Anyone here can food?

[El Vaquero]

As some of you know I'm in the midst of getting my Barbecue business going. I wanted to sell my barbecue sauce and my dry rub mix. My question is what is the cheapest way to can both items?

I saw that I can put the sauce in mason jars and then put them in boiling water. I have just heard if you do it wrong and eat the food you can get botulism.

I also wanted to know if anyone knows if it would be easy to can my dry rub seasoning? I know that it has to have an airtight seal so it will last until I can sell it. Any help will be appreciated.

 

[RJW]

Re: Anyone here can food?

You need to pressure can your sauce, instead of hot water bath can it. Get the Ball Canning book. It will give you the needed information.
I think it would be safe to package a dry rub in just sealed bags.

 

[sharac]

Re: Anyone here can food?

We can here a lot from mushrooms to cucumbers/paprikas to fruits of all sorts.

Heat and clean that is the name of the game if you get bacteria/fungus into the foodstuffs or forget to clean/heat jars you're not going to like the result in a few days...

For vinegar based canning we always boil vinegar/water (2:1 2.5:1 depends on taste and power of vinegar) with herbs, heat (clean) jars to at least 90°C and for a short time dip stuff to be canned into the boiling vinegar/water to sterilize (mushrooms are exception as they need to be boiled for a few minutes anyway) and then transfer stuff to be canned into hot jars with plenty of vinegar to cover completely and then close the jar (tightly - always use good covers) and wrap in blanket to allow for slow cooling (you will hear POP when cooled down and vacuum forms or if you leave jars elsewhere tops will be bend slightly into the jar - if not it will spoil very fast and you'll either see mold developing or you will scrape stuff off the walls of your cupboard).

 

[Greg Langelius *]

Re: Anyone here can food?

Yes I do.

Oddly enough; I looked it up on the Internet. Google is your friend.

Did you try Google instead of bringing you totally non-gun-related questions to a shooters' forum?

It took me less than 10 seconds to find the answer by doing a search on "canning safety". Imagine that.

I don't mind questions from newbies, but please...!

 

[RJW]

Re: Anyone here can food?

Greg, I don't see any gun related topics in the Bear Pit.
Ease up and have another cup of coffee.

You and I are way too old to get aggravated over such trivial matters.

 

[Killswitch Engage]

Re: Anyone here can food?

I can all kinds of shit. For dry things like rubs, powders, cereal etc you can put them in a mason jar and in the oven to seal the jars up. Works great.

As for sauce definitely use a pressure canner. That's how you wanna do all meat as well. Get the book " how to preserve meat".

 

[Greg Langelius *]

Re: Anyone here can food?

RJW, of course you're right. It's just sometimes, it gets 'really out there' around here...

 

[RJW]

Re: Anyone here can food?

I hear ya Greg. Enjoy your day. The trees in your area should bebeautiful right now.

 

[Greg Langelius *]

Re: Anyone here can food?

They are astoundingly pretty this year. I've been indulging excuses to drive longer distances, and to use those roads which get us up where we can see for miles. Our crops came in pretty good too, I understand we are exporting pumpkins to states South of here, etc.

I love being retired up here in the Finger Lakes Country, so beautiful, and so much more affordable than Metro NY/NJ. No jobs, but all the other perks are on the plus side; like, for instance, I can hunt deer/chucks within ten minutes in any direction.

Greg

 

[Sean the Nailer]

Re: Anyone here can food?

Yeah, we do a fair bit of canning, putting-up, and preserves around here. You have been given stellar advice, already. Get the Ball book. Google the process. Research the National Center for Home Food Preservation for a multitude of of different methods and requirements.

Good luck with your business, and samples for supporters are appreciated!

 

[WyoJoe]

Re: Anyone here can food?

I am at work & do not have my cannings books here. So I researched it in the internet before posting my answer. Already knew the answer but wanted to make double sure before posting.

You can pressure can it if you want to but it is not necessary. With it being tomato based & high acid water bath canning works fine.

 

[Greg Langelius *]

Re: Anyone here can food?

Jut finished pressure canning 10qt of garlic dill pickle spears. This is my first season with pickles; it's an experiment, wish me luck.

Greg

 

[KelsonAK]

Re: Anyone here can food?

Pressure canning is the way to go. Sounds like jars are your friends here, though you can do actual cans also. A lot of folks use cans for salmon here. We use jars for salmon, moose and stock. In addition to using the google machine to find out how, often local colleges will have classes on canning.
I have found the instructions that come with the canning pressure cookers to be very helpful.

 

[El Vaquero]

Re: Anyone here can food?

Thanks for the advice from everyone. The reason I asked these questions is because I looked the info up on the Internet a while back and canned some cucumbers to make pickles with my 6 year old. 2 out of the 18 or so jars came out really bad. We threw them away.

I always would rather ask people who have done a process successfully and get their advice/opinion than try the process again and screw it up an possibly get sick. I can't get feedback from a book or a website, at least not immediately from a site. I tend to trust people's advice in this forum.

 

[sharac]

Re: Anyone here can food?

