Yesterday Just Wasn't My Day

8 years ago

Decided to oven roast a big pork roast and to make up a big batch of the chicken broth and chicken soup to can. DH is having a lot of trouble eating and digesting anything, but chicken soup seems to be something he can handle. Well, to cut things short, the pork roast turned out way, way overdone. I couldn't get the right temperature for cooked pork roast. That thermometer has to be bad, so out it goes. The pork will be okay shredded and simmered a bit in the BBQ sauce. The soup turned out great. Pulled out my big double decker canner, got everything cleaned, canned the soup then got it into the canner. Well, after waiting 10 minutes for venting, I put the little bobble thingy (I'm tired & can't thing of the name) on and waited, and waited and waited. It never started jiggling. I finally gave up, took it off and waited a safe amount of time to open the canner. The canner wouldn't open. I worked on it and waited and worked on it several times before it finally opened. All the pints had sealed. I left them on a towel for some time then I had to put them in the fridge because it was late, I was exhausted and had to be up early to take my DH to his radiation treatment and hour and a half away from home. I'm not afraid to open the jars, heat the soup and eat it, I'm just afraid to take the eight pints out of the fridge and get them into the pantry even though they are sealed. I've been canning for over 50 years and never had this happened. I'm beginning to think its about time for me to quit pressure canning. Just needed to vent.

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Comments (5)

annie1992
8 years ago
Ah, bcskye, that just stinks. I'm sorry. I have had a pressure cooker (not canner, thankfully), stick shut and I was unable to open it, even after I ran cold water over it and heated it back up, as instructed by various online "experts". Finally my son in law pried it open, but broke the handle doing so. (sigh)

What was in that chicken soup, besides broth and chicken? You could reheat and process again, if it's not going to turn to mush. Otherwise, you could probably freeze it...

Good luck to you and the hubs, I was wondering how he was doing.

Annie
digdirt2
8 years ago
Sorry to hear all the bad news bcskye - some days it seems we can't do anything right and it is always a day when we have lots that needs doing. There is some sort of message in that fact for us but I never have figured out what it is.

Like Annie I've had the locked up canner happen too. In my case it had run dry. It and all the contents ended up getting thrown away after all my efforts to salvage it. So for what it is worth, you aren't alone. But I'd maybe table the pressure canning until you aren't under as much stress and have a chance to figure out what went wrong.

Hang in there. We are thinking of you.

Dave
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bcskye
Original Author
8 years ago
Thank you Annie and Dave for the words of encouragement. After doing some serious thinking about it, I wonder if having too much water in the canner caused the problem. I had the empty pints jars in the pressure canner covered with water like I do with BWB to be extra careful on keeping them sterile. When I took the jars out, filled them with soup then returned them to the canner, I didn't remove any of the water so instead of a couple of inches of water, I had it going well over the tops of the filled jars. I think I'll just take a break and stick with BWB recipes for a while like you suggested, Dave. Annie, there was some diced onion and celery along with the chicken along with the stock. I made sure that there was only half veggies and chicken and half broth in each jar. It was the Ball Blue Book recipe. DH was in stage 4 cancer so they removed his right ear and the ear canal. That's when they found microscopic cancer tumors on the lining of his brain. Chemo and another surgery were out of the question so they put him under radiation. He now weighs almost 30 lbs. less than me - arrgh! His last scheduled radiation treatment is next Tuesday and, hopefully we'll get good news from the doctors. He should have been dead many, many years ago due to motorcycle crashes when he was racing them for 8 years, being a Army Ranger in Vietnam, the crash of plane he had reserved to fly then decided not to fly that day and the people who decided to take it up stalled and it killed the four of them plus their dog, his many heart attacks starting when he was 38, even when he had one that lasted 3 days and the doctors said there was nothing more they could do for him, well, you get the idea. Talk about a cat with nine lives, well, we're hoping this continues the streak.
annie1992
8 years ago
bcskye, he's in my prayers, as always. Just because he has nine lives doesn't mean he has to use them all up!

I'll be hoping for good news for him, and for you. Hang in there.

Annie
bcskye
Original Author
8 years ago
That's exactly what I've told him, annie. But, he's a typical male, sorry Dave, and doesn't listen to me. Prayer and good thoughts are what have gotten us through this far, I truly believe and I thank you for them.

Yesterday Just Wasn't My Day

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