 Hi, I'm Christy Mendoza, a food safety and quality agent with Alabama Cooperative Extension. Home food preservation can be done in different ways, but today we will show you the basics of water bath canning, which is recommended for jams, jellies, and most other fruit products, tomato products, and pickled products. This presentation is meant to introduce you to canning. There may be more information needed for specific recipes. Contrusted sources for those recipes include our Food Preservation book, or the Complete Guide to Home Canning by the USDA, and the National Center for Home Food Preservation website, which is hosted by the University of Georgia Extension. Water bath canning is the process of preserving foods by immersing lidded jars filled with high acid foods into a large pot of hot water. The water is brought to a boil for a determined amount of time according to the size and contents of the jar in order to kill target microorganisms. The heat also inactivates naturally occurring enzymes. These enzymes assist the ripening of fruits and vegetables, but if not inactivated, they will cause spoilage or rotting. During the boiling, air is driven from the jar so that as the jar cools, a vacuum is formed, providing a stronger seal. A vacuum seal on a product does not mean that it is safe. A vacuum can form just by placing hot product in a cool jar and allowing it to cool with the lid secured. You must follow each step to assure that the food will be safe. High acid foods are foods that have a pH of less than 4.6. They can be classified as acid foods, acidified foods, and fermented foods. Examples of acid foods are most fruits, such as strawberries and peaches. And some examples of acidified foods include tomatoes, wick pickles, salsa, chutneys, and relishes. These products have to have a little bit of added acid to them in order to maintain the 4.6 or below. Some examples of fermented foods include pickles that are fermented, sauerkraut, and kimchi. We will discuss acid and acidified food canning in this presentation. Reservation through fermentation will be discussed in a companion presentation. These are the basic steps to water bath canning. Step 1. Prepare your equipment. You will need a water bath canner with a wire rack. A jar lifter is a very handy tool, it is in the far right of this picture. Practice using this tool before you start to work with hot water. The rubberized rounded ends are the ones that should be in contact with the jars when lifting straight out of the canner. A bubble freer is a plastic tool that you can slide down into the jar to free any large pockets of air. You will need a large spoon or a ladle, a canning funnel, paper towels, and several kitchen cloth towels. Of course, you will need clean canning jars. Do not use jars that were not sold as canning jars such as spaghetti sauce purchased from the grocery store. They are not made to the same standards as canning jars and they may crack or break during processing. Pack your jars for cracks, nicks, and rough edges and don't use jars with any damage. As far as canning lids go, they are usually two piece lids, a ring and a flat piece. Do not use the flat pieces more than once, but the rings can be used several times as long as they are not damaged or rusted. Step 2. Preheat the water in your canner. You will need at least 6 inches deep to start with and you will probably have to add some more later. Your wire rack can be in the canner at this time. If you are reusing canning jars, you may need to sterilize them. You may sterilize them in boiling water or use the dishwasher on the sterilized setting. The jars should still be warm while filling them. Placing very hot liquid into cold jars may result in the jars cracking. When canning fruit using a hot pack recipe, your canner water can be simmering at the time you immerse them. If you are using a raw pack recipe, you will want to have the canner water warmed but not to the point of simmering or the jars may crack from thermal shock. Step 3. Prepare the ingredients. Use fresh, best quality fruits and vegetables for canning. Wash, peel, slice or chop as needed and remove any bad spots. Step 4. Prepare the recipe as directed. Canning fruit requires very few ingredients and little preparation, while relishes have several ingredients. Please follow a canning recipe that is from a trusted source. It is important for the safety of your products and those that would consume them that the final equilibrium pH is below 4.6 and this will be assured if using tested recipes. When making jellies and jams it is also essential to follow the recipe as the jelling properties of natural or added pectin will depend on several factors that have been considered when creating the recipe. Step 5. Fill the jars to the recommended level. In order for the water bath to help create a vacuum seal on the jar that will remain sealed there needs to be enough air removed from the jar. The space at the top of the jar between the lid and the top of the food or the liquid in the jar is called headspace. There is a recommended headspace for each type of recipe. Food should not touch the lid or stick up into this headspace out of the liquid. Too little headspace may result in the product boiling up and leaking out of the jar. The residue of the product on the underside of the lid will result in a poor seal. Too much headspace may result in discoloration of the surface of the product which is not unsafe in itself but it is not very appealing. However, if there is too much headspace the processing time may not be long enough to remove enough of that air to create a vacuum strong enough to seal the lid. In general the rule for headspace is one quarter inch for jams, jellies, spreads and fruit juices. A half an inch for fruits, tomatoes, pickles, relishes, chutneys and other condiments. And for low acid foods where a pressure canner is recommended the headspace is one to one and a fourth inch. It is at this point that you should use a bubble freer or plastic knife to get any big air bubbles out of the jar. Step 6 Wipe the rim of the jars. This is important to assure that there is no food not even a thin film on the rim of the jar. The product may cause the lid to not make full contact with the glass thus making a poor seal. Step 7 Although the seal is very important for the extended shelf life of a canned product, screwing the lid on very tight is not the answer. As the product is heated the air is escaping the headspace and the product itself so it must be able to escape the jar. Therefore canning lids should not be tightened as tight as you can but only to fingertip tight. Step 8 In water bath canning the jars should be completely immersed in the water. Use jar lifters to immerse the jars into the preheated water bath canner. It is recommended at this step and when removing the jars from the canner to lift the jars as straight in and out of the canner as possible without tilting them. This will eliminate any chance of the product, the food accidentally making contact with a soft sealing portion of the lid, reducing the risk of contamination due to a poor seal. If the jars are not completely covered by water, add some water to make the depth so that the jars are covered by about 1 to 2 inches of water. Step 9 Bring the water to a boil. This will be aided by placing the lid on the canner. The recommended processing time begins when the water comes to a full rolling boil. Step 10 Processing the product just means it is left in the boiling water for the proper amount of time. We recommend that you use the timer. Step 11 Remove the jars. At this point, you may turn off the stove. Remove the lid carefully away from you so that the steam flows away from your body. Again, do not tilt the jars as the sealant on the lid is still soft from the heat. Place the jars on a level, heat-proof surface. We suggest layering 2 to 3 kitchen towels on your countertop. Do not place directly on a stone-type surface as either the jars or the countertop may crack from thermal shock. Step 12 Final Step Allow the jars to cool undisturbed until they are at room temperature. As they cool, you might hear the popping sound of the vacuum pulling the lid down. This is a good sign. Once they have cooled to room temperature, check the lids to see if each one has sealed properly or popped down. Any that did not seal can be reprocessed within 24 hours beginning at step 6 with a new lid and clean rim. If reprocessing, check the jar for any cracks. You can also simply place this jar that did not seal properly in the refrigerator for immediate use. Do not remove the bands on the sealed jars until the next day. Then wipe the jars with a damp cloth and label with the food name and date it was made. Store your canned foods in a cool, dark, and dry place. The food safety and quality team of Alabama Extension hope that you have enjoyed this presentation. Please find more food preservation videos on our website and ACES TV, our YouTube channel. For more information, contact your local FSQ agent. Thank you for watching.