 Hello, everyone. My name is Julie Garden Robinson and I'm your host for today's ninth field to fork webinar for the 2023 season. So we have two left. It is brought to you by North Dakota State University Extension. If you've missed the previous webinars, they are archived on the field to fork site. This is the eighth year that we've done the series and we're really glad you joined us today. And all of the webinars from all the years are linked on the field to fork webinar page. The next slide shows the upcoming webinars and we hope that you join us for these as well. The next slide shows our webinar controls and because of our large number of participants we are inviting you to post your questions and comments in the chat box. So you'll see a Q&A box. I want you to ignore that for today. We're just going to use the chat box and I will copy your questions out of the chat and I will ask Karen, our speaker for today, the questions in the order they were asked. So let's practice. So click to open the chat box and please type your city and state where you are right now. As you work on that, I have a special request in this next slide. This program is sponsored in part with grant funding from the USDA's Agricultural Marketing Service. And I will ask all of you to complete a short online survey that will be emailed right after today's webinar. And as a thank you, we will be providing prizes to the lucky winners of the random drawings. We've sent out a lot of prizes already. Be sure that you put your complete address on the follow up form, including your city, state and zip code because I know you're coming to us from all over the United States. Next we have our NDSU policy and welcome again to today's webinar. I am pleased to introduce today's speaker. Karen Blakesley is a coordinator of the Rapid Response Center and is co-director of the Kansas Value Added Foods Lab with K-State Research and Extension. She has a bachelor's degree in food science and a master's degree in food and nutrition from Kansas State University. Prior to her extension career, she worked in food manufacturing and one of her roles is teaching food safety in many areas, including food preservation. So welcome and thanks for being here today, Karen. Thanks Julie. It's a pleasure to be here again. I think this is my third, maybe fourth time that I've done this. So it's great to be a part of this again. And thank you all for joining us today. I bring you greetings from Manhattan, Kansas. That's where I'm located. So today I want to talk about food preservation, but maybe in a little different way to kind of bring home the point, the importance of temperature in any kind of food preservation that you do. And also even just food storage. So I kind of want to take it from this approach. I thought it'd be kind of interesting to highlight the really important role that temperature has in any kind of food preservation that you do. So let's get started. So in general, everyday cooking, those of us that in extension that teach food safety, we commonly talk about the four core steps of clean, cook, chill and separate. This really drives home the four really important areas to pay attention to different food safety aspects of just everyday cooking, not just food preservation, but in food preparation itself. And within though, within that is the chill and cook steps, which are really where temperature plays an important role. So in refrigeration and freezing, your refrigerator is a key player in this and keeping your food cold or keeping it frozen. And I'll talk more about these temperatures in particular. But you do want to have a food thermometer, an appliance thermometer such as this one here in the picture in both of those areas in your freezer and your refrigerator so that you can keep track of how well your appliance is working. And then on the cooking side, we have temperatures to pay attention to. We used to have a lot of temperatures that we would talk about when it comes to cooking food safely. Now it's been narrowed down to just three. And those three are 145 degrees for roast and chops and steaks, 160 degrees for ground meat products, and then any kind of poultry is 165. So having a food thermometer in your kitchen and using it is really important to make sure that your food is getting cooked safely. So now I want to get into food preservation and why temperature is so important in all of these. And this is a graphic that I have pulled out of the USDA Complete Guide to Home Canning that has this great picture of a thermometer and all the different temperatures that are important in keeping your food safe when you're doing food preservation. So we're going to start at the bottom. We're actually going to start even lower than this and then we'll move up to the top so that we can highlight all of these areas and different aspects of how your food is preserved or stored. So freeze drying. This is something that is starting to gain some popularity. Many people have started doing this type of drying, dehydrating food. You do have to have a freeze drying machine to do this. It is a special type of machine. And then the food is placed inside this freeze dryer and what it does is it pulls a vacuum and freezes the food to at least minus 30 to minus 50 degrees Fahrenheit below zero. So that gets it super, super cold. And because of the vacuum, it causes this transformation from converting ice to vapor called sublimation. And it passes right over, right through going through the liquid phase. So it goes from ice to a vapor. And what this does is it removes at least up to 98% of the water in the food. And that is a super dry