I'd make a lousy farmer.

steingar

steingar

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steingar
Years ago I began canning sauces and currys in old jars. I'd heat the jars in the oven, laden in boiling hot sauce, cap and seal. Stuff never went bad. More recently I started doing the same thing with a vacuum sealer added in. Again, stuff never went bad. But with the vacuum sealer I started canning stews and soups as well, everything sealed and I never lost anything.

We became spoiled. We got used to having prepared food in the basement that we could just heat up. Used to be we'd keep things the fridge, and stuff would often go bad before we finished it. Not after we started vacuum sealing it.

Until last year. The vacuum sealer stopped working, don't know why.

We decided to get an actual pressure canner. The lure of having lots of yummy prepared food that we could just heat up was strong, and I was always worried my own method would fail some day. We like the canner, it cooks stuff as well as sterilizing it, which is really cool.

Except it hasn't worked. Haven't been able to seal one jar yet. I'd make a lousy farmer.

That, and I'm practically allergic to hard physical labor.
 
"...Until last year. The vacuum sealer stopped working, don't know why..."

You know that company, in some sort of weird scheme to make a profit, they made more than one of those.
 
Timbeck2 said:
"...Until last year. The vacuum sealer stopped working, don't know why..."

You know that company, in some sort of weird scheme to make a profit, they made more than one of those.
Click to expand...

Do I detect a note of sarcasm?

As for the canner, that's kind of hard to understand. Is it the capping mechanism that's failing the mission?

I just use old-fashioned Mason jars, boil them to sterilize them, and make sure that whatever goes inside them is either sterilized by heat or immersed in brine or some other solution inhospitable to microbes. I haven't had anything go bad in decades.

Rich
 
I know I would make a lousy farmer. I know just enough to be dangerous. For example, when the line of cows comes through, you inspect the underside of the cow. If there are four places to hook the machine up, you hook the machine up. If there is only one place to hook the machine up, do not hook the machine up.
 
RJM62 said:
Do I detect a note of sarcasm?

As for the canner, that's kind of hard to understand. Is it the capping mechanism that's failing the mission?
Click to expand...

Possibly. I can't think of any other reason the thing wouldn't have worked. Its pretty simple physics.

RJM62 said:
I just use old-fashioned Mason jars, boil them to sterilize them, and make sure that whatever goes inside them is either sterilized by heat or immersed in brine or some other solution inhospitable to microbes. I haven't had anything go bad in decades.

Rich
Click to expand...

Me too, but part of the reason this works is the hot air inside the jars shrinks, forming a seal. I really like the canner because of the safety factor. Also, Clostridium can grow undetected. The manufacture of the jar lids changed about a year ago, coincident with the demise of our vacuum sealing. I can't believe that's what's getting in the way of the canning, because if it did so for me it would do so for all sorts of people. Bit flummoxed just now.
 
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