 Hi everybody, I'm Bob Birch from NDSU Egg Communication. Welcome to the next webinar in the 2020 spring Field the Fork webinar series. So excited to have you along today and really looking forward to Julie's presentation here on pressure canning and cooking. We're going to get started with that in just a couple of minutes But I have a couple of things I want to share with you first. Our upcoming webinars coming up next week We're going to hear from Brian Halverson about staying safe in the sun. Brian is a skin cancer survivor Very important webinar. I really hope that you get a chance to tune in next Wednesday at 2 p.m. Central for that And then the following week, Jan Kanota will be here to talk about growing a butterfly garden So a couple of great webinars coming up in the next couple of weeks as our our series is Getting on the back end the back half of the Field the Fork webinar series I'd like to remind you about a couple of things about the zoom controls in case you have not Used those before Go to the next slide and we'll see that the chat box is how you're going to interact with us Today and how you're going to ask questions of Julie You're going to find that at the very bottom middle of your screen Just put your your cursor over that and it should pop up and click that Speech bubble to open the chat icon and that'll show up on the right hand side of the screen where it says chat box On the slide there and you can go ahead and type in your questions in there And we'll save those for till the end of Julie's presentation and then and then share those and Julie will answer your questions from the chat box A reminder that after this webinar you will get an email that contains a link to a short online survey We'd really love if you could take just a couple of minutes to fill that out It makes you eligible for a prize drawing When you submit the survey if you choose to share your your name and address And it's really important because it is important in making sure that we can continue to bring you Field the Fork webinar series Every year through the support of the usda agricultural marketing service grant So please fill out that survey when you get it via email All right, so I think we are ready to go Julie garden Robinson is a professor and NDSU extension food and nutrition specialist She does research and develops educational materials in the area of nutrition food safety and health And she's written a weekly column prairie fair, which i'm sure many of us are fans of since 1997 and today She's going to talk to us about pressure canning and cooking. Welcome to the field and fork webinar series Julie Well, thank you so much bob for joining us today and introducing me I'm really excited to see that you're from all over the country. So this is just great Garden is my middle name. So I'm all about gardening and and having fun in the garden and also using all that wonderful produce So today, these are my topics I'm going to talk about some basic canning information Including both pressure canning and also water bath canning And then i'm going to segue into pressure cooking, which is one of the hottest Cooking techniques right now and it's not our new technique. Some of us grew up eating pressure cooked food I'm also going to share a little bit about where to find good information because there's a lot of information around us And not all of it is trustworthy and finally if you would please put any questions you have in the chat box That would be great and another thing i'll ask is that everyone Turn off your video because it it does It does interfere with our recording. So if your video is on I can't see it right now But please turn that off and then we'll have a good archive for future people who want to watch these And by the way, we have about 55 at least webinars that we've recorded from the last several years So we have a lot more information So I want to just start with a question for you to ponder. You don't have to answer I know that probably a lot of you Are experienced at canning. Some of you might be brand new So in your head, just think about two foods that you can can in a water bath canner and secondly Think about two foods that must be pressure canned All right, you have those in your head. Let's go on So when you are canning you are a scientist And according to the food and drug administration All foods that can be canned will fit into these three classes They can be acid or acidic foods. They can be low acid foods or they're They can be called acidified foods and I like to tell people about this because in case you have a famous recipe that you want to get on the market Through your state or country They will ask you in most cases what the acidity level is in order for you to Sell that product Acidity is measured based on what's called the ph scale So we'll talk through all of these points So we're back in science class now So low acid foods have a ph above 4.6 Acidic foods have a ph of 4.6 or lower And then we have our acidified foods. These are foods that we add an acid to We acidify them and they're usually low acid or semi acid foods That have to have an acid whether it's lemon juice or citric acid so that we can reach the safe ph of 4.6 or lower And i'm going to show you um something historical Shortly about why we say these things that we do But on the little graphic on the side, you'll see that we have our fruits at the top And we have more of the vegetables in that low acid category And I'd also add meats and other protein foods as being in the low acid category So here's a list our acid foods. I mentioned fruits Pickles could also be considered acidified foods sour crowd is a fermented food that is acid Tomatoes but one thing I do want everyone on this call to know and remember if you grow tomatoes That's one of the easiest things to grow Please remember that all tomatoes should be acidified with lemon juice citric acid Or vinegar in the case of our salsa some of our salsa recipes So they have to have an added acid because we tend to like things that aren't real acidic So our plant breeder friends have responded by producing tomatoes that are make a little less acidic than maybe our great grandma used to have available so all All tomatoes add acid Low acid foods. I mentioned