First tentative steps with hot water bath processing
Posted by Fiona Nevile in Preserving | 23 comments
Photo: Vast pot
I woke up a few nights ago and realised that we had a water bath for processing our garden bounty hanging in the Bee Shed. This is a vast laundry pan with a double base.
I have been boning up on hot water bath canning/bottling. I just wanted to process fruit and tomatoes for the winter. Other vegetables are being pickled, frozen or will be when the Food Dehydrator
eventually arrives from Germany.
Danny was suspicious.
“If you put glass jars with lids on into boiling water they will explode. And you will break your precious Kilner jars.”
“You don’t do the tops up tight so that air can escape.”
What he didn’t know was that was not going to use my precious Kilner/Le Parfait jars. I had done some reading and spotted that the Pear Butter that Suzanne and Georgia made in Chickens in the road was put into jam jars before being water processed (not pressure canned). Also I’d read Rhonda’s (Down to Earth) article on frugal hot water bath canning. She uses jam jars too.
Later on D pushed open the kitchen door to see me filling jam jars with peeled baby plum tomatoes, hot tomato juice and a good dash of lemon juice in each – the latter advised by Jackie.
His eyes swept over the jars.
“You can’t do that! They’ll explode!”
“But I’ve seen jam jars being used on the Internet.”
He looked quite white.
“They’re good sites. Not bomb making ones. You put the lids on but not very tight so air can escape. Anyway the pan has a lid if they do explode.”
I was attaching my jam thermometer to the side of the bubbling abyss so as to check that I had the right temperature.
“Well I’m staying upstairs until they’re done.”
Quite a canny ruse as this meant they I had to make supper.
Danny refused to enter the kitchen and chilled beers had to be passed over the threshold into the safety of the sitting room. My 500ml and 250ml jars of tomatoes were submerged in the water bath for an hour. By the end even I was getting a bit jumpy and keeping my distance from the cauldron. Finally the timer trilled and I was able to lift the jars out onto a towel to cool. The jars hissed like mad as I lifted them with my nifty tool. Once the jars were out and resting, I tightened the lids firmly.
As we ate our supper we were entertained by a chorus of pops as the seals compressed down.
If you are going to try hot water bath processing make sure that you bone up on it very well before hand. Vegetables, other than tomatoes or pickles and chutneys, need to be pressure canned as they can be prone to developing the spores that cause botulism if not canned/bottled correctly. Meat and fish also require pressure canning. Pressure canning takes far less time and uses less energy. You can buy pressure canners in the UK for around £100.
Useful links:
Down to Earth canning instructions
Allotment.org.uk detailed canning intructions inluding tables for weights and temperaures
Pick your own Farms.org.uk masses of information and canning suppliers
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I imagine the lid of the Kilner/Le Parfait jars being metal expands more than the glass allowing air to escape.
Hi!
Thanks for your reply. Of course I understand you don’t want to encourage people to do things that might potentially be not completely safe. I was interested to know how you dealt with jams & pickles, and whether I has misread the UK / US divide on this – but it seems I haven’t. It’s interesting, for sure. (I know that vegetables, as opposed to jams etc, are a completely different kettle of fish (no pun intendeded!) and should always be canned).
Hi Ruth_dt
Yes my thermometer has a ‘sterilise’ mark. I had no idea that Le Parfait jars could let the air out.
I’m processing my tomatoes and home made pasata in the hot water bath to be on the safe side. All bottled fruit is processed in the oven (the way my mum did when I was a child).
Hello Helen
Yes I’d love a pressure canner too. I’m really keen no to be so dependent on the freezer(s). But that will have to wait until next year as we invested in so much equipment recently.
Hi Maria UK
Americans seem to process everything – they did have quite a few cases of botulism in the 1980s and 1990s so I can see where they’re coming from.
Personally I make jam, pickles and chutney in the British way. Pouring into hot sterilised jars (with sterilised lids). I have always assumed that sugar/lemon juice/vinegar is a good enough preservative. But assumptions can be dangerous and I don’t want to encourage people to do things that wouldn’t be completely safe.
The only vegetables that I process are tomatoes. I will be dehydrating other veg when the machine arrives.
