Canning question!!/wood fire
 

Does anyone have any practical experience with using a pressure canner on an open fire? I'm looking for fine tuning techniques. With a propane burner its relatively easy to reduce and adjust heat after the canner gets hot and your pressure is up. Anybody done this before??

sb

Re: Canning question!!/wood fire
 

Nope.....and I bet it wood ( pardon the pun ) be a Biatch.......

It would be probably easier to control on some kind of rigged up stove.....even if all you did was take a piece of flat, thick, sheet metal ( like 3/16" or 1/4" ) and use that as a top grate......the metal would transfer heat to the canner,and you'd move the canner more or less over the fire to control the heat.

This is what they did when canning on old wood stoves where you couldn't "dial" the heat up or down quick.....you simply slid the canner over from the "cook top" part of the stove to the oven part or to a side shelf you see on a lot of them on the same level as the stove top, but with just airspace under it.

Re: Canning question!!/wood fire
 

I can not address the pressure part of the canning. I do steam bath, which I have found works equally well.

NOW, on to the fire question.

NOT over an open flame as it is almost impossible to keep an even heat as the flames rise and fall around the pot. Get a good pile of coals going. Then as Andy said, move the canning pot away from the heat. You can keep a good 'guesstimate' on how hot it is by how much steam is coming out of the pressure release on top.

Hope that helps.

Re: Canning question!!/wood fire
 

Also an open flame woodfire would probably melt the plastic handles on the pressure cooker...like Andy said.. get a scrap piece of heavy sheet metal if you want to use that type of heat source.
good luck

Re: Canning question!!/wood fire
 

Sorry I have to hijack for a second. A few of you have mentioned on another thread a canning book called All AMerican or something like that. What is the title of that book or is there another one you recommend?

Re: Canning question!!/wood fire
 

I would setup several pits/stations.

One station is a flat heat-proof surface such as rock. This is your preparation area, cooling area, etc... Your countertop.

Next station is the cooking station. A metal grate as Andy suggests to place the pot on with a space underneath for a pile of coals like wallew suggests. This pile of coals will have virtually no flames because there is no fresh wood here, only matured coals.

Final station is the wood burning fire. This is where you generate your coals. You use a shovel to transfer coals between this station and the cooking station. As you need more heat, take coals from here and place under the pot. Too hot? Shovel some coals back here. This is where you place new wood to turn into coals.

Re: Canning question!!/wood fire
 

Or like a dutch oven. Have a bed of coals and then move more or less live coals under a slightly elevated cooker as needed. You can cook in a dutch oven without burning the stew or corn bread.

Re: Canning question!!/wood fire
 

My recommended canner is the American brand. The book you are probably looking for is the Ball Blue Book, put out by the same company that makes jars and lids.

Re: Canning question!!/wood fire
 

yeah, it's probably going to be a process of trial and error until a suitable technique is figured out. For now I'll continue with propane. Just kicking ideas around while it's easy to ask via the internet. I'm thinking of some type of sliding steel plate under the grate the canner sits on. That way adjustments can be made quickly without changing the fire much. I don't really want to move the canner if I don't have too.

Thanks guys,

sb