Last batch for this year:

mostly Bolétus áestivalis with some other species...

 

[killborn]

Re: Anyone here can food?

Can't add much more than has been said, but wanted to give you a good link to two good pickle recipes. First is for Bread and Butter pickles.. used to make them all the time. Awesome stuff. The second is for Kosher Dill Spears.
http://stasek.com/preserves/recipes2.php?11
http://stasek.com/preserves/recipes2.php?18

http://stasek.com/preserves/jars.php
Third link is to some good info on preparing the jars for canning. These were all from my late wife's site and we used these recipes and methods all the time. I still can mostly jams when berries are in season.
Still hope to get down your way when the BBQ business is up and running. I could actually do with 2 briskets on 26th, but you are just too far away for the drive down.

 

[Sean the Nailer]

Re: Anyone here can food?

killborn,

Thanks for the additions, and I have a question. For clarity, on your third link, the last paragraph says to cover the jars (filled and lidded, right?) with 1-2" of water in the bath/canner.

I was always taught to have the water up to the necks of the jars, NOT over. Which is right, anyone?

I ask, because we have one of them tall 'stackable' pressure canners, and we aren't sure about the second layer. Is it ok to submerge the first layer, or is the top layer just shrouded in steam?

(We don't know everything yet,,,, give us another week

HA!)

 

[gimpy]

Re: Anyone here can food?

When water-bathing, you need to cover the jars by an inch or two. When pressure-canning, it's the steam.

 

[RJW]

Re: Anyone here can food?

When pressure canning, follow the manufactuer's instructions on how much water to use.

 

[KYpatriot]

Re: Anyone here can food?

Do not try canning without following the book. We have canned for years and I still review it, every year.

Water bath canning ( boiling) is only for high acidity foods like tomatoes, however not all tomatoes are acidic enough and your sauce is not straight tomatoes anyway so to be safe you should pressure can.

When pressure canning the water does nothing except provide a source of steam....there should only be a couple of inches of water in the bottom of the pressure canner. Submerging jars is WAY too much.

Frankly, you have no business selling canned products or even serving them to friends until you are an expert on the process. This is not something to fool around with. The pressure canning process itself is more dangerous than reloading and if you screw it up you can indeed get food that spoils resulting in botulism. Botulinum toxin, once present, cannot be cooked away or killed like normal bacteria.

Do yourself a favor and get the books, contact a county extension agent, or a friend who can guide you. Pm me if you want to talk about this, if not talk to somebody who knows what they are doing and get instructions for your canner.

 

[Sharpsman]

Re: Anyone here can food?

Yep! Back in 1948!

 

[El Vaquero]

Re: Anyone here can food?

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: KYpatriot</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Do not try canning without following the book. We have canned for years and I still review it, every year.

Water bath canning ( boiling) is only for high acidity foods like tomatoes, however not all tomatoes are acidic enough and your sauce is not straight tomatoes anyway so to be safe you should pressure can.

When pressure canning the water does nothing except provide a source of steam....there should only be a couple of inches of water in the bottom of the pressure canner. Submerging jars is WAY too much.

Frankly, you have no business selling canned products or even serving them to friends until you are an expert on the process. This is not something to fool around with. The pressure canning process itself is more dangerous than reloading and if you screw it up you can indeed get food that spoils resulting in botulism. Botulinum toxin, once present, cannot be cooked away or killed like normal bacteria.

Do yourself a favor and get the books, contact a county extension agent, or a friend who can guide you. Pm me if you want to talk about this, if not talk to somebody who knows what they are doing and get instructions for your canner. </div></div>

Thanks for the advice. I'll definately read up and try to perfect the process before I attempt to sell my barbecue sauce.

 

[Greg Langelius *]

Re: Anyone here can food?

Try this site. There are also firms who will produce and package BBQ sauce made to your reecipe.

You're starting out on a well-travelled road; so there's no need to completely reinvent the wheel.

 

[El Vaquero]

Re: Anyone here can food?

Try this site. There are also firms who will produce and package BBQ sauce made to your reecipe.

You're starting out on a well-travelled road; so there's no need to completely reinvent the wheel. [/quote

Thanks for the research Greg. That is an avenue I might want to explore. That would give me more time to concentrate on barbecuing at festivals.

 

[nashlaw]

Re: Anyone here can food?

Did my first canning this year. Many quarts of tomatoes, spiced peaches, chowchow and jelly. Lots of work and fun.

 

[Switchblade]

Re: Anyone here can food?

Canned a few jars of apple jam for ice cream over the summer with Mrs. RJW's recipe, but my new specialty is this courtesy RJW:

This is a mash, my second, made from Guajillo, New Mexico, Cayenne, and red pepper flake, all dried peppers that were reconstituted. I have almost finished growing a mix of Jalapeno, Thai, Serranno, and Gujillo from a small plot. That has yielded about 6 pounds of chili's which may yield a gallon or so of mash that will make some really great hot sauce. We really need to find a way to make more of this because the two boys use it up faster than it can properly age