meat. We also have seafood poultry milk All fresh vegetables. All of these would be in the low acid food category And those have to be pressure canned So I won't have you turn in your score But you can think about what what you were pondering as I asked you those questions And if you got a hundred percent, good job So our Guidelines are based on published research. So the u.s. Department of Agriculture has been a leading provider of Research related to the guidelines the evidence-based guidelines that we provide through extension nationwide We also have many universities that do a lot of research. I notice washington's in place and we Some of the research is done in pennsylvania. So it's it's all over the country Many states do this type of research So as you're looking for things, you know, look for something from a government site as being credible a university site and some of our other friends who are doing Research in this area because we want all of you to be safe. We want you to enjoy this fresh produce that you've grown Next winter So here are the two pain processing methods. We have the boiling water bath canner and just as it suggests For us in flat land here in north dakota Water will boil at 212 and we use boiling water bath canner again for Acid foods and acidified foods pressure canning. This was a unique innovation many years ago And that adding that pressure allows us to get the temperature up to 240 degrees, which is enough to kill spores Which we'll see shortly Can lead to the production of the botulism toxin in the food So we want to kill those spores and low acid foods are the ones that we're most concerned about And also mixtures of acid and low acid foods like soups or things like that Um keep in mind that at least in my state home produced low acid foods can't be sold to the public These require special guidelines special Documentation and that sort of thing So why all this concern now this is a very old newspaper heading But I think unfortunately it puts north dakota on the map and that's the good map But um back in 1931 We eventually in in this case very sad tragic case had 13 people die and back then they wrote very interesting headlines But 13 people eventually died and the the case occurred when someone Um probably the mom was making or was canning food and back in the day They used to just heat up the food put it in jars Put a lid on if it's sealed Put it in their cupboard and then they'd pull it out But and use it later on well There was no processing involved in some cases or if they did they might have taken the peas and You know he did it on the on the stove most likely they didn't Put it in a jar and heat it on the stove as we would suggest now actually in a pressure canner And they made A salad it was in February. So it was a post holiday party And fortunately I read in and I've talked to some people who know the history of this Most people could not make it to the party because we had one of our wonderful snow storms at the time and So those people were fine the ones who came and he even had a tiny amount of the salad made with home canned peas and vegetables died within a few days And the culprit was the botulism toxin And sometimes I've shown this when I've done other talks here and there And they'll say well that won't happen. That's old history and when I see what people are sharing and they're pulling out old recipes and things from great great grandma or great grandma or grandma that Was fine back in the day before we knew all the science That's when I get worried that Something really bad could happen again if you follow really old guidance So anyway, this was a very tragic case in north dakota. There was a similar case with green beans Around the same time period. I think it was a couple years later in south dakota So we have to learn we have to learn from history So now I want you to put your science hats on and your lab coats And we're going to talk a little bit about science and why we have the recommendations that we do So some of you may be very familiar with all of these terms, but I just want to review them So clostridium botulinum is the organism that we're worried about It is an obligate anaerobic That means that it has to be an oxygen free environment or a very mole oxygen environment for this toxin to grow And produce this very very deadly toxin It's the this is the most dangerous of all food safety issues So the botulinum toxin as I said one of the most deadly ones causes botulism botulism food poisoning So sometimes I see that people will say oh, there's botulism in that jar and no The jar of food can't have botulism we can but it could have the botulinum toxin And the tricky thing with this is that the food can contain the toxin without showing any signs It might not be bubbling if you tasted it You probably wouldn't taste it. Of course, you can't see it So anytime you question something as to the safety don't taste it, you know That's um, I I've had many calls where people will say well, I tasted it and I didn't get sick Well, if you're worried about the food don't taste it because you know once if you tasted something with this toxin You could have the symptoms shown double vision nausea And eventually this works up and takes away your ability to breathe. So you suffocate And the thing about it as I've kind of mentioned along the way is that these spores which are inactive forms of bacteria These are heat resistant So in order to kill the spores, we have to put them above 212 degrees in our typical boiling temperature get them up to 240 through the use of pressure So that's what we're trying to do with our pressure canning process So here's a little schematic of that again. It's anaerobic. Um, these grow in Low acid foods above 4.6 pH And they really grow well at that 40 up to 120 which is a pretty big Range of temperature with 40 to 120 degrees and they also like high moisture. So you can see an actual spore It germinates It starts multiplying and it produces weight produces waste products and also this very deadly toxin So we we don't want this to happen and that's why we we do have fairly strict guidelines and We don't want anyone getting sick from this wonderful food that they're growing in their gardens So here's how we prevent