Ok, you did hear an explosion, but it wasn't my pressure canner.

My previous post about canning I talked about my fears and all of the urban legends about canning disasters. Add to that I broke one of the locking handles on the top of the caner, I was ready for my kitchen to explode. I was taking time to show people which direction to look at over the weekend when they hear the explosion and they could watch my pressure caner shoot up to the stratosphere. I was convinced that I would blow up my kitchen trying to can some tomatoes.

After taking a class on how to can, doing a hot water bath for some pickled tomatoes, I was anxious and ready to use the pressure caner. But of course like a mental patient I ended up breaking it. Well just the locking handle, but it's not safe if the equipment is not fully 100% workable. I removed the lid while the water was boiling on the pickled tomatoes, realized that it was very, very hot and it dropped on my kitchen floor. I should consider myself lucky, it could have been worse. The pressure gauge could have broke, the floor could have broke, my foot, so all in all I should be appreciative of it not being worse. But I was still upset.

After I calmed down and allowed the aloe to soothe the burn, I went online and found that Presto, the maker of my pressure caner, has all of these parts on their website. I was satisfied but didn't order the part right then. A week later I realized, when trying to use my birthday gift certificate to Amazon, (thank you to Claire, Andrew, Anni and William) I found out that I couldn't order this part from Amazon. So I went back to the Presto website, ordered one for five dollars, two dollars for shipping and was told to wait ten to fourteen days. About a week later it showed up, I replaced it and was ready to start pressuring.

I was getting worried that my tomatoes were not going to make it. When I picked everything I separated the green from the red and somewhat red. Over the next few weeks the somewhat red turned red and the red turned very red. I knew I had to act soon. I could have easily did a hot water bath but it takes about 85 minutes, compared to the pressure method which takes 25 minutes. Not hard to see which one is better, and obviously uses less energy. I read my canning book, a government pamphlet handed out at the Forest Grove canning class and the instruction book from Presto, all said that I must can at 11 pounds of pressure. I took this a sign that I should use this level of pressure.

I still had 10 pint sized jars left over from my pickling canning, I ran them through the dishwasher with all of the utensils I would use. I started to boil water, frantically re-read over and over again the instructions and got all my ingredients together. After putting my lids in hot water and putting the jars in hot water, I started to cut up my tomatoes. I cut them into medium sized pieces, not minced but not halved or quartered. I put them into a large bowl and when I took each jar out of the hot water I put in a teaspoon of bottled lemon juice and then filled the jar with tomatoes. I didn't add salt since my wife and I have high blood pressure and we need to watch our sodium. We buy the no salt added diced tomatoes at the store, stock up when they are on sale, but this will be cheaper and healthier in the long run. And of course I reduce my carbon footprint, blah, blah, blah.

Jars filled to just under the neck, lids carefully placed on the top, band tighten slightly, added back to the pressure caner with the hot water. Put the lid on and started to boil, watched for the steam to start escaping. When it did I set a timer for ten minutes, then put the weight on and waited for the pressure to rise. I am skipping a few steps, all of the details are in the instruction manual, sorry to edit the blog for content, I just don't remember at this moment.

It seemed like forever but the pressure gauge started to climb. I will be honest and mention what I moron I can be, but like a dummy I touched the weight while the pressure was climbing. Instead of the steam only seeping out slightly, it was a runaway train rolling around. I was afraid to take it off and put it on again, I thought that I may end up breaking my jars. Seeing that this was the last of my tomatoes, I would not allow that to happen. So I gently placed a pot holder over the weigh, it help calm it down and the pressure started to rise.

At 11psi I started the timer, but now I needed to lower the heat since I have to keep it at that level for 25 minutes. Yes, I stood there watching it the entire time. A proud father to my tomatoes, curiosity of what will happen and a fear that it will explode kept me in front of my stove. I also realized that by messing with the weight I had to make sure enough steam was escaping but not too much. After 25 minutes at 11psi I turned off the heat and then waited for the thing that pops up to go down, real proud how technical I am. I was told that if I remove the weight before the pop up gauge goes down, which is a sign that the pressure has reduced, the jars will explode. It seem to take a while but it went down, I took off the weight, opened the lid and saw my jars below.

And then I realized that these would not be going to the county fair. To save them the embarrassment I didn't take a photo. The top of the jar had the tomatoes, looking almost crushed, and on the bottom a reddish colored water. I had separation because I didn't pack the jars well enough and probably from my messing with the weight, d'oh! But after a few hours it seemed to settle to the bottom leaving a gap at the top. This actually turns out for the best. The caned tomatoes, tin can that is, are 14.5 ounces. Most recipes list this as the amount of diced tomatoes to add. Seeing that I had about a half of inch space, it should be around 14 to 15 ounces in my pint sized container. This means I have extra tomatoes, which I will use first, to cook with.

In fact I cooked with one of them the other day, I added them to jambalaya that I made. Talk about a good seal, I had to use a can opener and pry the top off. Heard the loud pop, looked in the jar to see if anything moved, smelled to see if it went bad and took a taste. Literally tasted like it did the day I canned it, horrible! No I'm kidding, it tasted fresh. And with no added salt from the tomatoes I probably only had the 37000mg of salt that was in the prepared rice mix to deal with.

I also took advantage of the heat and hot water and while the tomatoes were cooling, made up another brine and pickled my neighbor's tomatoes. He grew one plant using that topsy turvey tomato grower, but started late so they were still green in October. A few were turning red but almost everything was all solid green. I offered to pickle them for him but keeping one jar as payment. He agreed and I picked them and made a milder brine than the white vinegar one I used for my last batch. I used apple cider vinegar, more water and very little garlic. Put them into pint size jars and hot water caned them for ten minutes. I ended up getting five jars out of the batch. So all in all I ended up with twelve more jars, minus four for my neighbor, of canned delights. I have overcome the fear, now I just need to figure out what I'm doing.