food when it's done. And the food can last for quite a long time. I've heard even 20, 30 years, as long as it's stored properly. And if it doesn't gain any moisture inside the packaging that it's stored in, so it has to be packaged properly. But it is a unique way to preserve food that's super dry in this picture here. This is a jar of freeze dried pulled pork. So the pork itself was cooked properly. It was cooked to the proper temperature. And then they cut it up and put it in the freeze drying machine to dry it. And this is what it looked like in the end. And it was super dry. If you pick it up with your fingers and just barely squeeze it, it just falls apart. So it does get very tender in that respect. In this case, also, you'll see this packet here on the side. This is to help keep the moisture out. So these are food grade packets to help make sure that the moisture is out and to help prevent any problems with rancidity, especially in a meat product. There might be a tiny amount of fat in there that could go rancid over time. So this will help keep that protected. Fruits and vegetables, if you've purchased any freeze dried fruits, for example, they look like the whole fresh fruit itself, at least pretty close to it. It's really quite amazing how this works. And this is a type of food preservation that's used for making prepackaged meal kits for going camping or even NASA astronauts. This is a type of food that they have to eat. It's been freeze dried. So it's kind of interesting. A lot of people have gotten into this. I will say that the freeze drying machine is rather expensive. It can cost $3,000 to $5,000 depending on how big of one you get. And I've heard a lot of people that have talked about pooling their money with family or friends or neighbors to buy one together. And then they'll do freeze drying jointly that way, and that way they share the cost of the machine. If you're looking for any more information on this, these two websites here, this first one is from Penn State University. And the second one is from Utah State University. Both of them have some good information on freeze drying if you're looking for more on that. And as I go through my presentation on some of my slides, I'll have some QR codes for you to scan to download more information. So have your phone or your mobile device ready to do that if you so choose. So let's start moving up the thermometer now and get into freeze or freezing itself. So foods really don't get truly frozen until the temperature is at least zero degrees or below. I mean, it starts at 32, but it really, foods really do not get frozen solid until it gets down to zero. You really do want to freeze food in batches. You don't want to overload your freezer with a whole bunch of warm food, and then it takes forever for your freezer to cool down. You may want to try to set your freezer control lower if you can at least a day in advance so that your freezer gets good and cold. One thing to keep in mind about freezing is that it does not kill bacteria. This only slows it down. So if there is any bacteria on the food, which you really probably have no idea if it's there or not, it's only going to stop it in its tracks. And then once you saw the food out and start using it again, then it could reactivate and start to grow again. So good food handling practices is truly important in handling any food. Always wash your hands. Make sure you clean the food properly and prepare it properly for whatever type of food preservation that you're doing. Again, keep a refrigerator freezer thermometer in your freezer so that you know the temperature that it really is. I know a lot of freezers and refrigerators have that built in, but if your power goes out, you're still not going to know what the temperature is. So it's best to have a backup so that you know what your appliance is really telling you. And a full freezer is more energy efficient. If it's only half full, you're really kind of wasting space and you're not getting the best use out of your appliance. So think about that, especially if you're looking to buy a freezer, what size would you need for your family? And that way you can get the most out of the dollars that you're going to spend on this. All right, as we move up the thermometer, now we're going to talk a little bit about refrigeration. And this is one of the best ways to thaw frozen foods is doing it in the refrigerator. You have to plan ahead a little bit. It usually takes about a day depending on the size of the package of food that you have. It may take a day or two longer. When we get to talking about turkeys, that's a whole different thing, and it takes a little bit longer. Just some tips on this in your refrigerator. When you're putting hot food in there, divide it into small containers such as in this picture here. This will help your food cool down faster. So you want to look for shallow containers about two inches in height as a rule of thumb and separate things that way. And your refrigerator will be a lot more efficient in cooling down the food faster. Today's refrigerators are really quite efficient and they do pull out the heat pretty efficiently. And so help it along and get it colder faster by doing this. Again, you want to keep a thermometer or refrigerator freezer thermometer inside the refrigerator itself so that you know what the temperature is. And the ideal temperature is somewhere between 34 and 40. Personally, I have mine set at 37 and it's a great temperature for your refrigerated foods. Okay. And speaking of thawing foods, again, using your refrigerator is the ideal way to do this. You can use your