 Hello and welcome to a food preservation presentation on commonly asked questions and solutions from the Alabama Cooperative Extension Systems Food Safety and Quality Team. My name is Angela Treadaway and I will be guiding you through this PowerPoint today. These are the ladies that make up our food safety team with the Alabama Cooperative Extension System. Each one of these ladies is in a different region and at the end of this presentation there will be a map with the different counties in the regions and ways that you can contact these ladies or find other ways through Facebook and our website that you can contact us. As extension agents, part of our job is answering a lot of different calls on food safety and food preservation. We're one of the only organizations left that will actually answer questions on food preservation and we get some interesting calls sometime. In this next slide you'll see some of the questions that we get. Why did my canning lid not seal? Why you could have a neck or a crack in the jar, food particles left on the rim of the jar, reusing self-sealing metal lids, which is not recommended, insufficient head space from food to jar rim. Each product, whether it be a vegetable or jams or jellies, requires a different type of head space or a different amount of head space. Old lids might be another reason the sealing compound may have deteriorated. If you've got lids that your grandmother had or possibly your mother had that have been back in the cabinet for, you know, eight or 10 years, you probably want to start with new lids. If you discover within 24 hours that the food did not seal, then you can reprocess the item or you can refrigerate it and consume it within seven days, unless it's a jam or jelly, then you've got longer with it. To reprocess it, that requires a new lid and processing the same amount of time as before. Why did my canning jar break during processing or after I removed it from the canner? Your screw band could possibly be put on too tight. You only need to do it fingertip tight. You don't need your husband helping you to tighten it as tight as he can. The jars got to breathe during processing. Hairline cracks in jars, especially those used in pressure canning. Not enough head space, as we mentioned earlier, too much head space is another thing. Rapid forced cooling of pressure canning and what that means is when you actually, the processing is done, you try to take the canner off of the stove and run water over it or something to force cooling it. You don't want to do that. You want it to cool down naturally. Be careful then when removing your jars from the canner, not to place on a cold surface. That can cause breakage too. You want to have a towel or something laying there to put your jars on because they're extremely hot. When they hit a cold surface, they can break very easily. Can I reuse my jars, lids and vans? Well, I have some jars of my grandmothers. It's probably 30 years old. As long as they're still in good shape, you can still use those standard canning jars. Do not reuse jars with nicks, cracks or chips. These break easily under pressure. Only use jars with two-piece sealing lids or your standard canning jars. Do not reuse flat lids. They can only be used once. Once you use them and process those and pop them off, then you need to get rid of those and use new lids. Screw vans are reusable only if they're not bent, dented or rusted. Do not use lids that are old. I mentioned that earlier. When they get older, they begin to deteriorate and it might not seal then. Another question we get asked a lot as extension agents during canning season is why did my jars lose liquid during processing? Failure to work out air bubbles. You have that little air bubble one that you're supposed to use to kind of get the bubbles out as you finish up filling your jar and putting liquid in. Fluctuating the temperature of the canner from high down to low pretty quickly, that can actually draw it out. Screw vans not tight enough, which actually lets a lot of it out. That way it has to be fingertip tight to be correct. Starchy foods like corn or black eyed peas can absorb liquid during the processing time and make it appear that they've lost the liquid, but the actual product has drawn it in. Food pack too tightly in jars, not enough head space. If you're doing what they call a cold pack and you just put the stuff in without blanching it or anything and you try to get as much as you can in there because you know they're going to get smaller as they actually process. So you put more in there. Well, you get too much in there and you don't have enough head space. In the water bath canner, if your jars are not completely covered with water during processing, they can siphon the liquid out. So you want to make sure there's at least one inch to two inches above the jars so that it can circulate around the whole jar. And then another one I just mentioned was the cold packing. Instead of the hot packing, things are going to shrink as they cook some when you do it cold packing. Another question we get a lot of times is why did my product turn dark after several weeks of sitting on the shelf? A lot of times your jams and jellies, when they're lower sugar, they will turn dark at the top quicker because the sugar acts as a preservative. So that's what causes it. Too much head space when you got your jams and jellies only call for a quarter of an inch. Other products are an inch when it gets lower than that, that a lot of times will cause it to turn dark at the top. Insufficient amount of liquid or syrup on fruit products is another one. Food not processed long enough to destroy the enzymes. That means the food continues to deteriorate is what ends up happening with the enzymes and that causes it to darken. Why do my vegetables have cloudy liquid or a white sediment in the bottom? Starch in the vegetables, a lot of times will cause a white sediment at the bottom. Minerals in your water, maybe you have a city water or possibly even well water that has different types of minerals that can cause it to have problems, especially lime water. Table salt used instead of canning salt, you want to use some type of canning salt. Sea salt can be used. Pink Himalaya salt can be used. Anything that is a pure salt versus one that has an anti-caking additive to it like table salt does. That prevents it from actually having a white sediment if you use the canning salt. Your foods can be spoiled but usually only if the liquid throughout the entire jar is cloudy is the food ruined, usually with that. Another good one is can I use my grandmother's recipe that doesn't call for processing? You don't want to rely on old canning recipes that do not call for processing. You want to use more recent recipes because things have changed in canning over the last 25 years or so. When you're canning your high acid foods such as fruits, pickles, jellies and gems, you want to use a water bath canner. You can also do tomatoes and salsa and that kind of thing. Anything that's high acid. When canning your low acid foods such as vegetables, beans, meat, fish, anything like that, vegetable wise, you need to use the pressure canner