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We're going to talk about how on what you need to know if you want to get into Canning
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this year, we make the mistake so you don't have to.
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Yeah, so you want to keep in mind to be safe with your canning and this is very important.
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Canning is a science.
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You are taking a perishable food and making it non perishable, which means you're taking
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something that can rock and spoil and making it shelf stable.
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So keep that in mind as you do your canning, you want to look for resources, etc. so that
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you know that they are safe.
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You know that they are good recipes and they have your best safety and interest in mind.
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So if you'll go to look at books or recipes, you want to make sure they're from within
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the past 15 years, there shouldn't be an issue for most like websites, unless it's called
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like vintage canning recipes or something like that.
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But for books, like the library is a great resource for a lot of books, but they don't toss
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the books after 15 years.
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Like keep them silly for a part, regardless of the information is correct or not.
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Like I recently got into knitting and I found a book from like the 80s.
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So you know, they're not tossing these books, which is good.
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I mean, some of the stuff doesn't change.
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Oh, if you want to collect vintage canning books, you can, there's plenty of second, second
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place or second hand places online in order to purchase them and you build a little collection.
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So the reason why we want to look within the past 15 years is because it craps of change,
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food has changed, food science has changed, safety has changed.
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Like for example, joy group canning and they would water bath their green beans and that's
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You got a pressure can.
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You want a pressure can then?
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Yeah, we'd water bath them for three hours.
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Yeah, that's a, that's quite sometimes.
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So you want to keep that in mind, learn that, you know, just keep in mind is science, etc.
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So then you want to start with something, you know, simple, a lot of times people think
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I'm just going to make jam, that's going to be simple and that's not necessarily true.
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Not that jam isn't, is super hard, it's just that at times it doesn't set up.
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You kind of have to learn the, the process.
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There's a lot, with jam compared to like, I would say pickles, there's like twice as many
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moving parts in the jam process and there is the pickle making process.
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Or even just salsa, you know, something kind of more less moving parts as Joey had said.
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And also, there's a pretty foolproof, and you don't have to worry about them setting
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Well, and if you want to get into canning, you know, your church group or whatever organization
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you're with, male or female, it doesn't matter.
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There's somebody that knows somebody that would love to have some help in the kitchen,
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cutting, processing, getting jars, and so you can learn first hand how to go about doing
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this rather than simply watching a video online from a reputable source.
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Your hands are in the pickles, your hands are in the salsa, the individual is saying,
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okay, this is what we've got to do, and what do to do it say, this is how you're seeing
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So you want to also, Joey had mentioned talking to people, you can do that and look for jars
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And you might think to yourself, I don't know, buddy, who has any canning jars.
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But I swear, these people come or they would work as soon as you start talking about canning,
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all of a sudden they have jars, they have this and that.
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Betty, I heard you brought some jam in, you know, my aunt passed away.
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We got like 50 or 80 jars in the garage.
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We really didn't want to get rid of them.
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And that's exactly what happens.
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So keep that in mind.
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You can find these jars or you can look at rummage sales, yard sales, et cetera.
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You're going to get a better deal if you buy everything, the whole lot, and you may end
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up with some random jars and that's okay.
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But otherwise you're going to buy the jar for a quarter of a piece.
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I'm picking a number.
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But if you buy all of them together and you figure out, and when you get home, you figure,
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oh, I bought them all for like eight cents a jar.
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And you can toss the ones that don't work or put dry goods in the other ones.
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So then you also want to, as you're doing this process, make sure you keep everything
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If you have a pet like a cat who could possibly jump on the counter or the table, you want
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to make sure that you are keeping them out of the kitchen.
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I know my cat, he typically doesn't jump on the counter or the table.
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But I feel like as soon as I start a project and kitchen, he's like, what's going on?
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Or if you have little ones that will, that can get underfoot and trip while you're, trip
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you when you're moving very hot items or breakable things, that's something that needs to be
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I love people who don't think about these things.
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And when you're doing like pickles or candy, anything, you kind of want to move quickly,
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especially pickles because those cucumbers, if you let them sit or cook at too high of
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a temperature for too long, the longer you do the most year they can get.
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So while pickles are easy to can, you just want to make sure you're not dilly dallying
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around while you're doing the process.
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Most people, you know, typically you see or you think of pickles being in court jars,
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but if you can get away with putting them in pint jars, yes, it's half the batch, half
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the quantity, but the quality of them does increase substantially because it's less time
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in the heat and you can get more of a, like a store bought crisp pickle at home.
