Canning and home food preservation has made a big comeback in recent years, particularly as many people have begun gardening and growing their own fruits and vegetables. While putting up garden produce for the winter months was a necessity for many families several generations ago, today canning is more of a delicious hobby.
At the N.C. State Fair, entries of canned goods continue to draw a lot of competitors, making it a popular contest for experienced canners and those new to canning. Pickles, jams, jellies and salsas are among the popular entries.
NC State Professor Dr. Ben Chapman holds canned goods that are entered at the N.C. State Fair. Chapman leads a team of food science students in checking canned products for safe processing methods.The good news is anyone can learn to can safely by following a few basic principles and North Carolina has a lot of resources through local cooperative extension offices for those who are new to canning, said Ben Chapman, head of the Department of Agricultural and Human Sciences at NC State University and director of the Safe Plates food safety extension and research program.
“If you want to do this, there are lots of people out there across the state that are trained in this, that have skills and can help you,” Chapman said. “You can call your local extension office, which has a ton of resources. Some county offices even offer canning classes.”
Chapman offers his top three key tips for making sure your canned goods are prepared safely.
“My number one tip if someone is interested in doing any sort of pickling or home food preservation, is get a science-based recipe and don’t trust everything you see on the Internet, recipe,” Chapman said, before adding that the consequences of improper canning or using an untested technique can be more severe than an upset stomach.
“It’s botulism. From someone who’s in the world of food safety, it is the scariest pathogen that I have ever encountered,” he said. “Like a little bit, not even consuming it but just having it in your mouth and spitting it out, can lead to someone being on a ventilator (or worse.)”
Getting a recipe that comes from a reputable source is key, Chapman said. Those include the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the National Center for Home Food Preservation and NC State Extension which has hundreds of recipes that they share.
Tip two is once you have found a good recipe, don’t deviate from it.
“Cooking and preserving foods are different from a risk standpoint,” he said. “As a cook you might want to add some of this or want to cook it a little less or a little more. When it comes to these canning recipes, that variation becomes a potential risk. I frequently get asked about reducing vinegar in a recipe because the person doesn’t like the taste of vinegar. Unfortunately, you can’t do that. The only safe way to do that is to make a quick pickle or refrigerated pickle where you are using refrigeration to control the pathogen growth as opposed to the acidity.”
A third tip is you do not need fancy equipment for home food preservation. Mason jars and a pressure canner will suffice for low-acid food and Mason jars and a large pot for high-acid food.
“We are seeing an increase in technology that’s being marketed to consumers for canning because of the growing interest. There is an opportunity for innovative products, but the way we’ve been canning for like 200 years is still the way that technology is working,” Chapman said. “You don’t need fancy equipment; you just need a good recipe and to follow it.”
When it comes to pickles, achieving a crispy pickle is often a challenge, but Chapman said this, too, involves science and most likely a thermometer.
“One of the reasons why we have not-so-crisp pickles is that there is a bookend of parameters where I need to get at least hot enough to get rid of any of the mold or yeast that remains from the process, but not too hot that it makes my pickles mushy,” Chapman said.
And there are few tricks to that.
One is that recipes that are tested will give options on exactly what temperature to boil the water bath.
“I say boil water, but you may only heat it to 185 to 190, which will preserve the crispness of your pickles and meet the need to get rid of spoilage organisms. But people will often overheat it and not use a thermometer. Your boiling water will give you an indication of the temperature, but if you want them to be crispier, you need to know it only needs to be 185 degrees.”
Chapman added that there are products that can be added to the process when canning pickles that can also enhance crispness without impacting the safety of the product. There are some additional methods such as chilling the cucumber down before you preserve them known as ice cube or icicle pickles.
His final piece of advice is to start with cucumbers that are crisp.
“Whatever you start with, and this is a tenet of home food preservation, there is nothing that I’m going to do in the process that is going to make that food as good as it is from a sensory standpoint as when it’s fresh,” he said. “Everything I do is going to make a change. If I’m adding vinegar, it’ll impact the cell structure a little bit. I’m cooking it, that’s absolutely going to change it. So, if I start with poor cucumbers, or if I buy cucumbers that are a little bit mushy, they are only going to get mushier. So, if I really want crispy pickles, I’ve got to select cucumbers that are really, really crispy at the start.”