microwave, but you must continue with the rest of the food preparation on whatever it is that you're thawing in the microwave. I know it's a great way to do a thaw something quickly, but it does start to cook the food a little bit too. So that's why you want to go ahead and use it and continue with prepping it into whatever meal you're going to make. Cold running water works pretty well too. Submerge it in a large enough container so that the entire package will fit in there and let put it in the sink and let water run over it. It takes around, especially on a turkey, for example, it might take 30 minutes for every five pounds or so. One thing we don't do not recommend is thawing anything at room temperature, especially meat products or your highly perishable things like this. Because that can just invite any kind of bacteria that's there to grow when you let things set for hours at room temperature. So we do not recommend doing that at all. So just keep that in mind. I mentioned turkey earlier around Thanksgiving. This is where this comes to light a lot more than during the rest of the year. But for a turkey, the estimation is about 24 hours for every four to five pounds in your refrigerator. I can pretty much guarantee it'll take longer than that. At least that's my experience, but that's just a place to start. And so plan ahead and make sure you've got things thawed out appropriately. All right, now what happens if the power goes out? And we're getting into severe weather season this time of year with the spring and summer months upon us. And this can really be a problem with your food that you have in the refrigerator and freezer. And when I get questions about this, the first thing I'm going to ask is, do you have a thermometer inside of your appliance? Because you need to know if that's still reading at least 40 degrees or below. Now it can warm up fairly quickly depending on how full or empty the appliance is. So you want to keep the doors closed. That food's not going to go anywhere. It's still going to be in there. So keep it closed. Look for alternatives such as using dry ice in the freezer. Make sure you handle that carefully. You don't want to touch that with your bare hands. If anybody else in your family or your neighbors have power, maybe they have some space in their appliances for you to store some food. So that could be an option. But just remember, they don't stay cold forever. Food in the refrigerator can stay safe up to four hours. Again, that depends on how full or how empty it is. And then the freezer could be 24 hours, maybe longer depending on what's in there. If it's full of meat, it'll probably stay colder longer because there's so many solid pieces of frozen food in there. But if it's a mixture of frozen meat and packages of vegetables or bread, then that's going to change. And probably warm up a little faster. So this is just something to keep in mind when the power goes out. Keep an eye on your appliances. Even when it's not severe weather season, you never know when something gets unplugged or a breaker trips or something like that. Keep an eye on them. Don't forget to check on them every once in a while. And if you want to scan this QR code here, this will take you to our website that we have on different topics of power outages or even just disasters in general. Not just power outages, but talks about floods and other types of disasters that you might be involved with. And to go along with this whole refrigerator freezer topic, we have a storage guide. This is our publication MF 313 and you can scan this code to go directly to this publication. This doesn't have everything on it, but it's about a four page publication that talks about a variety of different products that you would store in your refrigerator or your freezer, such as breads and cakes and meats and dairy products and vegetables and fruits. It covers quite a bit. So this might be a handy guide for you to determine, you know, how long can I store different types of food? What's the best estimate of a shelf life in a freezer or in a refrigerator? You're not putting these things in a museum, so get them used up, rotate them out so that you're using the oldest food first before you load it up with some newer foods that you want to freeze or refrigerate. All right, let's keep on moving up or get a little warmer now. Now we're going to talk about pantry storage. And this is not just for home can food, but for any kind of food storage that's at room temperature. This is between 50 to 70 degrees Fahrenheit. That's the ideal temperature. Cool, dry and dark. That's the best conditions for any kind of food storage. If it's a location that's any warmer than this, it can cause changes to the food and it could lead to spoilage. It could activate any dormant bacteria that might be in the package itself and cause it to start to grow. If you've got food stored in a location such as your garage where the temperature changes a lot from really cold temperatures in the winter to really hot in the summer, that's going to really change the shelf life of the food that you're storing. So accidental freezing is another one that can cause lids to become unsealed and lead to food contamination. So try to keep it away from anything that's really cold or stored at really cold temperatures. And then damp locations where it's really humid and there's a lot of moisture. That can cause corrosion. It could break the seals of your jars and it could lead to spoilage. So again, cool, dry and dark is really the best conditions. And the other thing to remember on home can foods is to use them within one year for best shelf