to prevent botulism. You want to use USDA tested recipes that you can find from any extension service website. You don't want to go to any social media site and use something that somebody's just come up with a canning group or whatever. It needs to be USDA tested recipes or you run a chance of either losing it or the possibility of having botulism in it. So you want to follow really good tested recipes. This is a question I had asked just last week. Why can I invert my jars to get them to seal when you're doing gems and jellies and stuff? I want to know why they can't do it like you see in the picture here. Many people think this is okay and you can find many pictures on the internet saying it's okay to do it this way. But it's not a safe way. You're not going to get a permanent seal with it and your product could actually develop mold or yeast and lose your product. Any product, whether it be a jam or a jelly or a vegetable or any type needs to be processed to be safe to get rid of any bacteria that could possibly be present. When you don't process mold and bacteria can form. You do not get a permanent vacuum seal lid and may lose your product eventually. So do it the proper way. It only takes a few minutes with gems and jellies about 5 to 10 minutes in the boiling water bath canner is all it takes to be done the proper way to get a good vacuum seal on your products. Why do fruits or vegetables float or separate in the jars? Over processing fruits can cause them to float. Fruit is lighter than sugar syrups heat fruit before packing them into the jars to keep that from happening. Air trapped in the food pieces or around it because you didn't get your air bubbles out. You didn't free your air bubbles. In proper packing packed tightly and release air bubbles that get trapped in tomatoes. There has been an enzymatic change when you cut them to prevent this from happening or them from floating. Crush the tomatoes and heat them quickly to a simmer before placing in your jars or just know that it's going to do it. A lot of times if you raw pack your tomatoes sometimes this will happen anyway because of that enzymatic change. Packing fruit or vegetables too loosely will cause them to float and then using overripe produce can cause them to float. This is a question that a lot of people that have a sensitivity to salt ask about doing canning is do I have to add salt to vegetables before canning them? No, when doing anything other than pickled or firming in vegetables salt is not a preservative and does not have to be used. Pickle products do have to have salt as a part of the preservation but no other your your green beans, corn, tomatoes, none of that has to have salt is not considered a preservative. This is a question we get asked a lot is why do I have to add acid to my tomatoes? Because tomatoes fall so close to a pH or an acidity range that could develop botulism after being canned. It's the biggest reason why. It's more of a precaution to acidify. Here's the best way to acidify. With pints you add one tablespoon of lemon juice or a quarter teaspoon of citric acid. With quarts it's add two tablespoons of lemon juice or one half teaspoon of citric acid. Now don't get citric acid and a scorbic acid messed up. A scorbic acid is something that you use. You can find it on the shelves and stuff with your canning supplies to actually keep fruits and things from turning dark. It's not the same thing as citric acid. Citric acid is stronger, much stronger than that. So make sure when you're buying it that you buy citric acid. It just takes a small amount and that citric acid will last a long time on your shelf too. Be careful when you go and purchase those. But you do want to acidify tomatoes to prevent the possibility of botulism. This is one of those questions that just kind of gives me the heebie-jeebies to even think about it. But I've had several people to call me and ask me about it. If there's mold growing in my canned food, can I scrape it off and just eat the food? No. Do not eat any home canned food that has mold growing on it. Throw it out. If it's got mold growing on the top, it's throughout the whole jar. Most of the time mold will only grow on acidic foods like gems and jellies, some canned fruits, and some tomatoes. And I know my grandmother used to do it. She'd want to scrape it off the top of gems and jellies and just go on and eat it. I felt funny about it then and I sure do now and really, really recommend that you don't do that. It's not something that will actually kill you as far as botulism, but it's something that can make you really, really sick. So just don't do that. This is a question we're being asked more frequently now as people have these electric pressure canners or pressure cookers and they're wanting to use them as a pressure canner. It's not a good idea because there's not been enough research like with USDA and stuff to do pressure canning in it with vegetables and meats, because you just don't know if it gets up to the proper temperature for the proper amount of time. It has to be big enough to hold four quart-sized jars to be considered a pressure canner. It can however be used as a boiling water bath canner, especially if you're using those little four to eight ounce jelly jars. It would be real easy to do it in there, but just make sure that you have enough water to cover the jars to make sure that it can circulate around the whole thing. So you can use it as a water bath canner, but not a pressure canner. This kind of cop follows right along with the electric pressure cooker that we just talked about. Can my pressure cooker at home be used, whether electric or on the stove top, be used as a pressure canner? And that's, you know, same thing again. It has to be able to hold four quart-sized jars to be considered a canner. It needs to be large enough to provide enough heat for the pressurizing and depressurizing part of the canning process. You know, the time that it takes for once you put your jars and stuff in there for it to come up to pressure. A lot of times with a pressure canner, it's going to take 15 or 20 minutes to do that. Whereas in a smaller pressure cooker, it wouldn't take that long. Well, that part of the process is counted in the time when USDA does their testing of recipes and stuff like, say, for green beans, for instance. You have to have that time it takes to build up as well as to depressurize after you take it off of the eye. That's all counted as part of the time for canning for it to be safe. So a pressure cooker is not big enough to be used as a pressure canner. I hope you learned something from it. And as I promised earlier, I showed you all the agents in the different sets. Here is a map of the state. And in your area, find which agent would be located in your area. And for another listing, find us on www.aces.edu for other areas. We cover other things besides food preservation, many other things. Our Facebook page for our food safety website or our food safety programs that we have from time to time is on Facebook at Aces Food Safety. That is different ways that you can contact us. Hope to hear from you. Hope you learned a bunch today and see you soon.