Thanks, balloonflower, that's a good tip on the rubber gloves. I wouldn't probably wear them through the whole process, but handling hot lids and removing hot jars, now that would be a big help.

I put a date on everything, so the used lids are always marked anyway, but like you, I've got jars and lids all over containing things which have nothing to do with canning, like rubber bands and dried beans and leftover gravy. Those jars get used year round for everything!

Annie

Yup--in the future, I probably will just put on right before the hot pack, or when removing the jars. But I did find that just wearing the one on my left didn't get in my way much--I don't do much detail work with that hand, and my right hand was bare. Normally, I despise wearing gloves due to the reduced feeling.

Good tips!

1 - Sharpen all your knives well before starting. Dull knives hurt people.

2 - Use the right tool for the job. Trying to make do only makes more work.

3 - Hot pack almost always gives better results than raw pack.

4 - 4 hands is better than 2 hands whenever possible.

5 - There is a good reason why assembly line production works just as well when canning as it does in the auto industry.

6 - Always have the instructions right in front of you and check the instructions multiple times during the process.

7 - Never assume your pressure canner will work just fine when it hasn't been used for months.

8 - And if you don't know how your particular pressure canner is supposed to work then don't use it. It isn't something one just learns as they go along.

Dave

I've posted some of these in the past, but here's my list.

1. Keep my canning supplies organized. I found some stackable plastic shoe boxes in an office supply store. One box holds 36 wide mouth rings and 3 boxes of lids. Another contains my regular mouth lids and rings. A third has tools like my jar lifter, pressure canner weight, chopsticks for removing bubbles, citric acid, Pickle Crisp, etc.

2. After splooching raspberry juice all over one of my favorite canning cookbooks, I wrote a few recipes/procedures on index cards (my shorthand for Beets would be: add 1/4 or 1/2 t salt, vent 10 min, weight on, 30 min pints, 35 min quarts, cool, weight off wait 10 min, open lid) and those go in the toolbox as well. Notes for the next time are written on the back. I use a pencil - pencil remains legible when (not if) the card gets wet.

3. When halving or doubling a recipe, I type it out and print, making all the calculations for every ingredient. That way, I don't forget to halve or double one item.

4. I keep a canning notebook (sheets in plastic protectors in a three ring binder). I print the recipe, make notes right after I finish canning (for instance, used 7 peaches per quart. Not quite enough syrup for 7 quarts - make an additional 1/4 cup.) Makes it so much easier the next time. I also make notes after we've opened and tasted something. (Cut down the cinnamon stick a little, maybe add an allspice or two.)

5. Buy supplies before or after canning season (in bulk gets me the best price) or grab them when you see them. Inevitably the stores will be totally out of vinegar and canning lids when I just picked 100 pounds of tomatoes to make salsa.

6. Don't waste the produce or time to can something we won't use. I made a ton of relish one year and realized we, um, don't eat relish. Luckily, I found some relish lovers and gifted it.

7. Keep an inventory list on the fridge of what you have made, so you don't forget about that delicious lime-chipotle sauce that you could have used a zillion times since you made it. Same goes for the freezer items.

8. Be more creative how we cook with canned goods. The runny strawberry-rhubarb jam is fabulous over ice cream, pound cake, or stirred into yogurt. A jar of salsa mixed into cooked rice makes a quick, yummy Spanish rice. Piccalilli is great on hot dogs and sausages instead of sauerkraut.

9. You will always need more canning jars. Somehow shelf space does not miraculously increase at the same rate. Inexpensive (less than $60 from amazon) wire shelving works well. I've purchased 6 or 7 units over the last few years. Mine hold three cases across and two up, so six cases per shelf. I use one for curing onions, shallots and garlic - once those are trimmed and stored, I start ripening tomatoes (with a thick cushion of newspaper on each shelf to catch the few that will rot before ripening).

10. Mise en place - definitely. But if I measure things out directly from the container, I will add the dry ingredients in separate "piles" on the top, so I can visually check "Did I add the sugar yet?"

11. For washing the stickiness off tomatillos, I use athletic socks turned inside out so the terry is on the outside. One on each hand, and you can quickly scrub the tomatillos without bruising the skin. Works for other vegetables, too.

12. The socks also work for wiping off the jar rims. I dip my fingers in a bowl of warm water with a glug of white vinegar added, and the rims get nice and clean before I apply the lids (note: I rarely buy paper towels - I use cloth instead. I find terry tea towels are too big for that particular task.) Handy also for washing the jars after removing the rings and preparing them for storage.

13. Toward the end of the season, if I have any empty jars left, I start canning emergency drinking water while I'm BWBing other things. Might as well store the jars with something useful in them rather than just empty.

14. The day after canning beets, when you take the dog out to do his morning business, he is not internally hemorrhaging. He has simply gotten into the compost and eaten about a gallon of assorted beet greens, trimmings and peels. This too shall pass and does not necessitate a trip to the emergency vet. Ask me how I know.