it. We inhibit the spore germination or we promote the destruction We can raise the acidity because botulism toxin won't grow in acidic conditions And we put it in an aerobic environment. It also Would not grow But would not grow very well So that's what we have to do to deal with this this creature this costridium botulinum organism So what does this all mean to me and why should I have to know this science? This is what provides our direction for our processing requirements. So on your slide right now I'm showing a water bath canner if you're a canner you will definitely have one of these in your house those classic speckled water bath canners and you can see the jarlifter and in the bottom of your screen you see a A pressure canner and there are two different types of mechanisms. There are the dial gauge As you see in the top and the weighted gauge and they all have different parts and I'm not going to go through in great depth today About pressure canning and that type of thing Or at least the parts but I do suggest that if you have never pressure can and you want to start because you're going to grow a Bunch of green beans and you want to can them Read those directions as boring as they might be You have to know all the parts and you have to become very familiar with your own equipment So those are the two types of pressure canners and also our very simple Water bath canner. In fact, you can use any pot that you want That can provide you with You know enough room to put your your jars in and also have an inch of water above The jars in the case of water bath canning. That's that's the rule for water bath canning Pressure canning not much water at all Okay, so let's just talk about our jars and our lids Um jars continue to be huge sellers. I was just on a training call with a bunch of my colleagues from around the region And Dars are big sellers people are getting back into gardening and they're getting into home canning And the nice thing about jars is that they can last a very long time But there's some things to think about So, you know before you use the jars again and again make sure there are no nicks or cracks The best types of jars are the mason jars, which you see Um in the past I remember when I was young My mother used to use mayonnaise jars in some cases Back then the jars were made out of glass and now most of the time are things we buy in the store made out of plastic Which of course you couldn't reuse So I mean I have to say my best advice is to use the good jars the mason jars If you were to use old glass jars Expect that you might have poor seals happening or you could have cracking So you know invest the money you could have these for a long time You always want to Select jar rings that have no rust. They shouldn't be bending You could reuse those over and over again And then new lids and these are the lids with the the self-sealing compound on them Some of you may have seen some of the reusable lids. They're usually white Tatlers of brand and I have asked the question on whether they're recommended or not nationally And most of the time I'm hearing that you could expect jar failures And they really haven't done research at the national center for home food processing on those particular lids So again, you see the lids and jars this this would be my recommendation that you use those particular pieces of equipment Always wash your jars and jar rings and warm soapy water rinse them well Now what we're hearing is happening a lot in canning is that people are having seal failures That means that once you have gone through all your effort and you put your canned pickles in the cupboard or jellies or jams or whatever And all of a sudden the the lids loosen up And what I think is happening is that um, some people are Remembering what they might have seen their mom or grandma do which was boil the lids Sometimes the lids no longer even require any heating So some may tell you to simmer them or just wash them but follow the manufacturer's directions And the other thing that can happen with all these lid failures that I keep hearing about So people are tightening the The outer ring too tightly. So it's fingertip tight Look at your thumb now and your ring finger on your dominant hand Those are the two fingers that you use. So you're not trying to be super Man or superwoman and really put those on tightly You just want to use those two fingers and it's fingertip tight Another thing is what you're waiting for your jars and you're going to fill jars keep the jars in warm water Some people like to use their dishwasher for this purpose. They just hold their their um jars hot in the dishwasher That's totally fine as you'll hear later Don't use your dishwasher to be your home canner that that is not a canning device You can use it to wash, but we're not going to seal any any of our um precious canned goods in the dishwasher It is not considered safe All right, so now let's just talk about a couple of packs coal pack and hot pack um Just as you think coal pack refers to placing the cold food in cold or warm jars and adding hot liquid Then you run a knife or something around to remove the bubbles And then you put on your lids and what's convenient about coal pack, which i've used to make Dilly beans pickled pickled green beans takes less time it's easier to handle the food in the jars and Some people think that the food retains its firmness a little better So there are some advantages of that On the other hand we can hot pack our foods and this is when food is cooked in liquid before packing And the cooking liquid is poured over the food in the jar and then you run your knife or whatever around and seal your jars This way you can see less floating of of the food product During or after canning you might see better color and flavor They're easily the pack you might need fewer jars And it's faster heating to target canning temperature so often are Our guidelines and we have everything on our website field to fork you can go and zip around see what you like print it off use it But we have guidelines often for both coal pack and hot pack So check that out and all that is provided So here's a dandy little trick and some of you might know this but Headspace those jars those mason jars do a lot for us in