life. Like I said earlier, you're not putting these things in a museum. You've put a lot of work into preparing these and there's a lot of time and investment that goes into preserving food, whether you're canning or freezing or dehydrating. You want to use all of these within one year and get them used up. And that way you've got space ready for the next year's bounty that you might want to preserve. I'll also make note here on this slide, if you've noticed on my pictures, that some of these are part of the North Central Food Safety Extension Network. This is a group of 12 states from Kansas up to North Dakota and then over east to Ohio and back down through Missouri. And we work together to provide food safety information in general, not just food preservation, but we also do work with food entrepreneurs and then food safety in general. So a lot of the pictures that you're seeing here are a part of that program that Julie and I are a part of. And it's something that we're really, we have a lot of fun doing this and we're great to be partnering together on this. So again, on the room temperature storage, you want to make sure that it doesn't get above 95 degrees. And that really is the highest temperature for any canned food storage for home canned or even commercially canned foods. So keep it away from warm areas out of the garage away from your hot water heater away from the clothes dryer that those areas in particular generate a lot of heat. And that can really cause changes in your canned foods and can shorten the shelf life. So again, you want to store your foods in a cool, dry, dark location for the best results. The other thing I would add on this, add a date to any of the jars of food that you're canning so you know how old it is. Again, you want to use it within a year. And also make note on here, it is a good idea to remove the canning rings off of the jars during storage. That way you can better see if a lid has come loose for whatever reason. It's a little more visible and you can easily identify that. Plus you might need the rings to do some more canning of other kinds of produce. So just a couple tips to add to this when you're storing your home canned foods. All right. And so along with our guide on refrigerator and freezer storage, we also have a cupboard storage guide. This is publication MF 3131. So this is the QR code that will take you directly to that. Again, this has a lot of things on here on storing food in your cupboards or pantry. And the approximate shelf life they would have as long as you're storing at around 70 degrees. So take a look at that and that might help you identify some storage conditions and storage times for the different foods that you have in your kitchen. All right, now let's talk about fermentation. This is another type of food preservation that a lot of people are picking up on. It's not just sauerkraut and old fashioned dill pickles anymore. There's fermentation going on with all kinds of vegetables to make kimchi and other kinds of products such as that. So fermentation really depends on the amount of salt that's in there. It's really dependent on that in order to get the fermentation to go. And temperature really plays a strong role in this. The ideal temperature is around 70 degrees for food fermentation. So any lower than that below 55, the fermentation will really slow down and it may not ferment properly at all. And then if it's any warmer than that such as above 80, then you could really get some spoiled food and it may soften too much. So really ideally right here in the middle is the happy place and as far as how long it may take. In the future we're talking about sauerkraut. Kimchi may not take quite as long for that to ferment. And so usually the signs, as far as fermentation when it's done, you see the color change. In cabbage for example, the color of it turns kind of a tan color and gets kind of translucent and it softens up. In the inside the container, you shouldn't see any bubbles happening anymore. It's kind of the visual signs that the fermentation process has done its thing. And so it takes approximately four weeks or so. Again, it's temperature dependent. And so just something to think about. Again, cool, dry and dark. And when you're doing fermentation, you want to pay attention to it and check it often. We recommend doing this daily, especially if you're doing a large batch of sauerkraut. You want to look for any signs of spoilage. Some color changes that might be happening or scum that might be forming on top and want to scrape that off. So that you don't get any unwanted bacteria in the product. So fermentation, it's something that's gaining some popularity and temperature is a really plays an important role on how well food ferments properly. Okay, now we're going to get into some warmer temperatures and dehydration is the first one. This is traditional dehydration as opposed to freeze dried. And for most foods, the temperature, the optimum temperature for dehydrating food is 140 degrees. This allows the moisture inside the food to be pulled out before the outside dries out too much. Because you don't want to have case hardening to happen, which is where the outside dries before the moisture inside is removed. So 140 is ideal for a lot of foods for drying herbs 95 to 115 works really well. It's a little lower so that you don't scorch your herbs. And you also need some air circulation. Now your commercial dehydrators that you can buy such as this one has a fan inside of them. It might be in the back or the top or the bottom depending on the style of the hydrator that you buy. You could use your