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Andie, Do you know if the rings used with the glass flats are meant to stay on the jars, or if they're supposed to be removable, like modern rings, once they're sealed?

I envy you your rosemary growing conditions. Here, I have to treat it as an annual, or bring it inside. Parsley, cilantro, dill, and others like that can be planted and will reseed themselves fairly well. Parsley is a biennial, so it will not reseed until the second year. It's notoriously difficult to start from seeds, though. If you do a search on Google, you can probably come up with growing guides and average yields from various U.S. University Extension services. For instance, I typed "parsley average yield" into Yahoo's search engine, and the first hit was from the Purdue University Cooperative Extension. Naturally, they will be more focused on growing in their immediate area, but you can still get a good idea of what to expect and how to harvest for best results. Another possible resource is GardenWeb's Herb Forum. You can search that forum, or the whole GardenWeb forum for information, or post questions. Good luck on your project!

Yeah, not only the uneven heat, but with my coil burners, also the lack of levelness across the coil. Or rather, it sticks up more on one side than another. Rather irritating. Hmm. Maybe I should get new coils. But I'm not sure that would solve the sticking-up-on-one-side problem.

AWESOME! Did you include pictures of your set-up, too, the nerdy engineer wants to know?!? I have felt that there wasn't enough research being done (or at least not enough being shared with the public) about canning, so I'm very excited that you all took the time to do this.

BadRabbit, Something else just occurred to me. A long while back, I was looking for a replacement for canned cream of mushroom soup. I found out that I could make a big batch of light roux and refrigerate it. Then, when I wanted to make a casserole (like tuna noodle or some such), I could heat some cream and milk with some mushrooms and reduced chicken stock (and other veggies if I like) and add the roux to thicken. It works rather well that way. It doesn't take a whole lot of extra time to do it this way, either, and I typically have all the ingredients I need on hand. I use dried mushrooms (that I dehydrate when I pick them up from Costco) and home-made and -canned chicken stock. (I reduce my stock by a LOT before canning it.) I'm a milkaholic, so there's always dairy around, too. I used jackal10's bechamel recipe to come up with this process, although I think that the milk and stock combination is more like a veloute, but I could be wrong. Anyhow, I would imagine that you could do the same, and if you wished, you could probably can the mushrooms (or whatever else it is you want to have cream-of) in the stock and just add the dairy and the roux as you're making the rest of the dish. I have found, by the way, that refrigerated roux is brick-like, so it's hard to get out what you need unless you refrigerate it in small quantities. I think an ice cube tray would be useful for this.

I tend to agree. And since cream, itself, freezes nicely, you can still have that on hand. As far as non-creamed condensed soups, I'm still stuck on the conflicting information from NCHFP. As they're not answering questions, right now, I can't ask, but it seems to me that if one were to process a less-liquidy soup for a longer time than is called for in the soup-canning instructions, you might be able to get away with it. My reasoning is thus: Canning a soup with an unspecified combination of meats, veggies and beans calls for preparing the ingredients as if for canning by themselves, plus cooking the meat until tender, plus hydrating the beans. The ingredients are then combined with the soup liquid of choice and boiled for 5 minutes, after which they are canned, half solids, half liquids, at 11 psi for 75 minutes at at or below 1000 ft. of elevation from sea level. We're going to assume we aren't dealing with seafood for the purposes of this discussion. Canning a fully-packed (hot pack) jar of meat strips, chunks or cubes in broth or water calls for cooking the meat until rare, filling jars with the pieces, then pouring boiling broth or water until there's an inch of headspace left. After that, the jars are processed at 11 psi for 90 minutes at or below 1000 ft. of elevation from sea level. Also, mixed vegetables meant for canning as a mix solely of vegetables, calls for the same processing pressure and time after an initial boiling for 5 minutes in the packing water. If a FULLY-PACKED jar of meat (or beans, or veggies) is considered safe to consume after 90 minutes of processing, then it seems to me that a less-than-fully-packed jar of meat and veggies, with the remaining space being taken up by soup liquid (stock, water, etc.) should also be safe to consume after 90 minutes of processing. Less solids leads to more convection, right? So, without recommending this to anyone (to avoid liability) I will state that I have no compunctions about employing this method to can soups with less liquid for my own family. This will naturally lead to a more "condensed" soup than is specified in the NCHFP guidelines, but it is still something I feel comfortable about, even without empirical evidence. Other than the reduction in liquids/increase in solids from the recommended soup canning instructions to the single-product canning instructions, the only difference seems to be the processing time, and 90 minutes is more conservative than 75. Others may not agree with me, but that's ok. I'm not trying to feed them, just my family.