helping us determine That space that we need so headspace just refers to the space in the jar between the inside of the lid and the top of the food So all of the guidelines that you see from usda from universities and so on will specify a certain headspace and As you can see on the screen If you were to fill the liquid to the very neck Of the jar and from the neck to the top is an inch And then you can see on the little screw band area half inch Is to that middle line and a quarter inch is that top line So your your jars are really telling you a lot So for jelly products, we fill those almost to the top a quarter of an inch And we we want to allow a little bit of space because we do recommend that you Water bath can five to ten minutes for even our jellied fruit products I've had people who haven't water bath. They're jellied So jelly or jam And they have actually had jelly blow up Explode in their cupboard. So you don't want strawberry jam all over your cupboard. That's quite disastrous For the half-inch headspace. That's fruits tomatoes and pickles So a little bit more than jellies and then for low acid foods because you're going to pressure can that You're going to want an inch to an inch and a fourth and that allows for that expansion and that pressure that occurs during the processing So there are some handy-dandy little tools that you can get and one of them is shown available from ball I'm not endorsing them, but they have a nice little Tool that allows you to measure head space. That's made out of plastic And very inexpensive All right, let's talk a little bit about water bath canning The temperature of the water in the canner should be about 180 degrees. It's about simmering temperature. So not boiling And then you'll want a rack So the racks will have divided spaces that will hold your jars kind of You know up from the bottom so that you can have that good heat flow around your jars And if you're using a flat rack and you don't have quite enough items You know to fill your whole container like in the one on the right, you'll see that they just have three filled jars Then you want to fill empty jars with water and kind of fill in that empty space so they don't tip over for example So that's just a general water bath canner. If you've never canned This is where to start Find find a recipe you like We have a ton of recipes that can be water bath can for various types of salsas With added vinegar lemon juice or another acidulant All right on the other hand with our low acid foods pressure canner We're not trying to cover the the jars with water. You won't it won't work Um, I've never tried this but I know a lot of people who will stack jars in their pressure canner And that's totally fine. So you can see that in the bottom Um, as I said, I I haven't tried that But it is okay and it's on all the usda and the national center guidance So here are some tips again. Just um, if you want to try this out And you have a nice crop of something You bring the water in the canner to a simmer Or you can add hot water that works well Then you add your jars of product you put on your canner lid And you allow the canner to vent which means it releases all this steam And you want to exhaust all the air with that vent port open. So you see that in the center And after it's all vented and it usually takes about 10 minutes or so Then you put your Your gauge on top And so again two to three inches of hot water in the canner and then place the the jars on the canner rack So not too hard Many people are very afraid of pressure canners. So that's how they get into finding You know old recipes or something on the internet that looks a lot easier And why do I want to you know pressure can when I can do xyz? Well, you do it because of the reasons I talked about earlier. You want a safe product for your friends and family So again, as I said after you vent then you put the The weight on the vent port and you allow the pressure to increase And you just adjust your burner temperature to do so And you might be thinking because I have had this question a lot I have a flat top Stove Well, I don't have a great answer for you I say if you have a flat Top stove you're going to want to consult the manufacturer of your stove to find out if it's okay to can I have heard of people with You know basically crack the flat glass top on their stove. So check with your manufacturer For this purpose. I did save my old stove And have it set up in my garage So that it has a coil top and and that's that probably is a better idea But check with your manufacturer and make sure that it's okay to do so Okay, so some some key pressures. So Where we have people from around the country today. So you're not all in flat lines like I am in fargo north dakota So the pressure recommendations will vary depending on the altitude So for example in a dial gauge We're at a thousand feet or less actually in fargo. So I would be at at 11 Pounce per square inch gauge If I were from 2000 to 4000 feet, we'd increase that pressure recommendation to 12 We're getting higher now up into the mountains up to 6000 feet up to 13 and really high 14 so again, you want to go to your state extension service? And I am sure that they will have recommendations that will provide you with all of your pressure and time recommendations I do put all of that on our extension publications as well So I think you would you could also use the things that we have Even though we are flat Except in some parts of the state we're a little bit higher On a weighted gauge, there's there's less ability for you know Changing the weight because the weights are usually like 10 and 15. You would just use 15 And You never want to force cool. So you say you've got your product you've done everything you've vented it You've allowed the full time State in the kitchen. You don't want to take off and go shopping when you're doing this kind of thing. You want to stay around You never want to force cool. So Most of the killing of the spores Takes place during that cool down process So you just have to be very patient Canning is not something that is a quick thing to do And shortly I'll be talking about Pressure cooking or using an instant pot like device That's a little different You can you know, you can