Canning recipes, food preservation and food sales

[Irving]

I guess we're having a green chili vs red chili cook off next weekend. I'd like to can half of each. Just need to get the canner already. If I can't find one on craigs, I'm going to break down and buy one from Walmart.

[TheGrey]

I guess we're having a green chili vs red chili cook off next weekend. I'd like to can half of each. Just need to get the canner already. If I can't find one on craigs, I'm going to break down and buy one from Walmart.

Awesome! So, now I have questions. I've read that when you can chili, if it has both meat AND beans in it, you can't safely do quarts- only pints. Does your chili have beans in it? Good luck with finding a PC...the end-of-season sales wiped out the Walmart and Target near us. You might get lucky and find one at Kohls. I've found Ace to be ridiculously overpriced.

[rbeau30]

Awesome! So, now I have questions. I've read that when you can chili, if it has both meat AND beans in it, you can't safely do quarts- only pints. Does your chili have beans in it? Good luck with finding a PC...the end-of-season sales wiped out the Walmart and Target near us. You might get lucky and find one at Kohls. I've found Ace to be ridiculously overpriced.

I have canned chili. (Pressure canner) I use dry beans and meat (because the dry beans hold up the the extended pressure processing time of quart jars. I soak them overnight according to directions and then make the Chili then process them. The processing time is like an hour an 45 or 50 minutes or something like that for quarts though if I remember right.

There are many layers to "preserved food security":
Do you sanitize everything? (I put EVERYTHING in my dishwasher in the "sanitize" cycle.)
Follow a reputable recipe? (USDA, Ball, Kerr, SureJell, etc.) (For example, here is one from the NCHFP for Chili with meat and beans.)
Is the Acid content right? (If boiling water bath canning) Acid keeps the spores dormant.
Is the Sugar Content right? (If boiling water bath canning) High sugar keeps the spores dormant.
Did you keep it at the right pressure for the right length of time? (if it dips below the pressure I always restart the clock)
Store it well (I do not leave rings on or stack jars... reportedly this could prevent or delay spoiled food to "pop" the lids when they really should have due to spoilage.)
When you eat it inspect it. (Lid Popped? Smell Bad?)
When practical, heat it. (Heat destroyes toxins if they are by chance present after all of the above)


What i like to do with "Reputable recipes" for preserving my own food is use MY recipe for Chili con Carne for example or Spaghetti sauce, or green chili, and process it using the NCHFP processing instructionsor the processing instructions in the Ball Blue Book for the same type of food and I feel fairly confident it will be safe.