Yes, I've seen that there are a greater abundance of the regular-mouth glass lids than the wide-mouth ones. I, too, like to can in wide-mouth jars, but unfortunately, most of my jars are regular-mouth, and since I got them very cheaply, I don't want to get rid of them, yet. I figured that the glass ones might chip easily. They recommend using a butter knife between the ring and the jar to open them, which strikes me as asking for chipping. But the Tattler ones recommend the same opening method. I am leery of using plastic in a high-heat situation. Glass has been around for a lot longer, and I just feel more comfortable with something that I KNOW doesn't outgas. That said, the "normal" canning lids are coated with a plastic that contains BPA, so it's not like I'm canning without risks of exposure, although those risks are smaller than those assumed by using commercially-canned products. It would please me no end to see someone manufacture newer glass lids, but I know that's a pie-in-the-sky dream. Thank you for your comments, Andie. They are much appreciated.

I'll derail again briefly to clarify something... The beans I'm talking about canning are dried beans, such as pintos, kidney beans, etc. Something that typically takes quite a while to cook from dried, and I don't typically grow drying beans in my garden...until this coming year, when I plan to try to grow some pintos and some dark red kidney beans just for fun. Those I will dry. As I run out of canned beans, I will can up more to take their place. Dry beans take up a lot less space than do jars of canned beans. It's WAY more convenient to have a jar of beans to open after coming home from your 8-5 job, with 30 minutes to make dinner and eat before you have to get to a meeting or some other function. Or it would be, if your S.O. actually ate beans, which mine does not. The bean issue was just a handy example to contrast between the two methods. Sometimes, even with all the forethought in the world, life throws you a curveball which you have to deal with in some fashion. That's why convenience foods, commercially produced or home made, are so convenient and popular. To bring the topic back on track, after the brief derailment, I have done some more looking since I last posted, and it appears that the biggest problem with canning cream soups (aside from the lack of info on processing times) is that it just doesn't work too well. The milk's enzymes tend not to be inactivated (perhaps???), and things separate and look evil. Even Jackie (who employs methods that strike me as a bit risky) doesn't like to can milk-based things because of the separation issue. I think that most commercially-canned cream soups are highly dependent on modified food starches, etc. to maintain the consistency of the liquid. I'm far from an expert on home canning. I've only done a bit of it, but I have done a lot of research because I wanted to see if it was possible to home-can cream soups or condensed soups, too. I came away from my research with the idea that it wasn't worth the trouble and energy cost to end up with something that I wouldn't eventually want to use. So, instead, I can non-condensed soups. But I employ the longest single-ingredient processing time, because it makes me feel better, not because I have any empirical evidence that it IS better. ETA stuff about growing beans.

