-4 times per minute". And they even have a very nice video of what a good jiggle is. To my mind that means there should be between 15 and 50 seconds between jiggles, right? So hang about near the canner and time the seconds between jiggles for the process - try to keep it between 15 and 50 seconds. And I think - there has GOT to be an easier way, am I over thinking this? I mean sometimes the jiggles are really long - like 15-20 seconds - is that too long? Does a 1 second jiggle count? I watch videos by other canners about this, and one guy just let the jiggler jiggle constantly (which the manual says not to) and one lady just brought hers up to 10 lbs on the dial and said that was good enough and never paid attention to the jiggler! Which to my mind is crazy because the manual says the gauge is just for reference and it can be + or - 2 lbs difference! So do I really need to do all this jiggle timing?
I've been looking for a good canning forum, but they are either largely inactive, or kinda scary with all the prepper drama. I mean, I guess I am sort of a prepper because I know disasters happen, but I dislike the glee in which some people anticipate when the "SHTF".
So if anyone has any advice or direction about pressure canning and jigglers and just WHY do all the official tomato recipes tell you to add acid even when pressure canning, I would love to hear it.
I recently achieved a long-term dream of owning a pressure canner. The main reason I wanted one was that when someone offers me a baby 15 lb bluefin tuna, or 10 lbs of albacore I could can that fish and have lovely canned fish and tuna as much as I like. Oh and beans and soups and stuff too.
We have so far successfully canned enchilada sauce, pinto beans, lima beans, garbanzo beans (hummus whenever we want!), beef stew, chicken and veg soup, split pea soup with ham, and veggie soup with lima beans and ham. My work lunches are now awesome.
Ok so my confusion is specific to the All-American type canner - where the pressure gauge is just for reference, and its actually the jiggler weight that controls the pressure. The manual states that one should let the jiggler jiggle for "1-4 times per minute". And they even have a very nice video of what a good jiggle is. To my mind that means there should be between 15 and 50 seconds between jiggles, right? So hang about near the canner and time the seconds between jiggles for the process - try to keep it between 15 and 50 seconds. And I think - there has GOT to be an easier way, am I over thinking this? I mean sometimes the jiggles are really long - like 15-20 seconds - is that too long? Does a 1 second jiggle count? I watch videos by other canners about this, and one guy just let the jiggler jiggle constantly (which the manual says not to) and one lady just brought hers up to 10 lbs on the dial and said that was good enough and never paid attention to the jiggler! Which to my mind is crazy because the manual says the gauge is just for reference and it can be + or - 2 lbs difference! So do I really need to do all this jiggle timing?
I've been looking for a good canning forum, but they are either largely inactive, or kinda scary with all the prepper drama. I mean, I guess I am sort of a prepper because I know disasters happen, but I dislike the glee in which some people anticipate when the "SHTF".
So if anyone has any advice or direction about pressure canning and jigglers and just WHY do all the official tomato recipes tell you to add acid even when pressure canning, I would love to hear it.
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