No, they are not. It's a question of size. Pressure cookers are smaller. As a result, they heat up, and cool down, faster than a pressure canner. However, the heat up/cook down times are factored into the directions for any particular canning recipe. If you can in the pressure cooker the food will be underprocessed, and possibly unsafe. The bottom line is, you can cook in a pressure canner, but canning in a pressure cooker is not recommended.

I would dearly LOVE to find one of these in the tall ones that you can use so many jars in. I mean I would do me one more happy dance for sure! I have went to estate sales and auctions and thrift stores to no avail. Just praying on day before I get too old to can God blesses me with one! In the meantime I keep borrowing my friends that I am thankful will allow me to borrow hers. She never uses hers and so tempted to ask her what she would take for it. I had said up above someone had gifted me one but he found what he was looking at that day in all his stuff and it was some sort of a paint sprayer. He does say he has a pressure canner though but heaven knows when he will ever dig it out. lol He has enough stuff to furnish 5 houses. lol He's such a giver though so God really blesses him.

<Yes, the gauge reads 10 PSI before the weight is on. You can put enough energy into the canner to do that. There has to be pressure for it to vent, whether it's 1 PSI or 10 PSI. > Sorry to disagree but not with a normal pressure canner in good working order. It simply isn't possible. All tested and approved models, including All American, have been extensively tested by USDA and by the manufacturers in both venting and non-venting mode. And any fully functioning canner with the exhaust vent open will boil dry before it will reach more than 5 lbs. And it will definitely do that with only 2" of water in it. It is a safety margin built into the canners. So if your canner is going up to 10 lbs with the exhaust vent still open then something is wrong with it. Most likely the exhaust vent is at least partially plugged whether visible or not and easily so if you have hard water as lime builds up in the vent pipe. OR the gauge is malfunctioning. I have a 915 and a 941 as well as several other models of canners and have used them extensively for many years . The 941 will readily exhaust a full head of steam well before reaching 5 lbs. on the gauge - normally it is at about 3 lbs. And when the weight is then placed on the vent pipe it takes an additional several minutes to rise up to 10 lbs and move the weight. If you contact the manufacturer they will confirm that for you. Dave

" But I see the steam canner I would need for my glasstop stove is about the same price as a pressure canner." That all depends on which brand and model of pressure canner you are looking at. Steam cannersa re for sale at Walmart for $37. You won't find a quality PC for that price. Brands are not all the same quality and you can do different things with different (more expensive) PC models. Plus there are PC models that cannot be used on glass top stoves and other issues with trying to pressure can on a glasstop even with the approved models. So it may not be a valid comparison. " since I read on here you can do same time as water bath at 5 lbs. pressure? I'm assuming the heating time would be about the same since both use about the same amount of water?" I'm afraid there is some misunderstandings here. While some deep models of PC can be used as a boiling water bath canner the jars must still be submerged and no pressure is used. "I read on here you can do same time as water bath at 5 lbs. pressure" would not be accurate or was taken out of context. Could you point to that comment? The overall processing time would end up being longer than the BWB time called for simply because you would have to vent and bring it up to pressure. That could easily affect the quality of some foods. Bottom line the only advantage to spending the money on a PC vs. a steam canner would be if you plan to actually use it for pressure canning. If all you can is high acid foods that would normally be BWB processed then the steam canner is the better deal IMO. Dave