I'm sorry, I believe I was the one who derailed the thread. The concern, I believe, with home canning dairy products, is two-fold. One, dairy products contain a lot of fat, which can possibly interfere with the sealing of the lid. Another is the quality of the finished product. Some people DO can dairy products, regardless of the NCHFP's recommendations against it, and they report that the milk (generally speaking) separates, which is not particularly pretty. Also, the milk tends to get an overcooked taste which is not appealing. Jackie Clay, from Backwoods Home magazine has some recommendations for processing times with milk, but I'm not sure I trust her times. You can do a search for her name and come up with a bunch of info. As far as probing the soup during processing, I'm sure that would require specialized equipment, including a specially-ported jar and a specially-ported pressure canner. While there are specialized ingredients used by commercial processors, I think a lot of the reason some people (like me, for instance) like to produce things at home is to avoid these ingredients. Plus, it's possible that they are operating at a higher pressure. Unless you worked for a commercial processor, I don't think you can find out. And I'm fairly sure that there are probably some things people like angevin cannot disclose because of trade secrets agreements. What would be nice is if there were some lab set up somewhere to conduct research on these things. There was one at the University of Georgia (NCHFP), but it no longer has funding, and even when it did, it didn't do a lot of testing that would have perhaps been valuable to this discussion. And its focus was more strictly on the generic home food preserver, not on people like us who want to do fancier things.

I recently came across some reusable canning flats (see here). They are made of acetal copolymer, which is a type of plastic similar to Delrin, but which is less likely to absorb water. At room temperatures, it is inert, but I'm concerned that it would outgas formaldehyde at higher temperatures, particularly those found in your average pressure canner. (And yes, I see that they say formaldehyde forms at temperatures way in excess of 250 F.) Which led me to a search for glass reusable flats. Interestingly, glass flats used to be made. I found some on eBay. They, like the Tattler lids, take rubber gaskets (but I'm not sure they take the same size), and it looks like they take slightly deeper rings to account for the extra thickness of the glass. I wonder why they are no longer manufactured. Cost-prohibitive, perhaps? As the Weck jars that are readily available online use rubber gaskets as well, I'm wondering if it would be safe to use these older glass flats, assuming I can find appropriate gaskets. I know the NCHFP does not recommend the rubber gaskets, but I believe the Weck jars are used fairly commonly in Europe. I have not done any searching on European recommendations for canning. Has anyone ever tried these glass lids? If so, what was your experience? ETA: link to MSDS for acetal copolymer (formaldehyde outgassing)

Angevin, that's my whole point: There's conflicting information. And unfortunately, they're out of funding, so they're no longer taking questions. You're probably right about the shorter processing time for soups being due to the higher water content. Personally, rather than just going with the soup processing time, I'd go with the longest processing time listed for the ingredients in the soup. For example, I'd go with 90 minutes for soups with beans, rather than 75 minutes, for a quart-jar lot. Just to be on the safe side. Plus, I like my soups to be a little less liquidy. I may be taking chances, but I figure if I process for the time specified for the longest-processing ingredient, I'm probably safe. I don't thicken soups, either.

It's not so much expecting to do without harvest as it is a convenience issue. Say you want to have beans with your dinner, but you have 20 minutes to get dinner on the table. Rather than having to wait on dry beans cooking, you just open a jar (or commercially-processed can) of beans, and there you go. Highly convenient.

In regards to the food safety issue, we've been having an interesting discussion on pressure canning here. I see from the index that you cover pressure canning somewhat. In what depth is that covered? The National Center for Home Food Preservation has some contradictory (it seems to me) instructions in their canning section. Were you guys able to instrument jars of food while pressure canning to see what the thermodynamics was like?

Yes, however, the NCHFP recommends FILLING the jars with beans and then topping off with liquid an inch under the rim for just canning plain beans, yet if it's SOUP, you're only supposed to fill the jars halfway with beans and liquid, then top off to an inch under the rim with more liquid. Seems like a bit of a contradiction to me... For an example using beans canned alone and beans in soup, see below. For soups, they say you don't have to cook the beans as long as you do for straight canning. canning dried beans "Place dried beans or peas in a large pot and cover with water. Soak 12 to 18 hours in a cool place. Drain water. To quickly hydrate beans, you may cover sorted and washed beans with boiling water in a saucepan. Boil 2 minutes, remove from heat, soak 1 hour and drain. Cover beans soaked by either method with fresh water and boil 30 minutes." canning soups "For each cup of dried beans or peas, add 3 cups of water, boil 2 minutes, remove from heat, soak 1 hour, and heat to boil; drain." ETA: links and info about differing instructions for bean canning

