Pressure canning

[arbilad]

Anyone have an opinion on this canner?

http://www.amazon.com/Presto-23-Quart-Aluminum-Pressure-Cooker/dp/B0000BYCFU/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=home-garden&qid=1249007250&sr=8-1

I know that people say get a canner without a rubber seal, get a stainless steel canner, etc, but I can't find one of those for less than $200, which is clear out of my budget. This one seems to be well reviewed, and it fulfills the goals I want: it has something at the bottom to hold the jars off the floor of the canner, and it has a pressure gauge instead of a weight. I have a pressure cooker, but it's not intended for canning, I would have to get a riser for the bottom, and I would have to use my judgment to decide from the weight if the pressure was high enough.
Anyway, I want to get into the pressure canning thing so that I can put up jars of ground beef and other meats. I'm hoping that it will be cheaper than buying it from MRE Depot.

[Highlandsunrise]

We use two at our house and one of them is just like this one. It works great, no complaints. The aluminum is soft and I have scratched it's bottom dragging it across the stove because I am not strong enough to lift is when it is full but it's function is great. We replaced the rubber seals on our other one that is much older this last year. They have them at the Mending Shed in Orem, UT among other places. Not expensive.
We do chicken and ground beef every year when it is on sale. We use the instructions on the university canning sites. It is very good and a wonderful convenience food.

[rhiamom]

It was good enough for my grandma, and it will be good enough for me when I get back. My Grandma used one just like that, with the pressure gauge. She lived on a working farm and kept a huge garden and did tons of canning.

[Charlene]

I have a Presto canner (I think the exact one you have linked to), and it works just fine. I have used it to can meats (chicken, beef, ground beef, sausage balls, pork) for about 2 years. This year I had to replace the seal, but it works well.
I bought it because it was at an outlet store, new, but the box was torn, so it was a good price. If I had finances to get what I thought was best, I would have gotten an All American canner. I'm hoping to get one of those this year. The reason is that I would really like to have two canners. I buy large amounts of meat when it is on sale and it can take 2-3 days of full-time canning to get it done. Would love to have 2 canners going to cut my time in half.
Good luck with your canning endeavors. Canning meats has changed my whole food storage outlook. I can't keep my teen daughters out of the chicken. The Presto canner should work just fine.

[LEVE]

One boon for a pressure canner is that they can be used over an open fire... if needed. Take a look at your canners. Make sure you can pull off any handles that may melt due to an open flame. Then you can use the canner to preserve meat from a freezer if you've lost your electricy for any length of time with no ability to recharge the freezer.

[prairiemom]

Definitely get a name-brand like Presto or Mirro so that you can replace broken handles, gauges and worn gaskets. I've used them all. I love my All American best of all. You can get it for around $170. The Mirro and Presto canners that I had got broken handles, one of the little falanges got bent making it difficult to twist the lid off and on, the lid got dented when it fell. They worked great, but broke too easily. I guess I'm a little hard on canners. :blush:

So yes, the All American is spendy, but it is so durable and has features I like that for me it's worth it. I like that:
The lid is not twist on/off
It's all one piece, so no handles to break
It is heavy metal, so no dents
No rubber gaskets that need replacing
It has both pressure and guage, so there's no guess work.

It came with a rack on the bottom (similar to the Presto one) but I use my lifting rack from my waterbath canner (which is another reason I prefer the All-American. The Presto is too narrow to use that rack.) when I do quarts and use the bottom rack only when I do pts.

It's a canner I'll be passing along to my daughers-in-law. And I agree--having two is ideal.

The taller canners (like the one you referenced) you can do double batches of pts, just get a rack that you put on top of the first layer of jars and stack another batch of jars on top of that. But I do mostly qts, and it's rare that I'll get enough veggies to fill 20 pts at a time, that I still prefer my standard size canner.

[signseeker]

Have you tried the DI or borrowing from ward members (older ones?) who aren't maybe using there's so much? DH found a couple at the DI and we have several people in the ward who we pass our stuff back and forth . . .

[Highlandsunrise]

Since we are down to just me and DH at home now, we can use a 1/2 pint of chicken or ground beef in a meal with no leftovers. I can get three layers of 1/2 pints in the canner in each batch and with two canners we can do a 40 pound box of chicken pretty fast with both of us working on it. We put a pinch of hot pepper seeds in each bottle with the chicken, salt and pepper. Good stuff.

[Aldon]

Highland,

I bought my wife that gigantic pressure cooker last year. From off this site. From the Sister in Michigan.

Feel free to borrow it.

I think it is like 5 gallons or bigger.

Probably could do 20 half pints at a time or more.

And if Merle does it with you she could learn the process so it would be a benefit to us as well.

It might not fit on top of your stove so if that is the case, you could have a canning party at my house at some point.

[Highlandsunrise]

Sounds very good to me. I would love to check out your canner!

[DMGNUT]

In the event you are in a "modern" home, with an electric flat-top stove. the Pressure cooker you choose must have a flat bottom, or you run the risk of over heating and cracking your flat-top stove's cook surface.
I prefer the All American... besides being heavier duty, the lack of a rubber seal, allows it to be used even through an "end time" scenario, when rubber replacement seals will most likely not be available.
Just my 2 cents worth.