Canning advice Please!

My friend started canning last year with the pressure cooker and did fine. Just follow directions.

http://www.freshpreserving.com/pages/step_by_step_low_acid_f...

I can my peas, beans, and corn in pints for 25 minutes at 10lbs. With a raw pack. (food raw water in can hot).

http://www.freshpreserving.com/pages/all_recipes/215.php?cat...

This tells the times and weights for different foods.

Question? Anyone ever re-can canned food?

You can get huge cans of vegetables at SAMS, much much cheaper can small cans. (Like 2.82 for a 6.5 lbs), but with two adults and a soon to be 5 year old their is a limit to how many beans we can eat. Anyone ever broke down the large cans and re-canned? I know freezing is an option but, I would rather can to save freezer space and to not have to depend on power.

One thing that is good to do is get the pressure you're generating verified. There's usually some kind of county office that has a set-up to do this. I forget what the office is usually called.

I hate to get all government info source on you, but the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture maintains very good data that is trusted by home canners. They have recipes that have been tested to ensure the botulism spores are all getting killed.

Sometimes, with the thicker, less acidic puree's (as a pea soup probably is) it is much harder to ensure you're getting the heat dispersion within the can that you need to kill all the bad stuff. You'll notice the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture's data is a little thin when it comes to puree's. That's more a sign that, when they don't have a recipe that they know works, they will not publish it, especially since the consistency of puree's varies. It doesn't mean the puree's are impossible. Private companies can puree's all the time, they just do their own testing and can control the process more tightly.

You probably won't find specific pea soup canning instructions. Find something similar that contains meat and then add more time, maybe way more time, for good measure. Also, try to keep the peas as intact as possible and go as high on the water content as you are willing to go (this is not the time to save space by doing a condensed version). Those two things will help with heat dispersion into the center of the jar. If the can tops haven't popped after months on the shelf, you are good to go. Run screaming like a little girl from any can with a popped top (unless it obviously popped right after canning due to a poor seal, then just re-process the seal right away).

That stuff sounds like it would turn out great after sitting in the jar for a while. Sometimes I don't like the consistency of meats once they've been canned, but bacon should do all right.

I try to buy in bulk so I've been freezing the excess meat after I opened the package but normally end up with some kind of freezer burn.

So I waz wondering how things would turn out if the meat waz frozen in a tub of water? Would that be better or a worse thing to do? Anyone tried it?

Thanks

my mom would know.

here is just a big cyber hug my friend*))

And that they're sitting on a rack. For something like that, you'll probably want to use the heavy weight and let it go for 45 minutes or so.