According to the (U.S.) National Center for Home Food Preservation, it's not a good idea to can (even pressure can) cream soups or soups with more than half the jar volume taken up by non-liquid ingredients. If you have too many solids in the jar, there could be a lack of adequate convection and the center may not reach the right temperature depending on the processing time. And if you process longer, one, you don't know how hot the center gets, and two, you may be reducing the flavor and textural quality of the canned food. That said, we're all (mostly) adults, and we can make our own decisions. It's just not recommended. NCHFP I have not been able to wrap my head around the difference between canning single veggies or meats and canning combinations in liquids that can then be called soups. But the recommendation still stands by the NCHFP, which does extensive research on such subjects.

Tom, if you're not set on local battery sourcing, you might try eBay. I've had good luck getting large lots (for a household) of coin batteries of different types for pretty cheap from there. They're typically coming from Hong Kong, so you have to deal with the shipping time (up to a month, in some cases), but I've been pretty happy with the batteries I've gotten.

Thanks Chris!

I have the MyWeigh KD-8000, and I really like it. I haven't used the baker's percentage feature much, but I wanted to have it available when I want to use it. I like the little disposable plastic shields that can be used to protect the keypad, and I taped one on with electrical tape (so as not to have to replace it frequently), and it's still going strong. I've had the scale about 1-2 years, now, and while I don't use it frequently, when I do use it, I use it for a bunch of things at once. The scale isn't really all that bulky, in my opinion. It's not too tall, and it doesn't take up a square foot of space. That said, I don't know the dimensions of the other two scales (as they're not listed), but my guess would be that the MyWeigh would not have a larger footprint, although it would be taller. And it's really lightweight.

I've got several thermal mugs or tumblers from Contigo, and they make a good product. When they say no-leak, they mean no-leak.

Interesting. They must have made other Safe 2 cookers that you can't find info about on the web, anymore. Well, I'm glad I was able to help, if I did. I try to go with my gut for most things, so you probably can't go wrong with that.

Hmmm, well, I don't particularly trust Teflon, myself, but if it's not doing that anymore, and if MSRadell has had that happen before, maybe you're ok, now. However, if you're still not comfortable with it, I'd say to follow your gut. The thickness of my stainless is not anywhere near 3/8", so I'm wondering if they had different versions of the Safe 2 cooker. Is yours stainless or aluminum? Is it more like this one?

I don't always store it, but if I do it's in the fridge. I take it out when I start getting dinner going to warm up. Any particular reason you put it in the fridge? Is it because you use garlic? If it's just straight oil, vinegar, mustard and pepper, would there be a safety reason to refrigerate it, or just a keep-the-flavor reason? I haven't done vinaigrette (or salads, for that matter) for more than a couple of years. I used to hate salad dressings, and still strongly dislike any that are creamy, so I'm just not used to what you're supposed to do with vinaigrette, once it's made. BTW, thanks for starting this topic!

I don't. I think it loses it's flavour. I make it in the bowl I'm going to toss the salad in, then put the leaves on top. Then toss at the table. Ok, thanks. I'm a bit lazy, and I'm prone to skip leafy greens if it's not convenient, so I like to keep some mixed up. I've just never had any stay emulsified this long. I'm wondering if it's the mustard or if it's the use of the immersion blender.

I'm with you, Mark. If I can taste it, I don't trust it. I can generally taste plasticky tastes in water from plastic bottles, but I haven't yet tasted a metallic taste from my Klean Kanteens or my other stainless bottles.

I did try it on Friday, with a pretty fine grind (from my Capresso Infinity (about the middle of the finest set of settings)), and it worked well. No sludge, either.