Jar quantity and size
I purchased your book Growing and Canning Your Own Food. Good book but I can’t find where in the recipes for high acid food is the jar size and quantity of jars needed?
Also for the Boston baked beans recipe on page 180 of the newest version of the book (page 186 in the older version) the bean measurement is 2 quarts. How many pounds would two quarts equate to?
Jesse Big
Brownsville, Vermont
I don’t list the quantity of jars needed as this can vary a whole lot. I eyeball the prepared food and make a guess, fixing up more jars than I think I might need, just in case I’m surprised. Most of the recipes list jar size in the processing information such as “20 minutes for pints or 25 minutes for quarts.” Half-pints can also be used, using the time listed for processing pints.
As for the dry beans, remember the old ditty “a pint’s a pound the world around” so if you need two quarts, that’s four pints or four pounds, approximately. — Jackie
Good wood cookstove and off-grid water
My gardening and food preservation has come a long way since subscribing to Backwoods Home. I now face the following 2 problems:
1. I need a good wood cookstove for both heating and cooking if my electricity goes out. I am 5 miles from the nearest town, but during a blizzard it might as well be 500. Any recommendations and where to find one?
2. I will also lose my water as I am on an electric pump. The well people here say I cannot attach a hand pump to the current electrical one. Have you run across this problem and how did you deal with it?
Betsey Cook
Lyons, Nebraska
Although you can find both new and used wood cookstoves on the internet, the best and cheapest way to buy one is locally. Put an ad in your local free shopper and post notes on bulletin boards in your area. I’m sure you can find a good one at a reasonable price. Do be sure that it is all there with no missing lids, doors, or bridges (the little dog-bone shaped flat iron pieces between the lids). Also take a flashlight and examine inside the oven for rusted out holes and inside the firebox to make sure the grates have not been burned out (usually from extended burning of coal or hardwood). Local auctions are also a good spot to buy, but examine any stoves well before bidding.
You can not attach a hand pump to the electrical one (usually a submersible one) but if your casing is wide enough you should be able to slide a hand pump such as the one Bison pumps makes down alongside of the wiring/pipe of your current pump. If that won’t work for you, how about investing in a generator to power essential things such as your well pump. You wouldn’t have to keep it running all the time but only when you wish to draw water to store for a day or two. This is kind of what we do as we are off grid permanently. We have two 300-gallon storage tanks in our basement and our house water is drawn from them by a little 12-volt pump which gives us water pressure 24/7 without having to run our generator more than a few times a week. — Jackie
Thank you everyone for the tips. I am currently looking into all of them.
I did not think, however, about insurance. I will do that today.
Jackie, I am also looking into a generator. I was told that however many amps I have going into the house that I need a generator large enough to handle twice that many. Just thought I would pass that on…
We have a house like Stephanie, 116 years old. Can’t get insurance. Stone basement, wood siding and two chimneys. No wood stoves insidebut no insurance either.
Betsy,
When you use a steam juicer, the resultant juice is more a tomato broth than tomato juice unless you add some puree to it. That broth makes a great soup base though. By pouring the clear juice back through the tomatoes a few times makes the broth much more red.
Robin,
I’ve used any jars that a regular (or wide mouth) lid and ring will work on. Some folks say they break but I’ve never broken any “alternative” jars more than any other standard Kerr or Ball jars.
You have to forget about insurance companies if you plan on having an older cook stove. (Which I love) They didn’t like my parlor stove or my coal stove in the basement and they didn’t really like the boiler for the radiators either and then there is the old wiring in the house, and they would not guarantee water damage due to our house has the old wood siding (Still in good shape, painted often) and the basement is made out of large rocks from back in the day and is sound. The chimney wasn’t up to their modern code. All these things have been here for almost 110 years and have given no problems, why would they start now. But then I own another house and if something happened to this one, I would sell the other house. That is my insurance, I guess.
I had been saving up for a new cookstove, called my insurance co. they said they had to approve it in person. I didn’t know what to do, then emergencies came up and I couldn’t begin to afford it anymore. the insurance co. kinda scared me out of it too. anyone know anything about this? I would so love to have one but a used one I guess is out of the question.
Ms. Cook,
if you can afford a new wood cookstove, I wuold recommend a Kitchen Queen. It is an Amish-made stove that is built like a tank. It has a huge firebox (so you don’t have to split your wood so small) and the largest hot water tank of any cookstove I know. I bought the small one last year and it heats my little 1,300 sq. ft. Cabin (not yet insulated) even in temps down to zero degrees.
The folks at Obadaiah’s Woodstoves (www.woodstoves.net) are friendly and most helpful in setting up delivery. Hope this helps and good luck!
Hey Jackie, my hubby thought he would try making tomato juice with our steam juicer. Well, all we got was the clear watery juice that sits on top of your canned tomato juice. He ran the skins through our victorio strainer and got beautiful tomato paste. We were pleasantly surprised.
To Betsey in Nebraska – We have a Bisson pump put in our drilled well casing along with our reg. deep well pump. It works great all year long even in the Winter when it gets to well below freezing here in the mountains of Maine. The Bisson pump is very well made and the people from Bisson are very helpful and knowledgeable. Hope this helps.
Love, love your canning book. Have you ever used the old Folgers coffee jars to can in. Reg. size lid fits perfect. Was given several but wasn’t sure about use. Thanks.
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