Blog

Start with varieties meant for pickles as they are important for pickling quality pickles..

A brine is at least 50% vinegar, 50% water, and usually salt. 

Use good quality vinegar. 

Pickling salt is free of additives that make a cloudy brine. While it is best to have a clear brine, an iodized salt does not pose a risk to safe canning. 

Additives for crispness: alum is used as are grape leaves and Pickle Crisp type additives are made of calcium chloride . 

Processing times – refer to this link as it is so useful! https://extension.psu.edu/lets-preserve-quick-process-pickles

Pasteurized versus canned, as well as steam canning may give crisper pickles. 

Finally, fermentation can give the very best pickle of all so check out our episode about fermentation for more or check out the excellent book Fermenting Vegetables by Kirstin Shockey.

First, you can alter the amount- cutting in half makes everything cook faster and there’s no shame in small batch canning- a few jars adds up! Doubling is popular but here’s some tips: Doubling a batch of jam leads to longer cook times and that can make your pectin cook off. Double the prep work (cut twice the strawberries, peel twice the apples, and cook in separate batches. 

You can alter flavor with spice: Dried spices and herbs can give flavor without changing the pH significantly or at all. Try peppercorns, bay leaf, clove (ground or whole) juniper berries (start with just a few in a brine), 

Use essential oils- 1-3 drops of oregano in tomato sauce packs a huge punch much faster than chopping a ton of fresh herbs that won’t have great quality after canning anyway. A drop of cinnamon goes a long way in applesauce, etc. Rosemary, black pepper, lime (so useful in salsa), lemon, grapefruit, basil, etc. 

You can add salt or sugar without changing pH or safety, but remember that both are preservatives and sugar in particular can change the texture of a preserve. 

Adding alliums or other low acid flavors (garlic, onions, leeks, peppers (spicy or mild) is problematic because those ingredients LOWER the pH level. For safe canning, use the amounts specified and if you are cutting the recipe in half or doubling, double check your math and make sure you have the ratios correct. 

Ideas for spicing up recipes: essential oils like we said, pairing a spice with a sweet (refer to our canning for charcuterie episode for more ideas) but try jalapeno (Anna, how much for a jam recipe?) with high acid fruit (raspberry, peach, pineapple, etc), dried pepper for kick (link the one from the charcuterie episode) to taste, food coloring doesn’t change taste or pH but can enhance the wow factor (https://suncorefoods.com/collections/superjuice-powders) for safe coloring rather than artificial coloring.

When making safe recipe substitutions, check out the Acid and Canning chart. You can swap out the same volume of similarly acid fruit but the result may be different. Raspberries for example have an acid value of around a 3 but they have a lot of natural pectin. You could safely swap them out for another fruit with a similar level, but know you’ll likely not end up with a preserve that is naturally as stiff or set. 

If you want to change a recipe and add a low acid ingredient, you need to find a similar recipe that’s been tested for a pressure canner. You can listen to our episode all about using a pressure canner for more about them but they get hot enough (240 degrees) to kill any spoiler present in any acid level. They aren’t difficult to use and they allow for an even greater variety of ingredients to be preserved. 

How to know if you SHOULD alter a recipe: If you have an old recipe, look up other similar recipes (raspberry jam + cooperative extension) is a surefire search path to find a tested recipe. One alteration many old recipes need is for old tomato recipes- they often need the addition of an acidifying ingredient. If your old tomato recipe doesn’t have citric acid, lemon juice, or vinegar at all, that’s a definite red flag that you need to alter the recipe and/or find a similar but different recipe that has an acidifying ingredient. 

You may also need to alter the processing time or method of an old recipe. It is recommended that you add 5 minutes for every 1000 feet elevation, and that you always use either a water bath, steam canner, or pressure canner to process jars. Refer to our episode all about Canning Mistakes for more information about unsafe canning methods but know that if your recipe encourages you to use open kettle, paraffin wax, or the oven, you need a more up to date recipe. 

Gardening is a natural partner to canning. It is great to can without a garden, but it often becomes the next step in a canner’s journey.

Anna suggests starting small rather than going big, initially. Begin with a few garden boxes, containers, or a small area. Then, take stock of your pantry and consider what your family eats and loves, and what you could then grow in your garden. 

Refer to Anna’s ebook for specifics on plant spacing as crowing plants results in lower yield. She also recommends Square Foot Gardening as another resource for garden planning.

Get a soil sample test done to learn what your soil has, or doesn’t have, to inform your amendment choice. 

Use a soil test kit like this: https://amzn.to/3XBm3hB

Or test your soil through your local cooperative extension office. 

