Many of the old stories about pressure
canners exploding, or pressure cookers exploding,
and that's why your grandmother never wanted to use them again.
We have safety measures in place now.
Those don't happen.
For example, here is the over-pressure plug that
comes with the Presto canner.
And this little rubber plug will, if it gets to the point
that the pressure is too high inside,
will actually explode out and then
the pressure will be released.
And it will be very exciting, but it won't be dangerous.
Unless you stick your face in it.
Don't stick your face in it.
With the All-American they also have
the same kind of rubber plug, and the same thing will happen.
Here's the rubber plug on the American.
The rubber plug will come up, it will explode
and then the pressure gets released
and eventually your heart starts beating at a normal rate,
and you're just fine.
All right.
So we're going to go over the parts of your pressure canner.
This is important to make sure that you
know how to make sure your pressure canner is working
the right way.
So the important part, here is your pressure gauge.
This pressure gauge is important because you
want to know how many pounds of pressure you've got.
According to your altitude and your research-based recipe,
it will tell you what altitude you have and you'll need.
Higher altitudes are between 13 and 15 pounds of pressure,
depending on how high your altitude is.
Lower altitude, sea level would be at least 10.
So you want to know where that is.
This happens to be an All-American lid OK, remember
you will need to check your pressure gauge every year,
because you want to make sure you've
got the right pounds of pressure,
or you won't be able to have the right temperature
inside of your pressure canner and things won't be safe.
So make sure and get your pressure gauge tested.
The extension services usually will do that for you.
So you have also a vent pipe on the top of your lid.
That vent pipe is important, because that's
where your pressure weight is going to go on.
For the All-American it's this kind of a weight.
And for the Presto, which is another popular brand,
it's either this kind of a weight,
or this kind of a weight.
This one's 15 pounds already.
This one has rings on it, so that you
can go down to five pounds if your pressure cooking,
10 pounds if you're at sea-level pressure canning,
and 15 pounds if you are above 3,000 feet.
All right so now we're going to start doing some actual food.
What we're going to do today is green beans.
Green beans are very popular.
Now there are a couple of things that you need when you're
going to do pressure canning, or when you're going
to do any kind of canning.
Number one, for pressure canning make
sure you've got the instruction manuals.
You can get these online.
You can do this.
Make sure you've got them.
It will tell you where everything
is on your pressure canner.
You need that.
Make sure you've got it.
The other thing that you've got to get
is research-based recipes.
We've got So Easy to Preserve out of the University
of Georgia extension.
They also run the National Center for Home Food
Preservation site.
All of those are safe.
These are research-based recipes that
have been tested over and over again,
not just for how good it tastes, but to make sure
it doesn't get botulism.
To make sure it's safe to eat, and extensive testing.
Ball Canning also has done extensive testing
that they've shared with the USDA.
So we know that these two sources are safe.
This is The Complete Guide to Home Canning out of the USDA.
All of this is online.
Ball Canning is online too with freshpreserving.com.
USDA, National Center for Food Preservation--
it's all online and it's free to download.
So make sure you've got a research-based recipe.
Make sure you've got the instruction manual
for your pressure canners.
Once again, the electric pressure canners at this time
do not have enough research done,
that shows that they can keep and maintain
the types of temperatures that you need to kill the botulism
spores.
They're inconsistent at the altitudes
that we tested in Utah.
With your pressure cooker or a pressure canner- pardon me.
A pressure cooker is not a pressure canner.
A pressure canner is a separate size
and it has different capabilities.
A pressure canner.
You have to have a rack in the bottom,
because you don't want direct pressure on your glass.
So we will put the rack in the bottom.
This is the big Presto that I have,
and you put two to three inches of water in it.
Follow your manufacturer's advice.
The Presto says to put three quarts of water
in the bottom of your pressure canner.
So three quarts of water ends up being
about two inches of water.
What a surprise.
So you need the water, but you don't
want to do like a water bath because the water bath
all the way over and you need one to two inches of water
over your cans.
But then you won't be able to get any pressure.
So you have to have just two to three inches of water,
because it's cooked and the temperature
comes from the steam, not the water below it.
The water below provides the steam.
OK, so research-based recipes.
Instructions for your canner.
Now you've got your food.
All right, so my pressure canner is now
on the stove where the water is starting to heat up some.
You don't want to get it boiling yet.
You want to get it to be just under a simmer, kind
of just warm.
