Canning
Safety
Procedures for safe canning have been revised throughout the years. For example, many recipes originating from the US now require adding citric acid to tomato preserves in order to account for some tomatoes varieties being less acidic. Processing times have also been generally increased. It’s safest to use up-to-date, scientifically-researched recipes from trusted sources.
Canning Tomatoes: When are they too blemished and why does it matter?
Resources
- The National Center for Home Food Preservation at the University of Georgia publishes the USDA complete guide to home canning, last revised in 2015, available as a series of PDF chapters or in print. Relatedly, So easy to preserve, now in its 6th edition, is available in print.
- From University of Missouri Extension: Safe home canning basics, Steps for successful home canning.
- From PennState Extension, Let’s preserve: basics of home canning.
- Online recipes from Ball, the American jar maker. They also publish the Ball blue book guide to preserving, with its 38th ed. published in 2024. Separate versions with imperial and metric measurements are apparently available.
- Das original Einkochbuch from Weck, the German jar maker. There’s a (slightly suspect) English-language website for Weck jars which shares some canning notes.
- Healthy Canning provides useful references when discussing topics such as handling mould on home preserves or BPA in canning lids.
- Linee guida per la corretta preparazione delle conserve alimentari in ambito domestico (2014) from the Italian Ministry of Health.
Popular jar brands
- Ball (US). The company also owns the Kerr, Bernardin (CA), and Golden Harvest brands.
- Weck (DE). The company also owns the Rex brand.
- Bormioli Rocco (IT) has the Quattro Stagioni and Fido lines for canning. See Quattro Stagioni canning guide, Fido canning guide.
- Le Parfait (FR)
- Kilner (UK)