Oven canning

by Irene Wilkinson
(Escondido,CA,USA)

Seems oven canning might be the easiest way to can tomatoes and the recipes are simple enough except I did not see the temperature for the oven.

Also, should the water in the pan be boiling when you add your jars?

___________________________________________________

Oven canning is always a topic of hot debate where some will swear that it is be best way of canning, and others who will say that it is an unsafe method of canning and should not be done.

I am not going to persuade you one way or the other, suffice to say that women have been using oven canning for decades, but having said that, oven canning has several problems.

What you do have to watch out for is that you have your oven hot enough to kill any bacteria that might form. For that your oven has to be at least 250F - 275F (230-135C).

Prepare your tomatoes while you heat up the oven. Place your tomatoes into the jars making sure that you have some head space. Also make sure that your tomatoes are either covered with their own juices or add some boiling water to cover.

Place the ring and the lid on your jars and close loosely. Do not tighten.

Once your oven has reached the desired temperature, place the bottles directly on the rack, or in a shallow pan of warm water, 2-3 inches apart to make sure that you get good heat circulation.

Once all the bottles are in the oven. Close the door and wait 5 minutes or so for the oven temperature to get back up to 275F. Then switch the oven off and leave your tomatoes for 60 minutes. Check seal, it should have tightened on its own. If not tighten the lids now.

You can either leave the canned tomatoes in the oven until it is totally cool or you can remove them and place them on your counter until they are cool and ready for storage.

There have been cases of canning jars exploding when taken out of the oven when they have not been allowed to cool before taking them out. Canning jars these days are not really manufactured for dry heat canning.

From a safety aspect to prevent scalding and exploding glass, leave them in the oven until cool. This is not something that happens regularly, but it can and does happen. By placing your jars in the pan of shallow water, helps minimize this problem.

In order to make sure that you will be canning your tomatoes under safe conditions, and because tomatoes are a low acidic food, we recommend that you can them by using a pressure cooker.

Regards
Kathryn
Countryfarm Lifestyles