oven. Again, you need some air circulation. If you have a convection oven, it has a fan in the back of it. You want to make sure that's on and so that the air circulates inside of there. If you have a traditional oven, then you would need to prop open the door and set a fan outside the door to get the air to circulate inside the oven cavity. It's not very energy efficient to use your oven, but it is an option if it's something that you want to try. Now, sun drying is an option in locations where it's where the humidity is really low. I know here in Western Kansas, it's a lot drier than it is on this side of the state in Eastern Kansas where it can be rather humid. So sun drying is really not the best in the part of the state where I'm at. But Western Kansas, it's possible plus the wind seems to blow all the time out there. But traditionally, good sun drying conditions happen down in Southern California and Arizona and those states because of the super dry low humidity conditions that they have. When you buy raisins and it says sun dried on it, they truly are sun dried. And so it is an option as long as the conditions are good for that. I have heard that there are some air fryers out there that have an option of dehydrating. I have not tried that. I'm not sure how well it works or not, but it might be something to play around with. I would, I would guess it would be a small batch. If it's a small air frying appliance. So it might be something to try just follow the directions for your appliance. Ovens that have an air drying option are air frying option. I myself have an have an oven that has that air fryer option. I have not tried drying anything with it, but so anyway, it might be something to try might work might not be the best. Just have to see how it goes. So again, temperature really does affect the removal of moisture when it comes to dehydration. So that those two temperatures here at the top, those are really kind of the target ones to pay attention to. All right, now specifically on jerky, if you're making meat jerky. The important thing about making jerky is we eventually want to get the temperature up to 160 degrees Fahrenheit. This is because we want to make sure that we destroy any E coli that might be present. I have seen instant instances of a foodborne illness outbreak because of improperly heated jerky. And so we don't want this to happen. And so there's a couple ways to do this. And one is to dry the raw meat, the unheated meat that you've soaked in your marinade or however you want to prep it before you dry it. So you dry it in your dehydrator at a little bit higher temperature 145 to 155. And then after that, take it out of the dehydrator and put it in the in your oven at 275 degrees for 10 minutes. And that will definitely get the temperature up to 160 degrees. This method does give a really nice texture in the end. It's like traditional jerky that you would buy. The other option is this one here where you heat the meat in the marinade prior to drying. So you marinade, add your marinade, let it soak for overnight or at least four hours. And then you heat that meat in the marinade at least five minutes. Use a thermometer and take the temperature of it and make sure it reaches 160 degrees. Then take it out and dry it in your dehydrator between 130 and 140. So you can drop the temperature of your dehydrator just a little bit. I will say the texture of this gets a little drier, gets a little more crumblier. It is a little bit easier to chew, but it is a different kind of texture. Some people like that. So these are the two ways to do this. It's just the key is getting the temperature up to this 160. That's where we really want to see this. So this QR code over here, this will take you to the North Dakota state publication on this that talks about the two options. So please take a look at that and read through that if you're making any kind of jerky. And this is for traditional beef jerky or if you're making jerky from deer meat or any other kind of wild game. Please read this over before you make jerky because we want you to make it safely. Alright, so before I get into the canning side of things, I want to talk about elevation. This is something that a lot of people just don't think about when it comes to doing home canning. And this is important to remember because your location where you are actually doing the canning will affect, can affect the safety of your home can food. And that is because as you go up in elevation, the boarding point of water decreases. And so as you can see in this graphic here at sea level, the boarding point of water is 212. But if you get up to 3000 feet at drop six degrees, that makes a difference. And so we have to make adjustments depending on your elevation to the processing, whether your water bath canning or pressure canning, so that you do it properly and you end up with safe food. How do you find what your elevation is? Well, if you have a good old fashioned traditional map. Last time I looked at those, there are different towns that list their elevation on it. That could be a source of that. But if you just Google your location, that should bring up your elevation. There's lots of apps out there that you can download to your mobile devices. I have one on my phone that's called Altimeter. So anywhere I go across the state to do a food preservation class, I can check where I'm at and what the elevation is so that I know what number I need to pay attention to and how I need to adjust for that elevation in order to can things safely. So in water bath canning, we will increase time and in pressure canning, we will increase