So that you can get your beans going.
All right, so we're going to do a raw pack green bean.
Raw pack means that you've got the green beans not blanched,
not cooked.
They're just washed and ready-to-go.
And a hot pack would mean that you
would cook your product first and put it in your hot jar,
and then add a hot liquid to it.
With the raw pack you put it in your jar,
without cooking it first, and then you
add boiling water to it.
Because you've still got to have some heat in there.
So I'm going to just get these to a good size for eating,
and pack them neatly in the jar.
Sometimes I pack neater than other times.
It depends on how much I care.
It doesn't matter particularly on the size,
except that you want to make sure that you've
got an inch head space.
So some of these are too long, so I
would cut them down and then have the nice long ones
on the outside, and then the shorter ones
hidden in the middle.
So that it makes an impressive looking jar.
Either way, it'll taste the same.
All right.
Once you have your jars packed you can add salt if you want.
Salt would be an option.
It's not a preservative at this.
And you will take boiling water and pour it
to your inch head-space.
Check to make sure that you don't have any bubbles.
You need to readjust that inch.
You can do that.
This looks about fine.
Put your lid on.
Wipe it off first with a clean paper towel.
Put your lid on.
Finger tight and stick it in your can.
All right.
So this is what the green beans look like when you get them
in your canner.
And then you'll notice there's an arrow on this one.
And you can't see it very well, but there's an arrow
right there as well.
You need to get those on and alignment them.
All right.
You're going to start it at a fairly high temperature,
and that's what is going to start
building up the steam inside.
All right, so now you're seeing the venting.
You can see a solid column of steam most of the time.
Your cover lock is up so you know for sure you're
getting a solid column.
Sometimes you'll get a solid column
before the cover lock comes up.
Most of the time not.
So now is the time you hit your timer for 10 minutes.
Our pressure gauge has started.
We're going to put the weight on there.
This is the 15-pound weight for the Presto.
If you have the All-American you would put it
on the 15-pound weight here that is marked for this hole.
As opposed to the five or the 10 pounds
These are for lower altitudes.
Utah has to be 15 for the weights.
Now you're going to watch your gauge
and let it build the pressure up.
As it starts building close to, you
can go 13 to 15 pounds when you are at Utah County
altitudes of 4,500 feet.
So you watch this to make sure that you
don't start your timing until it gets to at least
13 pounds of pressure.
All right, so you can see that the gauge is between 13
and 14 pounds of pressure.
You can actually start your timing now.
But I don't like to start too close to the 13,
because if you go below 13 at all
you have to start your timing all over again.
So I usually pressure can mine at between 14
and 15-pounds pressure.
At this point, because the pressure has been going up,
you can now start turning down your heat,
and watch your pressure gauge to see where you're at,
and turn it down and make sure you've
got a stable pressure going.
You can see that the weight is rocking right now,
so my gauge is about a half-pound light,
and my weight is telling me that it's at 15 pounds of pressure.
So now I can start my timing.
My research-based recipe says 20 minutes per pint.
Now that my time has started, it's
my turn to get a really boring book so that I
stay in the kitchen watching the gauge
to make sure it doesn't go below that 14-pounds or 15-pounds
that I've decided it needs to be at, and I can monitor it.
So you get a really boring book so you can read and then
look at it.
Read and look at it, and read and look at it.
All right.
Our 20 minutes at pressure are up,
and I'm going to turn off my timer.
I'm also going to turn off my heat
and I don't touch anything else.
If you have an electric stove then
you can gently scoot it off onto something
else so that it'll cool down.
Now we just wait.
It's 5:35 on my clock here, and I will show you
what happens when it finally gets down to a natural cool
down, where you can take it and open it up.
So it's 6:15.
It has finally gotten down to 0 on the pressure gauge.
But the cover lock is still up, so I still can't open it.
I have to wait until that cover lock goes down.
Once the cover lock is down you can open it up,
but it's really hot in there, so make sure you open it away
from yourself.
Now we'll let it cool for about 10 minutes
before we take it out of the canner itself.
OK, so now we're ready to finally take them
all the way out and put them on a tray
to cool off, just like you would if you were water bath canning.
And you leave them there for 12 to 24 hours
without disturbing them.
You don't touch the tops because that could accidentally
give you a false seal.
And after 24 hours you can take off the rings
and wash them and put them away, and know that you've
got a safe product to eat.