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If you move quickly and keep that from getting too hot, but doing it for the direction
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of time and don't do in half gallon jars, we don't do that anymore.
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It's not safe, national home for food preservation, that apple juice, and I think grape juice
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are the only two safe things in which you can preserve in a half gallon jar, using
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So some of my favorite resources as Joy had mentioned was the National Center for Home
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They have a lot of great basics, like say you have 45 pounds of tomatoes and you want
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to know how much it's going to make into X. They can help you with that on the National
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Center for Home Food Preservation.
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We learn how to can, uh, venison with their sites.
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Yeah, that's a pressure can process.
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Not all vegetables and stuff that comes out of your garden, you're going to water bath.
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So you want to make sure you are using good resources and then better homes and gardens.
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They have a good book called You Can Can and it's pretty comprehensive, has some good
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The ball, blue book is what it's called, put out by ball canning, they put it in a new
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edition every couple of years, they have good information and even just how to can.
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And you would think, oh, it's a, I got one, two years ago.
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There are new recipes and new variations of recipes, every book, it's not just a copy
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of, oh, we're just going to put it out to put it out.
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And you know, you might think, okay, I got the new edition.
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I know somebody who could benefit from the old edition, you can pass it along.
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You don't necessarily have to hold on to it.
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If there's anything left of that old edition, if you haven't loved it so much that the pages
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are falling out of it, like some of ours are.
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And then you can look for classes.
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I did take some canning classes through my local rec department.
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This may not be an option for you, but you can definitely keep an eye out for it.
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I know I have a friend who teaches like kombucha making classes, which is not canning,
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but you can find a lot of resources when you look around.
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Now with those classes, those are taught by master garden master canners, which are
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much more regulated in states than master gardeners due to the information and the safety
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and effectiveness of that information that is being taught to individuals.
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Absolutely, and I took, like I said, I took a lot of canning classes.
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I even learned how to make mustard, which is really easy to make.
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It seems, I think it seems more complicated than it is, but it's very simple to make.
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And you make a lot of different varieties of mustard and it's, it's kind of fun.
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So when it comes to canning, lids, jars, you want to make sure there's no cracks in the
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You want to use modern day jars, not the antique blue ones that were made from 1896 to 1932.
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So, you know, a jar, and make sure it is a canning jar.
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You get these mixtures of glass jars.
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Yeah, make sure it's real mason jar.
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And you can tell by the thickness of an old managed jar from the 80s versus a canning
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And, you know, you want to look for, make sure you have, I bought this new, but it was
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like a canning kit, which comes with the funnel, the headspace measure, the jar lifter,
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and the little thing that can lift the lids, it's a little magnet, one type situation.
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Sometimes you can find those at yard sales, thrift stores, whatever.
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If you go to a yard, so you go ahead and buy, have two or three or four of them.
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It's not, it's because you're going to lose one.
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And if you have two or three, and another thing with your canning, you want like lots
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But what do you call it, dish towels and rags and extra spatulas and extra spoons and things.
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So whenever you're in this process, you don't have to, oh, you have a backup.
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You're ready to grab a different one.
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Because the time it's not a, oh, I'll get it done when I get it.
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It's a time-sensitive situation.
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And one thing to keep in mind is that, or for me, I know myself like I enjoy being in
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the kitchen, whether it be cooking and baking, I don't bake as much as I used to.
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So canning, even though I didn't grow up doing it, became a kind of a natural extension
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of what I enjoyed doing when it came to being in the kitchen.
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And you were not a canner.
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You did not grow up in the world of canning.
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No, I was a city girl.
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Yeah, I grew up in this city.
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And when it, joy and I met in probably about 15 years ago now, even though we had both
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garden separately, we grew our first big garden together and we had all these, a lot of tomatoes,
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cucumbers, I think peppers, onions, just a lot of stuff.
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And joy was like, we're going to can this and I was like, okay, you have fun with that.
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And he was like, no, you're going to help me.
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So, you know, we kind of, I don't want to see if we learn together because joy had some
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canning experience.
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Growing up on the phone.
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That really into it and I really, I really did enjoy it.
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I thought, in my words, I thought that was for country people.
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Man, you are a multi-award winning Wisconsin state canner.
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That's where the show originates out of Southeast Wisconsin.
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And you've placed several ribbons in the state fair.
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