All great tips (I'm going to have to do the canning notebook thing - instead I write on a Post-it so I don't mess up the cookbook - same thing happened to me years ago with red wine and NT Times cookbook)!

I bought a "canning mitt" at Sur la Table but returned it since it was too bulky. I'm going to have to try nitrile gardening glove (I just bought 5 pairs for $5). Ove Glove doesn't work when it gets wet, so I support the bottom of each jar with a regular thick potholder when I take it out of the canner. I looked at Ball's new jar support (curved potholder thing) and figure I can make that (but have to find time).

One tip I learned the hard way ) is to use a slow cooker or roaster for apple butter. I have 8ft ceilings and got apple butter on the the (freshly painted) ceiling doing it on the stove. And shiny spots where I tried to scrub it off the flat paint.

Use the crockpot to keep lids warm. It frees up stove space and helps me avoid getting steam burns from reaching over the canning pots. I have an under-cabinet microwave and there's not much space to maneuver. Set the crockpot to 200* and it works perfectly. Use a liner if you have a light colored crock so the rings don't leave a rust mark.

Sorry, I mean lids not rings. Not sure how to edit a post yet.

There was a recent thread on this - you don't have to simmer the lids, or even put them in hot water anymore.

My biggest tip is get some smaller stockpots for canning smaller batches. It saves time and money by not having to use one of those big beastly BWB canning pots unless you are doing a big load of quarts. I so do not miss "Big Bertha!"

When prepping jars/lids/rings I always prep one extra jar of the size I'm using and one jar one size down. That way if there is extra product or not quite enough product I don't have to go running around finding & prepping new jars at the last minute.

As a veterinarian, I have to respond to the poster which spoke about the dog getting into compost not being an emergency. Maybe not in that situation, but I can not count how many animals I have seen (mostly dogs, some cats) which end up in the emergency room due to compost. And if not caught early, it can get really bad. Please keep your animals out of your compost!

I don't have to simmer lids? Awesome!! Honestly, I've never read a box of canning lids. Although I just pulled out the box I bought yesterday at the grocery store and the copyright is 2010 and the directions for salsa say "Heat jars and lids in simmering water until ready to use. Do not boil." So I guess they have old stock AND they cost $5.99! But when you need them, you need them. I'll keep my eye out for the new non-simmer lids!

I purchased one of the Camp Chef style 2-burner propane stoves on legs so I can set up for canning outside when processing things with vinegar - pickles, relishes, salsa(the hot peppers can be extreme as well), etc. Even with all the vent fans running, some of those recipes calling for simmering vinegar mixtures was too much for my wife to handle. And processing something in a pressure canner, weighted, with the jiggling, for an hour for some recipes, is a noise factor that can be a bit much, so outside is better for those as well.

Flour sack towels are great for straining or draining instead of a jelly bag if wet with cold water first. They're large enough that they can be tied up like a hobo sack and hung from anything at that point. I have a clothes rack rod that I don't use any more and put it between two chairs and hang apples over a bucket to strain apple juice. I strained blackberry vinegar earlier this summer with one lining a plastic bowl strainer. You can do much larger quantities at one time than with a jelly bag. They're cheaper. You can machine wash them and use bleach if so inclined. Toss them if they get too stained for your liking. I just call them tie dyed at that point. But they still work. They're virtually lint free, especially after a couple of washings. They work well for drying dishes. Very absorbent.

If you do still heat your lids, drop the clean ones in a water bath one up, one down, one up, one down, etc so they're easier to pull out.

Craig's List can be a good source for cheap jars if you're careful. Dicker with the seller. Also locally run thrift stores. If you find one antique jar in the lot, the rest are essentially free, depending on your value system. :-) Larger chain thrift stores have inflated their pricing on jars so much now they're more expensive there than new ones.

Freecycle can be good for jars if you're in a populated area that has an active freecycle program.

The recycling station can be good for jars if you're careful and don't get caught. I doubt they'll care, but there are signs posted that say not to take things. I don't always find jars there when I go, but occasionally, there will be a few. I filled a 5 gallon bucket several times. Left some because I had nothing to put them in.

Here's another that came in handy last weekend. Many recipes call for reducing the mixture by one-half, etc.

I take a silicone spoon and dip the handle in the mixture down to the bottom of the pot as I get it cooking. Take it out and put a piece of masking tape at the line left on the spoon handle from whatever you are cooking down. Keep cooking and keep dipping until the level is halfway between the bottom of the handle and the masking tape. I find it easier than a plastic ruler (especially to wash off), even though I have one of those in my canning toolbox as well.

> when you take the dog out to do his morning business, he is not internally hemorrhaging. He has simply gotten into the compost and eaten about a gallon of assorted beet greens, trimmings and peelsJust to be clear...some humans exhibit the same...uh...symptoms after eating beets. Scary if one isn't expecting it!

