For Christmas this year I bought my own present. My husband needed a new laptop as his died never to be revived or used again. Really dead this time! I sold my old one when it died for $45.00 on eBay to someone in Puerto Rico. He wanted to work on it I guess. There were a lot bids and I started it at .99. We didn't even try with this computer as he said it was not able to be fixed. It is in the attic for now. So I bought a brand new Presto 23 quart canner from Amazon. That was my present. My other two canners were both used so this is my first brand new one.
Before I buy anything especially a pricey item.....I check out the Amazon reviews. The canner I looked at was the Presto 23 quart aluminum pressure cooker/canner
. It had 147 five star reviews. I kept thinking I wanted a bigger canner so I could fill it with more jars. Then when I was studying the page on Amazon, I realized if I am canning on a gas stove the burner is small and it would not heat the whole bottom of a much bigger canner. If I canned on my wood cook stove that would not be a problem, but I usually can on the propane gas stove. The reason is that canning on a wood cook stove means you need a large supply of wood. And then you have to keep it going hot the whole time. Tires me out just thinking about that! LOL Another thing to remember if you are researching which canner to buy is that if it says 23 quarts that does not mean that it will hold 23 quart jars
.It holds 7 quart jars
or 9 pints
. You can put a rack on top of the pints and add another layer if you want. I haven't done that myself. It is BIG canner as in tall. I could never lift it off my stove full of jars and water. I am short so it is a stretch for me taking the jars out but I can do it. It is not impossible. So if you are shorter than 5'2" you might want to consider that. Otherwise, it is a wonderful canner. I love it and have canned several times in it already.The Presto pressure canner
can be used as a water bath canner
by not locking the handles past the V point on the lid. It can used for canning
all your fruits, jellies and acidic foods. I haven't used it yet as a pressure cooker
but it can be used that way also. The manual that comes with it gives you good directions and recipes for pressure cooking. I plan on trying that sometime soon. Should come in handy cooking meats since I eat low carbs
now, and meat and salads are the main focus of my meals.I bought two of the Presto Pressure Canner Regulators
to use on my new canner and my older Presto canner. That way I have been able to convert the pressure canner from the gauged model to a weighted model. I didn't know you could do this until I read the reviews on Amazon written by others who had done this. It turned out to work great! Made canning so much easier. I don't have to spend my time monkeying with the flame on the stove to keep the pressure at 10 lbs. The regulator has two rings that add 5 psi each. So I removed one ring and the canner stayed at 10 psi. I was able to look at the dial gauge and it was consistently on the 10 psi. I never leave my kitchen when the canner is going, but this time I did feel safe enough to go into another room for a few minutes since I could hear the regulator.Canning is my favorite homesteading chore next to gardening. Now with two canners I can process a good amount of food. I will be planting double the amount of vegetables this year as I have made a vow to get away from buying as much grocery store food as I can. Looking forward to a full pantry going into the winter!
Copyright © 2010 Kathleen G. Lupole
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