I canned and preserved all of our food for years. After reading a multitude of books, I found that there are two resources that are totally safe and reliable. The USDA Extension Service has tons of info and may also be able to have an agent teach you about it, but regardless, they have many booklets on the subject. The other resource is The Ball Canning Book, also known as The Ball Blue Book. It has complete instructions for all types of preserving and is from the preserving "experts".

I also can, and I think the blue ball book is one of the best. also , backwoodshome magazine, jackie clay has great pointers for beginners. I can a great deal of our meats, and most of our veggies, and fruit, but i also dry alot of our foods.

Backwoodshome is a great mag. Jackie Clay just came out with a new book
"Growing and Canning Your Own Food" I have it I think it is the greatest
book if you want to can meals in a jar also good to learn how to garden.

go to backwoodshome.com to find out more.

i only subscribe to the mag i don't make any money off of them

alain

thanks for the tip about backwoods home. I've heard of it, but never made it over.

Thanks for the helpful info Christian for Israel. I'm starting my canning "learning curve" next weekend, and your info will really help me out. copied it and printed it out. I'll let you know how I did.....if I survive it!

My DW and I have canned thousands of jars of acid foods (fruit, jam, butters, some veggies) acidified foods (salsa's, relishes, mustards), and low acid foods (soups, meats, many veggies). The standard reference we use in the Ball Blue Book. Another good reference is "Putting Food By". It can help you decide canning (and pressure) times for those recipes that are not in the Blue Book.

We recently bought 4 pallets of canning jars from Ball. We use 11 Gorilla Racks in the basement for storage of our canned foods and dry foods. I think that pressure canning is a little easier than water bath, but that is me. We use an All American pressure canner. We have two. We also use a small Presto that holds seven pints for small batches.

Hammer- you are one of the first people I know who realizes just how many jars it takes to can much of your food! I'm not near an outlet to buy that many jars, but there's one in PA, so if possible before tshtf, I'll get someone to pick up a couple of pallets. Until then, I pick up a couple of cases every month.

People often ask: How many jars will I need? I remind them that if they plan to use JUST one jar a day, they would need 365 jars or about 30 cases!

Hey HP and hammer we got great deal from an older lady that had TONS of jars on craigs list cheap.

food-preservation/canning-deals-postem-if-you-gotem-t6616.html?hilit=jars

I should give full disclosure. My DW and I raise most of our produce, fruit, and meat. We are also beekeepers. We sell our products at a local farmers market. We sell jam, jelly, butters, relishes, salsa, eggs, sweet breads, and our honey. We used to buy our jars from Big Lots, but they would never have enough for us. On top of what we can for our farm business, we can for ourselves. As you might guess, the logistics can sometimes overwhelm. I think we put up over 500 jars of salsa alone this year. We make 4 different heats of salsa alone. The few people that have seen our storage area walk away stunned!

Canning is not hard, but you must develope a rountine. The Ball Book can help you do that.The canning times listed in the BB are very conservative. If you follow the recommendations, it is hard to fail. One of the routines is to do the smell test with every jar you open. Sniff the contents or the lid. You will know right off if the seal was bad. If it smells funny, discard the contents. You can't "cook it" back to being good.