Deborah

malna, i do the same thing but backwards. for spaghetti sauce i measure the depth of the pot, then measure how far down the tomatoes are from the rim when they start cooking. then i can figure how far down the sauce must reduce to be at half the original volume.
and i found another use for a big crockpot- i strain out the tomatoes into it to keep hot (no lid, it does steam off a bit) and boil down the juice in the stockpot. seems faster, and nothing scorches.

Great tips everyone! The only thing I have to add is that having an extra pair of hands in the kitchen come canning time is just about a necessity! And, if you have an outdoor 2-stove burner to do your canning on, it can reduce the time in half if your stove is electric, since the propane runs a lot hotter than electric.

These tips are great.
I also take the original recipe and add highlights or all caps on the main points and keep it in a binder. I pretty much use the same ones over and over and it makes it a lot easier for me. I also use very large font so I can see it easily. The regular ball books are hard for me to see anymore.
Kim

good idea, i could use a larger font size too.
i have so many extra jar rings taking up space. i cut a wire clothes hanger in the middle of the bottom length, , opened it up and bent about an inch on each cut end, loaded the rings on both sides(regular and WM separated), and hung them in the basement from the floor joists ! they took up 3 hangers .

I measure my sauce with a metal ruler at the beginning, then measure periodically while cooking it down to see when it is reduced by one-half.

Great tips everyone!

I use those free, take-out Chinese chopsticks as a tool to remove air bubbles from jars.

I keep my "processing" and "non-processing" bands separate. My processing bands get a little rough looking after time and I don't like to use those to gift canned goods. I use my pretty, non-processing bands to put on jars that I'm giving as gifts. This way, I don't have to sort through my stash of bands to find ones suitable for gifting or processing.

I always prepare an extra jar or two than what the recipe calls for, just in case the yield is more than what the recipe says it will.

I have learned that roasting my tomatoes under a broiler versus blanching is a MUCH easier and faster process to peel tomatoes for sauces, salsa, etc. (see link)

If I am making a large batch of something or if it takes a long time to prep and cook, I'll prep or cook it one day and refrigerate over night, then reheat and process the next day. This keeps me from having to spend 8 consecutive hours in the kitchen. I usually do this for sauces that need to cook down.

Here is a link that might be useful: How to Quickly Peel Tomatoes

Great tip! Other people have mentioned roasting but I've never tried it. Since the Victorio didn't save me as much time/mess as I'd hoped, I'm going to try the roasting next time (should be soon, if I don't sell a bunch of tomatoes this week it's either process them or bring another 30 lbs to the food pantry - did that twice last week!).

Hi- I'm new to canning and could do with some advise. Can you water bath can kidney/butter beans etc once cooked or do they need to be pressure canned? Trying to get a definitive answer before investing in a pressure canner. Thanks in advance

Beans must be pressure canned

My prep tip of the day.... proceeded to skin and chop all the tomatoes that had been picked yesterday.. ended up with 32 cups... hmmm... now what?? aha since I ran out of salsa in about January.. I turned those toms into 2 double batches of Annie's Salsa. Went ahead and got the onions and peppers added as well. Jars are already washed so tomorrow morning all I have to do is add the remaining ingreedients and process.. Our pantry will be replenished with an awesome salsa.

Cruising around the Internet last night, I found some interesting links on a couple of Extension sites:

Canning Tips from Clemson

11 Years Worth of Monthly Newsletters from Kansas State University (some, but not all, applicable to home preserving)

Learning Modules (Flash Based) for Canning and Preserving from the University of Alaska-Fairbanks

Some interesting and fun reads. I was surprised about this one from the June 2014 newsletter published by KSU:

Canning Previously Frozen Tomatoes

"Recommendations for home canning tomatoes are developed using fresh food. The processing procedures are specific to the fresh food characteristics. There are cases, however, when the home canner does not have enough tomatoes to justify a canning session. So the tomatoes are frozen for later use.

So are they safe to can after freezing?

Frozen tomatoes could pack into jars differently than freshly prepared tomatoes and cause overfilling of jars since they are softer when thawed. Overfilling can result in under-processing (and therefore possible spoilage on the shelf) and possibly under-acidification with more tomatoes in the jar than expected. Process times are dependent on food being prepared as described in the preparation steps printed with the time. The best recommendation is to use these tomatoes in something that is well cooked like stewed or crushed tomatoes.

The only way to consider doing this with tomatoes is to freeze the tomatoes for a very short time of just a few weeks at most, without any other added liquid or ingredients. Then when you have enough, thaw them completely and use all the tomatoes and their juices in the pack to make the crushed tomatoes with the hot pack method."

Source: Dr. Elizabeth Andress, University of Georgia

thank you malna, esp. for the info on using frozen tomatoes.
pat