Water is a critical thing to consider when planning your garden for canning. Placing your garden where you will see and attend to it helps as does automatic watering systems and drip hoses. 

Anna rotates her crops in her 3, 40 ft beds. 

Anna recommends specific varieties: Canning tomatoes is the goal of many gardeners and canners. Varieties like Romas and Amish paste are ideal for canning (less seeds and more flesh). She grows a pear or sun gold cherry tomato for snacking. She likes a slicing tomato variety for canning diced tomatoes. Cucumber varieties include pickling cucumbers which are different than slicing cucumbers (they are smaller with thicker skin, and are perfect for pickling). You need a lot of plants to have enough to can pickles as they ripen at different times. You may find it especially valuable to grow pickling cucumbers because of this. Anna loves planting beets where the variety doesn’t matter as much but Anna chooses a dark variety. 

For orchard products, choose varieties that are appropriate for your area and stagger your ripening times so you aren’t overwhelmed with fruit. A knowledgeable nursery employee can really help in deciding which varieties to plant, when. 

Buy Anna’s ebook and course all about this at www.smarthomecanning.com 

Sourdough is naturally leavened bread and in this episode we hope to teach you a little bit about what’s worked for us starting sourdough and we hope this episode leaves you feeling like sourdough is achievable and fun.

Sourdough starters are created by combining even parts flour and liquid (water or milk), discarding half of the mixture the following day, feeding 50% liquid, 50% flour, and repeating several days until the mixture is rising and falling predictably and smells like something you’d want to eat. Refer to this blog post for more great info about starters. https://thedomesticwildflower.com/4-types-of-sourdough-starter/

An instagram account that I learned a lot from is @simplylifebykels and I highly recommend her ebook. She gave me a lot of great ideas for making sourdough fit into my life. This is her website: http://www.simplelifebykels.com/

Anna and I love how sourdough is a natural counterpoint to canning and is the winter’s answer to the busy canning season. 

We love The Bread Bible and Tartine and recommend them to beginners as well as Sourdough Biscuits and Pioneer Pie which will give lots of discard recipes and history around sourdough in the west. 

I recommend baking sourdough discard recipes and learning to love that extra tang. 

I loved this recipe for sourdough cheese scones:https://bakingwithbutter.com/sourdough-cheese-scones/

How to start a local grass-roots seed saving movement 

In this episode Anna is sharing her seed saving expertise. Listen to the end and you’ll learn what a seed swap is, why you’d want to save seeds in the first place, the steps needed to create a seed saving movement, the upfront costs of a seed swap, and her favorite resource for saving seeds. 

A seed exchange is really simple and being able to connect with local gardeners and community members is one of the coolest events that Anna, a Master Gardener, is a part of. She’s part of the 13 year strong Ogden Seed Exchange and they put on the largest seed swap in Utah, in Ogden where she lives. There’s usually 600 people who attend this event and she loves helping put it on. 

To begin a seed exchange movement, you can start really small at a coffee shop, library, or outdoor location. You need 3-5 folks with seed saving knowledge who are motivated to build the event. Anna suggests to make it a free event to include the greatest number of attendees. Seed companies may be willing to send free seeds, but your focus may want to be hyper-local seeds and small companies with a similar mission. Ideally, your seeds will be open pollinated, heirloom varieties, and adapted to your climate. By saving and swappings, you’re getting smarter, stronger seeds that have adapted to your local area. Every single region, really, should have their own set of seeds that are best suited for that area. 

Pick a date that’s early enough in the season. For Utah, it is the last weekend in February. From there, you want to network your buns off to connect with people who will participate. Key members approach business to donate, or attend, and or participate. Anna’s group has a raffle for which businesses can donate prizes. The proceeds of the raffle pay for the gymnasium space where the event is held. 

The day of the event (Anna’s runs from 10 am to 1pm) people often line up before it even begins. Anna’s group contacts the local Master Gardener program and invites members of that program to participate, talk about the extension office, etc. 

The people who bring seeds to swap or sell often are people who have big, specialized gardens. For example, some people bring exclusively tomato varieties, or medicinal herb growers. People can come without seeds and purchase seeds for around $1-$2 a pack. 

Saving seeds is about quality, and so is food preservation. Saving seeds closes that food source loop and provides you with the best possible food.

Basic Seed Saving by Bill McDorman on rockymountainseeds.org or Amazon is Anna’s best suggestion for a seed saving. It is only 48 pages and it is a great resource that teaches you how to save seeds.

Anna’s seed of wisdom is to just start. Connect with others who might be interested and see what happens!