pressure. So let me get into that and explain what those mean. So before we do that, when you're getting ready to do some canning. Before you start prepping the food, it's recommended that you get your canners warmed up, get the water in the canner and set it on your burners and turn it on a low to medium heat to get the water going and warm up your canners. You never want to put jars of food into a cold canner. You want it to be warmed up. If you're doing the raw pack method, which there are many foods that could be raw packed, the minimum temperature you want your water is 140 degrees. For hot packed food, the minimum temperature is 180 degrees. So turn on the burner, put the lid on the canner and let the water warm up. This also can affect the overall lethality of the canning process because you're starting with good hot water and that's going to increase your chances of a safe product in the end. All right. So let's talk about water bath canning, which is mainly it's a big pot of water with a lid and a rack inside of it. And there's another option to this and it's called steam canning. Both of these methods are for high acid foods such as most of your fruit products, pickles, most of your tomato products in your jams and jellies. In the water bath canning or steam canning processing, what we're trying to do is destroy spoilage microorganisms. So that's your yeast and your molds is really what we're targeting here. Botulism, the clostridium botulinum microorganism does not like high acid conditions. So that is really not the organism that we're concerned about when we're water get water bath canning high acid foods. So when you're water bath canning, you add time for your elevation and your recipes will tell you good recipe sources will tell you what to do. So for example, in the USDA Complete Guide to Home Canning, if you look at those recipes, they have charts in them and that the amount of time is divided up by elevation. So look up your elevation, read the chart and it'll tell you how much time you need to process those products for. Another book that we have is called So Easy to Preserve. It's from the University of Georgia. In those recipes, the time that is written for water bath canning is for zero to a thousand feet. You need to read the introduction chapters in order to determine how much time to add for your elevation. Same is true for the Ball Blue Book. The times that are written for water bath canned foods is for zero to a thousand feet. There's a chart in the introduction chapter that you need to look at in order to know how to add time. So be sure to do that. Instructions that I know in the Ball Blue Book over the years, they've updated their recipes and they specifically put that statement in every recipe. Be sure to adjust for your altitude. So hopefully that will help remind you to do that. Okay, let's go here. So steam canning. So this is one of the publications that our North Central Region group has put together specifically on steam canning. This is a method that we used to not recommend because we really didn't know for sure how well it safely processed foods compared to water bath canning. But thanks to University of Wisconsin, they did some research on this and found that a steam canner can be used for any water bath can products that have a total processing time of 45 minutes or less. So that includes adjusting for your altitude. So this picture here gives you an idea of what a steam canner looks like. The bottom part is narrow, it's shallow, and then you put in enough water just to cover the rack. And then the dome fits over the jars of food. It doesn't create any pressure. There's a lot of steam in there. You'll see steam come out of the little hole that's on the side of the dome. That's normal. But you can't add water to it. That's why that 45 minutes is the cutoff. And there's a lot of foods that you water bath that can be used in this. So it is an alternative. It's a safe method that we've got the research to back it up now. And so maybe that would be a good option for you. So this QR code will take you directly to that publication if you're interested in that. And again, with this, you do have to adjust your altitude just like you would with regular water bath canning. And then we have a publication as a how-to guide to water bath canning and steam canning. This is our publication, MF3241. It takes you through the general steps on both of these methods. So I wanted to throw this out there also. So again, this QR code will take you directly to that. Okay. So pressure canning. So this is the top of the thermometer. And now we're getting up into the 240, 250 degree range. And this is the temperature that is a must have to destroy pathogens such as Glosterdium botulinum. And this is a must, this is the method that must be used to can any kind of low acid food such as plain vegetables, any meat, poultry, or seafood. It is an option for some types of fruits such as I believe peaches could be pressure canned and some tomato products. So this is a method that is the only option for plain vegetables and meats and poultry and seafood. There is no other option for canning those types of foods any other way. The pressure helps get the temperature up above 212 degrees. So we're looking for 240. And again, knowing your elevation is important for this. And you will add pressure depending on the elevation that you are at. If you're using a weighted gauge canner, and you live above 1000 feet, you will always use 15 pounds of pressure, because you only have the choice between 510 and 15. So that makes it easy to remember. So for a weighted gauge canner, again, you'll