Water loss in jars

This is my first year of pressure canning, ever, and I have a question regarding water loss from the canning jars. When I pressure canned green beans the water loss was minimal. When pressure canning beets the jars lost quite a bit of water during the canning process. There is at least 1/2 a jar of water or more left but I wanted to make sure they were still safe to eat with water not covering all the food. I followed the process exactly per your canning book and the pressure canner instruction manual and the jars have all sealed perfectly. I also used Tattler canning lids if that makes a difference, following their newest instructions exactly. Is it possible that the beets absorbed that much more water than the green beans did? Would it be better to fill the jars of starchy foods only 3/4 full and add more water to allow for more water absorption by the food? I would appreciate any tips you could give me.

Teresa Liechti
Milbank, South Dakota

First of all, the loss of liquid from your jars does not mean the food is no longer safe to eat. It will be fine. Here are a few causes of liquid loss during processing: Food packed too tightly or jars packed too full, pressure fluctuated during processing, jars not taken out of the canner until canner is cool (not pressure returned to zero) or “hurrying’ the return to zero at the end of processing by bumping the weight or petcock. It does not matter that you used Tattler lids. It is possible that the beets absorbed more water but that isn’t common. Always follow the processing directions, including adding water or liquid to cover the food where needed. Just keep at it. You’ll work out your problems and so far they’re minor. Congratulations on beginning to pressure can! Like everything, the more you do it the better you’ll become. — Jackie

Off-grid dehydrating

You mentioned the other day that you had two dehydrators going. How do you run them when off grid?

Bonnie
Natchitoches, Louisiana

I start them when we’re planning on having the generator on for awhile, usually when I’m washing clothes or Will is using power tools. It’s amazing that in just a couple of hours, the food dries down a whole lot. Then I set the dehydrators on a table on our enclosed back porch, where it’s real warm (South side of house) and continue to dry down. The next time we have the generator on, I plug them back in. Usually a couple of times like that and the food is crispy dry. I can run one dehydrator from our battery bank, full time. But when I use two I have to switch them around or it sucks our batteries out of power. — Jackie

5 COMMENTS

  1. Holly,

    We heat the water for our hot tub with a wood-fired water heater that Will built from two junk water heaters from the dump. Actually, I’m doing an article on that and other things right now. Yep. We have two kitchen stoves. The “summer” stove is propane and the fall-through-spring stove is a wood range.

  2. Holly, I don’t know how they did it, but when they brought the hot tub home, Jackie said they were going to use wood heat. HOW? Leave it to Will, he can do just about anything.

  3. I appreciate your commenting on your on your use of “juice” when running two dehydrators, Jackie. Most folks do not understand how much power is used when producing heat for a process. I know many people who really do not understand what they will not have power for when living off grid. You and Will seem to do very well – I have noticed that you have both a wood and a propane stove. (Your kitchen cupboards, the stone wall behind your wood burner and medallion in the ceiling,…….. aw heck…………your whole house is absolutely stunning by the way!) My only question is how you heat water for that hot tub you put in…….

  4. I had problems with new Tattler lids this year while canning apples several jars had most of the liquid out of them when I pulled them out of my water bath canner. Even though the lids sealed I reprocessed them because there was hardly any liquid in the jars. I haven’t had that problem with Tattler lids until this year.

  5. When we were much younger, we had this same problem. Our ’cause’ was cold packing our veggies in the jars. When we started hot packing into the jars, the liquid issue magically went away. Never give up!

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