Hello! I found your blog a few days ago and am loving it – you do all the things I, from my flat with No-Outdoor space, wish I could (am thinking about getting an allotment).
One question though – I followed the link to Pick Your Own Farms, and read with interest that they recommend using the water bath / canning method for *everything* which is preserved in jars – including jam! This is contrary to pretty much everything I have read so far about making jam. What is your take on this? do you just make jam and laddle into warm sterilised jars, or do you then submerge them in water etc… for the recommended time? I do understand that botulism is of serious concern, and all US websites rightly refer to this, but still.. I thought the sugar content within jam made it safe, as vinegar would make pickled onions safe, without canning.
Well done, I think it must be a bloke thing my OH panics when I do anything like this. He seems to think I would just make it up when in fact most of us girls research like mad before going ahead. I hope to get a pressure canner as ever since I returned from my holiday in France this year where you can get so many lovely things in jars just superb quality. I want to put pork & bean stew in jars, the freezer works ok but nothing looks inspiring when you lift the lid.
Yes, I’ve done done this once with Le Parfait jars, and I was also terrified they would explode, because you can’t “loosely” seal those. It is true that they still let the air out – you can see the little stream of bubbles escaping the seal. The only problem you have is getting the lid off when you want to eat the contents!
That’s a good thing, as microbial activity would prevent a tight seal (and may indeed explode your jars). This happened to a batch of my mincemeat once, I had to recook it and turn it into several fruit cakes.
It’s also obvious that this process will destroy good bacteria, if you think about it. The point is to destroy all bacteria, you’re basically pasteurising. My jam thermometer has a marking for “sterilise” – does yours?
Hi Michelle
Thanks so much for this advice – Danny can now safely cook supper when I’m next waterbathing!
Hello Sabine
Good tips. Thank you. Great that you use jam jars too. And thanks also for the advice about tightening the lids.
Hi Cathy
Thank you so much for taking the time to write this comment. Interesting that hot water bathing destroys pro-biotics.
It’s good to share isn’t it 🙂
My experience with wb canning disaster is like Michelle’s. The grief I feel is over the loss of precious ingredients — not of picking up exploded glass from all over the kitchen.
That wonderful chorus of pings that seranaded your dinner gave you a lot of confidence, I hope. That means that you achieved a safe seal.
I’m over here in Oregon, though, and I find it fascinating that you’re just becoming comfortable with this method of preserving because *you* have inspired me in many other kinds of preserving.
For example, I bought a used, out-of-print copy of the Oded Schwartz book because of your crabapple jam post and have tried many of the recipes in that book.
Now, I teach others how to preserve food here, and I always have an internal battle because the “safe” recipes that are promoted by the USDA and the safe canning police here are *boring,* and I always want to play around with English/European recipes. I spend a lot of time translating English/European recipes so that people here can use them “safely” (and I won’t be liable).
Also, for my own health, I’m more interested now in traditional pickling and fermenting recipes. A hot water bath will destroy those precious pro-biotics. I often learn important things from the projects you share about here.
My husband and I decided to buy a Ph meter so that I can feel “safe” that my recipe adaptations work well for the US. They aren’t that expensive. Maybe Danny would feel better if he could test your water-bathed jams and such with a little beeping thing? My husband is an engineer, and he prefers things that beep.
I’ve only just started bottling myself, but it’s still very common in the countryside in Germany. My grandmother always bottled her fruit, and I don’t think she ever had any explosions. She mostly used Kilner Jars.
This spring I bought an old-fashioned German bottling pot, complete with thermometer, and I’ve had good result with my elderflower cordial – not a trace of mould after 5 months…
From what I’ve learned there are a few precautions to prevent breakage:
– When you put the jars in the water bath, the water in the pot must have the same temperature as the contents of the jars
– After taking out, the jars should be protected from draughts.
I use jam jars, too, as well as screw top bottles for liquids, and I always close the jars firmly before placing them in the water bath. They still let out the air when they heat up.
I am by no means a hot water bath canning expert, but its my prefered method as the pressure canner scares me.
But I can tell you, when I have a jar break on me, it doesen’t explode. Far from it, I will hear a devastating little “plink!” and then I know the bottom has just dropped out of one of my jars! (Followed by me stomping around the kitchen and cussing!)