Canning Materials

Okay...before I present the recipes that I used for canning, first we must address the materials that we need aside from the produce.

First we need jars and lids showed in the photo from my previous post. These should be washed with hot soapy water before use. Some recipes call for boiling the jars to sterilize them prior to canning, but the recipes I used needed no sterilization. The lids (which had the rubber lining that is responsible for the sealing) should be new, otherwise it might not seal. Screw bands can be re-used as long as they are not too rusty and do not have resistance upon screwing.

We need a kettle to boil water which we will use to fill the jars shortly before putting the food and for the screw bands and lids as well...


A stockpot for cooking large amounts of food if the recipe calls for it...


So far, with the recipes I tried, I just used the water-boiling canner type like this, none of the pressure-gauge or dial-gauge type (baka mabigla ang manang nyo). Actually since this is my first try, I had no equipment. I borrowed this from my mom (as well as the big stockpot).


Inside the canner is where this rack goes, where the food-filled jars are. It kinda reminded me of the bottle sterilizer we used for feeding babies...


These are the lids (with orange rubber lining on the periphery) and the screw bands (so that the cover is actually two-piece). I used a clamp instead of a magnetic picker (nahiya lang ako sa byenan ko na lahat na lang hiniram ko. Biro nga nila, alam na raw nila ang Christmas gift nila for me. Haha!)


This is a jar lifter (my Mom has been using this jar lifter for 40 years now. She said those that are available nowadays are not that durable). When using, make sure that the jar is fully supported by having the curves of the lifter UNDER the ridge, especially when removing just-processed jars.


Magnetic picker has a small magnet at the tip, which is used to pick up the outside part of the lid and the screw bands from the boiling hot water to the jars. It does not only protect your fingers from scalding, it also helps minimize contamination. To care for yout magnetic picker, refrain from storing it alongside a conductive material, as that might weaken the magnet.


This is a food mill, which I used for pasta sauce. I found a recipe for hot sauce which I would like to try probably next week, and I will be needing this again.


All of these I borrowed from my mom (kapalmuks!). Alam nyo naman, nasunog ang dating bahay. Everything has to be bought new, but we can't do that at once (donations welcome! Haha!)

Of course, when all is canned you need a space to store these, so shelves are essential, as shown in my previous post. The shelf should be placed in a dark and cool place for longer shelf-life of the canned goods.

For those interested in canning, I will createhave created links on the lower right sidebar for my online resources after this post. One of my friends, bingbing, suggested before about extension links of USDA (thanks to you!) and I moved on from that, found other sites both government, educational institutions or personal endeavors of people concerned about the many bad ingredients found in the typical canned foods found in the grocery stores.