Induction stove for canning

Fruit in the Kitchen
#21

Thanks for the link @subdood_ky_z6b
This was truly fascinating. It is reminiscent of the canning discussion on pH, botulism, etc we had way back brought about by the same people. In reading this link, a lot if it sounds like conjecture…like, we don’t know if anyone has had this problem, but in theory it could happen…but that is my take. So parsing the issues…

  1. What properties does a canner have that no other pot does as far as heat reflection? And how is the reflected heat from the pot higher or more damaging than the heat produced by the internal element itself? They mention white cooktops. Mine is back so the discoloration issue, if it happens, isn’t noticeable.
  2. I double stack my canner sometimes, and my top still looks like new. It is common sense that one should not drop a heavy canner on glass, but I always slide my canner off the burner when done with out any issues or scratching. Now if you leave salt or sugar on the glass and pull a heavy pot over that, it may be an issue (but that is my conjecture)
  3. Canner bottom is flat, but other pots are not - like some of my cast iron and a large fry pan. Gee, now I’m wondering how have I managed so long, LOL
  4. I can see that temp cycling can be an issue if you turn it to high. But with the conductivity of the pot and the thermal inertia of a large pot filled with water, it won’t have the temp swings of a smaller pot. And, as mentioned in another thread on canning, I bring up my temp gradually because I have better results that way,
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#22

Sorry, I wasn’t talking about induction stoves. I don’t even know what one looks like, I was just commenting on glass/ceramic top stoves, and the process of doing canning on them.

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#23

I got you, I just suddenly found an advantage of induction stove and couldn’t hep to loud it out, no apologies needed!

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#24

OK, I’ll just throw some responses out there. Like I said before, there may not be any issues in the real world. Maybe these are manufacturers doing a CYA regarding their glass tops.

  1. Canners are very wide, at least mine are, and overhang the burner. Since our heating element is raised, it’s not an issue. But with a glass top element, putting a canner on it that’s larger than the element would mean that the part that’s touching the non element stovetop material might heat up too much with the canner running at full boil.
  2. I have no real response to your experiences in this regard, maybe it has something to do with sliding a full canner across the element and possibly scratching it.
  3. True, not all cookware or canners may not be flat, and it still works OK. Guess enough of it’s still making contact to work well.
  4. Yes, I guess that’s true, when the pot gets to that high temp, the element won’t need to cycle as much.

I had an interesting thing happen last night while I was processing 6qt of corn. When the processing time (85min) was done, I waited for the kettle to depressurize. When that was done, I took the lid off, and noticed that there was maybe a quarter to half inch of water left in the bottom of the canner. Since the bobber was venting sttop right up to the end of the processing time tells me that the corn was cooked properly and for the right amount of time. Do you agree? All 6 jars sealed like they’re supposed to.

The water level was lower than it should be, and tells me that maybe I’ve been running these pressure canning processing temps too high. Remember that I’ve commented on how it seems that maybe the beans that I’ve processed this year were getting burned. Those only get processed for 25 minutes, so no danger of running out of water there.

The corn I did earlier yesterday, wasn’t close to running out of water. I did notice that the second batch was venting steam more vigorously, so I guess I was cooking them too high. The corn does look a bit off yellow, and maybe a bit overcooked. I compared it to some corn of the same variety that we canned two years ago, and it looks a bit darker, and the kernels look a bit more mushier than that older corn. So, it appears to have been overcooked this time.

Our stove top has control dials that go from LO to HI, with 1 to 9 in between those. When I seal the lid on the canner, I put the dial on 8, to help get the steam going thru the vent tube. When it starts to vent steam consistently, I count down 10 minutes. After that, the bobber goes on. It takes about 10 more minutes before it starts to slowly wobble, and you hear that ‘pish-pish-pish’ sound of it venting a little bit of steam. When that is going for a bit, maybe after 5 min, I start my processing time. At that time, I set the dial to 7. I’m wondering if that’s still too high??

Today, the Doodette is picking some pole beans , and we’ll need to process those. I’m going to try to set dial lower whenever it’s ready to start the process time. Who knows, maybe it can set to 5, and it the bobber will still vent like before.

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#25

So as not to lose heat (necessitating keeping the bruner temp higher), I cover my canner with maybe 5-6 thick terry hand towels draped down to the stovetop and not touching the burner (of course) . This allows me to lower the heat some without losing pressure due to lost heat. I do this as I seal up the canner. Then bring the temp up using medium. It can take 45 min for a full canner to get the exhaust to come on good. The steam need not come out like a rocket for 10 min. I keep a nice convincing flow. I can usually finish the canning time maintaining 10# pressure with the burner on low because the pot is insulated. I do this with water bath canning too.
Haha, that’s how I do, have done, and am here to tell about it. :blush:

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#26

I found this one to be suitable for jams and jellies and it should serve for pickles and suitably high-acid foods, but should never be used for anything that could allow botulinum to grow. I found that it came to a boil quickly and made for easy handling- much less boiling water to deal with. Plus, it didn’t heat up the kitchen so much. (Unfortunately I loaned it out and it never made its way home, more’s the pity.)

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#27

Does your canner have a bobber like my Presto, or a gauge? I read on some other message boards that it shouldn’t wobble but just a few times per minute. Mine wobbles prob 60x a minute, so maybe they’re talking about a different type bobber. This is what mine looks like when it’s going. It looks like this canner is using the extra weight ring on it, processing at 15lb, we run ours at 10.

The missus picked a bunch of Rattlesnake beans, and we’re stringing them now. So, I’ll try to cook them at a lower setting when we process them. A lot of them are mature with full sized beans in them, so we let them go too long before picking them. It may be our last harvest of them.

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#28

Mine has a gauge.

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#29

Each pressure canner has a different “tell,” but your manual should say how much it should jiggle. Mine says “several times a minute.” But even jiggling constantly, it won’t overheat. The jiggling vents the excess steam, heat, and pressure. It does waste water and heat, though.

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#30

Well, we processed 7qt of pole beans today. During the 25min processing time the dial was set to ‘5’ while the bobber did its wobble thing. Since the beans were more beany than pods, and less snappy and green, the water in the jars ended up being a bit more brown than usual. The pods don’t look as dark as previous batches, so maybe the lower cooking temp helped a bit. Also, I put in a little more water than the usual 3qt, and there was hardly any water loss this time.

But, again, we had a jar not seal, I think because it wasn’t a real Mason jar, just one that looked like it. So, we’ll be having some pole beans within the next few days.

Looks like we’re going to have to make a run to the store, as we’re just about out of quart jars! I thought we’d have more than enough this season. But, I’m glad we have good enough of a harvest to worry about such things.

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#31

I lost track, are you hot packing or cold packing the beans? I just read an extension FAQ that said cold packing can allow enzymes to cause browning in the time it takes to heat up. Don’t know if it would happen to corn too…
Sorry if that’s OT!

#32

We always cold pack, that is, stuff the jars with the veggies, and add hot water. We haven’t blanched any this year, mostly because of the large amounts of stuff we can at once. But, if we do another run of beans, we might consider trying it, just to see what happens.

I will say that when you add the hot water to the jars, it seems to brighten the beans, but that seems to be lost when it gets pressure cooked. I wonder if blanching would ‘lock in’ the bright color?

#33

I’d try it. I know when prepping veg for stirfry and such, blanching helps them keep their color through further cooking. At least, it might help them stay “cooked bean color” rather than brown.
Further reading that FAQ said that enzymatic Browning in cold packed corn is also possible. Variety and water minerals are the other culprits.