always use 15 pounds of pressure. If you have a dial gauge canner, you can fine tune that a little bit and you may be able to use 11 pounds of pressure or even 12 pounds of pressure. So just know that you still need to adjust for that in order to get these types of products processed safely. So another thing about pressure canners in order to be accurate, especially if you have a dial gauge canner. Make sure you get your dial gauge tested. And many extension offices have the equipment to do this. And we can test the Presto brand national made of honor and cook quick, I believe is the other one. We do not test the gauges that are on all American canners, those gauges are there just for to show temperature and for you to know that the pressure has dropped back down to zero. The all American canners are used like a weighted gauge canner. So if you've got any questions about those, give us a call or send us an email and we can certainly guide you on on that. Because we do want you to process your products safely in a pressure canner. We do have a publication on this on using a stove top canner but also this includes the new electric pressure canner that Presto has come out with here in the last year. This has been a very popular appliance. It is an electric pressure canner that's also a water bath canner. It's a standalone appliance that does not require the use of your stove top so you can set it on your counter. It's a pretty neat deal. And but you need to follow their directions. Do not deviate from their directions. You have to follow that in order for it to work properly. So this publication can help guide you through that and hopefully give you some information in case you might be interested in that, but also on just regular stove top pressure canning. Right. And we've reached the top of the temperature scale so that's all I have for now. Are there any questions out there that I might be able to answer for you. Yes, you had a couple here. Okay. So in North Dakota, the temperature outside is often like a deep freeze in the winter. What are your thoughts on storing food outside or in a garage and not in an appliance. Well, that's always a good question. In general, it just depends on what you mean by outside. You want to, I know it gets cold enough that it would probably be safe, but you also want to protect it so that critters or any other kind of way that the food packaging could get damaged. You want to protect it. So you want to be careful about that. So, yeah, you all probably have different critters than we do down here and it doesn't get as cold down here. In general, you know, you just have to, the other thing too is, you know, as long as it's a sustainable time period that you can keep it cold, you know, in a pinch in a power outage, it might work okay, but you've got to watch the temperature you never know when it's going to warm up again. Be careful about that. All right. The next question is about pH or acidity. How can you tell what the pH is in your particular food? Is there a strip you can buy? There are pH strips. It's pH paper is what it is. It is a subjective way to measure pH. It's by color. You dip the strip into the food and then you match it up with the little color guide, the color chart that the package comes with. So it is subjective. It is not as accurate as using an actual pH meter. And that and because of that, you know, most home kitchens do not have such a thing. And that's why we strongly recommend using good research tested recipes for canning. So because that's been tested for you already. And you don't have to worry about that. So follow the recipe, follow the directions, and you'll end up with safe food by starting with a good safe tested recipe. Karen, this is a question for me. You probably have some cottage food producers or entrepreneurs where you work, actually. Yes. What do you tell food entrepreneurs about the whole pH and recipe development process? So we're looking for, when we measure the pH, if it's an acidified food or an acid food, we're looking for a pH of below 4.6. Ideally, even down to 4.1 is even better or 4.0 to make it even extra safe. So for acidified foods or naturally acidic foods, that's what we're targeting is truly below 4.6. If it's above 4.6, and this is on a scale from zero to 14. If it's above 4.6, that's a low acid food. Now, our lab does not work with low acid food products because of the regulations required to process those foods safely for commercial operations. We only deal with acidified or naturally acidic foods. So it has to be below 4.6. But even when you look at pH, it goes like from 4.1, 4.2, and on up. That tenth of a difference is actually logarithmic, and it's actually a tenfold difference. So it really does make a difference from even 4.5 to 4.6. And it can really affect the safety of it. So that's why we shoot for numbers even a little lower than 4.6 to be extra sure that we've got a safe product. So we have a follow-up. Any comments on, is it pH all by itself or what else is involved in the safety of canned foods? Well, there's the heat and the thickness and thinness of the product. How well the heat goes through the jar, when filling the jars, how hot is it when you're filling the jars. The heat up time during the canning, the cool down time after the processing time is done, all of that factors into the lethality. So it's something, this whole canning process is really something you just cannot rush. You've got to make sure you've got time to do it. Start with good recipes. Make sure your equipment is working properly. And take the time you need to get the whole thing done properly and