Did you get the Big Boy? I have the same one and used it successfully once I overcame my fear of pressure cookers. Wonderful to be able to preserve meat and soups. Would love to hear how you have got on.
Just a curious American, how did the Still Room Maid put up all the jams, marmalades, & preserves without a large pressure cooker/canner, in an old country house?
As a post script: I have lived in Colorado Springs, Colorado Elevation 6,000 ft. When I first Arrived I couldn’t boil an egg! Water boils at something like 185 degrees, baking is a treat also. As for below sea level I’ve spent about six months in Death Valley, I don’t recall off hand, but it’s at least 150 ft. below sea level, that didn’t affect cooking much, but 6,000 ft. up in the Foot Hills of The Rockies sure did! I’m back in Minnesota Elevation around 400 ft. please allow a hundred or two feet of leeway if you check an Atlas; Colorado & Death Valley are both 30 years ago, so memory gets kind of hazy. But I remain interested in how the poor Still Room Maid was supposed to put up a years worth of preserves!
No idea what a still room maid is, but our cooks would use jars and bottles with lids! In the UK we don’t have canners as a general rule, this seems to be peculiar to the USA; too much time wasting and cost when all you need to do is chuck stuff in a large pan and boil. Boiling is marvellous, it does a good job of sterilisation. Pickling in vinegar as also another way of preserving that has been used for centuries to ensure food is kept in good condition. Our methods of preserving are old fashioned but tried and tested and sometimes the simplest things are the best.
Unfortunately some foods are low acidic and boiling sometimes will NOT kill all pathogens, botulinum spores can survive normal boiling.
I would be very interested to hear about your results with the big boy pressure cooker for canning as I want to buy something for canning here.
What size is your All American pressure canner?
If it is for sale, how much do you want for it?
I would also be interested in buying it if you don’t want it. How much would you want, and where are you based?
Just an aside, a pressure cooker is not the same thing as a pressure cooker canner.
I came upon your site, by accident, as I was ‘googling’ for a UK sourced Pressure Canner.
But the Amazon link says that its not available anymore.
Do you know if this is the correct version, you refer too in your blog?
Also, are you sure that it can be used for canning, as a comment on the USA Amazon site, mentioned that “Hawkins’ dont make canners?
Sorry for the technical nature of the questions – but I wouldnt want to end up with a 22 Litre white-elephant.
When I first started out making jam etc I read all sorts of info on websites here and in the US and I was very confused as to why they ‘can’ everything in the US and Canada. It would seem they have Or had a problem with Botulism and therefore they advised on very strict guidelines for the processing of homemade preserves etc. This practice continues today – better to be safe than sorry is there thoughts as people have died in the past. Botulism is very reare here in the UK and we don’t normally process our preerves in a water bath as they do in the US. There are some exceptions to this – apple sauce for example. If you Google Water bath method and maybe Botulism in homemade preserves you will find so much information you could easily get bogged down in it all. I think I am right in saying that virtually all homemade jams, marmalades, jellies, and chutneys made by ‘most’ folk in the UK are not processed in water baths or pressure canning. If you go to the forums and put your queries on there you will get lots of help and answers and much quicker than here on the blog. Look out for Martin (username is The Liquineer) he is so knowledgeable – and can answer any technical queries you might have. Hope this helps!
I agree, I don’t process preserves either. I “think” if plenty of sugar,pectin and boiling the required time will produce a safe product without using a pressure cooker.