safely. And I'll put a plug in for our NCF's and website again, or any of the websites from extension organizations in our region. Three tested recipes are available in every state. And if you're outside our region, go to your extension office, maybe you're in Colorado or California or wherever you're listening from. We all provide safe tested recipes. So it's more than getting a pH meter, like she said, it's a lot of other stuff. And the good news is the researchers have done that work for us before we can provide these recipes for you. That's right. Okay, you got some more questions here. I see one here about the lids. Yes, I struggle with getting a good seal with pressure canning. Some lids do better than others. How many times can I try to seal a jar? Yeah. Well, first of all, make sure you start with new lids. You should never reuse lids. Your traditional canning lid, I don't know if you can see my jar here. I mean, this is your traditional canning lid and ring. These are only used once. So never reuse those today's lids do not need to be preheated. They do not need to be boiled. This is per the manufacturer. They have changed the sealing compound on this. It does not require that heating step. That is an old method that we don't need to do anymore. And in fact, they did some research in testing, whether the lids were preheated or not preheated. And they went through water bath canning and pressure canning. They tested the vacuum seal on it and how well it worked. And they found out that more often than not, the lids that were heated before they were put on the jar, lost their vacuum or lost their seal. So skip that step. You do not. The main thing to do is to wash the lids. Wash them with warm, soapy water to when they're right out of the box or right off the jar, brand new jars that you buy. Wash them first. And then handle them with good clean hands so that you don't contaminate the lids. There are really reusable lids out there, follow their directions. Those plastic reusable lids are really only good for about 10 uses. Our friends at Wisconsin did some work on those to really see if how many times those could be reused. And usually about 10 is about as much as you can go with those so they don't last forever either. So, and, and the question about do lids expire from what I what I've heard from the ball folks is the lid should be okay for five years if you've got a brand new box that you haven't used five years is kind of the limit. You want to make sure that red sealing compound is still pliable is not dried out or cracked or anything like that. So again, don't heat your lids you don't need to do that. I always have people telling me their their lids aren't sealing and it turns out they boil them because that's what they saw their mom or grandma doing. Don't have to do that. Don't have to do that. Save yourself some grief. Right. Another person has a question about preserved lemons. And they say I've found different recipes from safe sites but I'm confused because they have different lengths of time that you leave them out from three days to four weeks. No, that's a good question. I'm, I'm not really sure about that. I don't do you do you know anything about those. I don't grow any lemons here. We don't either. I'm not even sure. I honestly have to look. I don't have my book in front of me to see if even like so easy to preserve has something like preserved lemons in there. I'd have to look and see but that's a great question. That's something we just don't see very often here. Have to look into that one. You want to send us your email make a comment on the evaluation and we can check on that for you. All right. Another question came in about leaving out onions. Does that change the pH. So it'll change the pH. I'm assuming you're talking about salsa or something like that. You can leave things out. You just can't increase the quantities of the ingredients that you're using. So, you know, if you leave the onions out, that's going to probably in a salsa product that will probably make it more acidic in the end. And so that's probably not as big an issue as if you add more onions. That's what you don't want to do. And speaking of salsa, you know, if you want to change the heat, the hotness of your salsa, you can use whatever peppers you want. As long as you use the quantity that the recipe calls for. So if it calls for two pounds of peppers, that's what you need to use. You can use whatever quantity that or whatever variety or type of pepper. So if you're one that likes a lot of habaneros, go for it. That'll really spice it up. Or if you just want it plain, you can just use all bell peppers. So that's an option on that. So the question, questioning that I see. So, Karen, Karen, thank you so much. And I'm going to put a plug in for a, I can't remember if it was last year or the year before you did a talk where you showed some, some actual contaminated product in jars where they were Oh, yes, my, my volcano of salsa. So if you look back at the archives, we go all the way back to the beginning and you can look at previous years. And that would be worth watching because it's pretty amazing. It will convince you to use tested recipes. Exactly. Yeah, that's why I usually show that one. I didn't put that in this one because just didn't didn't think about that this time. So, no, I liked your approach and thanks to you and thanks to everyone for attending today. Next week we have another one and then one after that. So we appreciate everyone sharing their time with us and especially Karen for sharing part of your afternoon with us. So thanks everybody. Thanks for having me.