force that to to be done But you don't want to follow the same type of process when you're canning because now you have all those attributes that the botulinum organism Uses to grow because you've got an air free environment. You want to kill those spores if they're there Okay, so next step You're going to remove your jars after you've allowed it to cool down and the pressure's down Put some towels down or other padding on your surface And you're going to let that sit for at least 12 hours 24 hours is better You know, just let it sit and then you'll hear the pleasant sound of that little ping when the When the jar seals it's a very pleasant sound If it doesn't ping In 24 hours So you can look at it. It should be concave and so on And after it's all cooled, you'll also want to take off those rings You don't store these products with the rings on because they can rust on so the general rule is to remove the ring But you do have 24 hours to re-can If a couple days passes and you see that oh no, my food has been sitting out and it's not sealed And it's been sitting here for a long time I'm sorry to say that we can't save it at that point. So check it in 24 hours If it's not sealed do it over again start with new lids Or eat it give it to your friends All right, so here is an example if you have You know, I if you have not canned you would not necessarily be familiar with how these Rules are set up. So I just wanted to show this to you so The general rules from usda are set up with style of packs in this case. It's for green peas It can be hot pack or raw pack or cold pack as I talked about earlier In this case that the jar size would be pints or quarts your process time is 40 minutes In your pressure canner. Now you look at what altitude am I? And for me zero to 2000 feet. I would use 11 pounds of pressure If I were in colorado or you know mountain estate, I would Go accordingly with my altitude And again on the bottom, this is a weighted gauge pressure canner I could use 10 pounds of pressure where I am But if I was above a thousand feet, I'd use 15 pounds. So that's that's how to read these sorts of things And just be sure that you're following the latest guidelines Keep in mind that if you have a really old usda guide to home canning like 1985 or 80 or 70 or whatever They did a complete overhaul in the mid 90s So you want to be sure that whatever guidance you're using Is current or I have a lot of people that will ask me Well, I I found this pressure canner at a garage sale And you know, well, how old is it that kind of thing? Well, you know, it looks like it's from the 70s and it came with a book So I'm just going to use the book Well, you want to if it works and you probably need a new rubber ring and different things done to it But you do want to go and find the latest guidance Don't use some old book because very likely The times are no longer valid So latest guidance always important and keep in mind that I think was 1994 when they did a big overhaul of the usda methods So again another way you might see this information in the case of green beans 14 pounds needed for seven courts And it'll it'll give you about how much you need The the best way to to do canning is actually to invest in some kind of a scale And they're not that expensive The most it's much more accurate to have a weight Than a kitchen measure like cups and quarts and that sort of thing But some things are are listed like the ingredients are listed in terms of quarts and cups And that means that they have built in a safety factor for us But you know if if you want to really get into this I would say get yourself a little scale And and you can read on through the rest of this, but it it does go through the process very very Detailed One thing I want to point out because I get asked this question as well Do you have to add salt? So you're making green beans and the answer is no you can see it's if desired Most of us eat too much salt And you don't have to add salt in the case of canning pressure canning green beans It's just there to add some flavor If you do add salt make sure it's canning salt Because if you use say an iodized salt Very likely you could end up with cloudiness in your jars from the iodine. So always use canning salt and in some cases salt No for sauerkraut. For example, if you're fermenting foods, it's part of the preservation process So anyway, follow the directions as to salt and you don't have to put it in if you're pressure canning Okay, this next part is kind of fun because we had a graduate student a few years ago who went online and really explored some things for us related to to the use of the internet and for Sending out all kinds of information There are a lot of very Scary things on the internet related to canning related to nutrition related to health. So again, you want to go to credible sources so One thing I've seen quite a bit That people will say well, I I did a boiling water bath canning for my green beans because That's how my grandma always did it and I'm not picking on grandma's today. I just know that but You know a lot of time ago before we knew all that we know There were different recommendations and I'll show you that I believe in the next slide So we want to follow what we know is the best recommendation the safest So sometimes they'll say and I've found this myself I recommend a three-hour boiling water bath canning for low acid foods It's not safe. You could boil that stuff for No a week And they're still not going to make it safe because you have to hit that 240 degrees and activate those scores So again Watch out for the internet. It has lots of great stuff. I use it all the time But sometimes some of the information is not correct Oven canning. This is one that we have been really hearing a lot about it is not safe Back in the from 1931 to 1942 and maybe this is what happened with that earlier piece I showed you you know with the headline that happened in 1931 It was actually recommended by usda up until the time of world war two Which was when a lot of the canning research was done right around the time of world war two because they wanted to provide safe food for the soldiers Oven canning is not safe Here's a comment The boiling point is 212 So i'm just going to put it in the oven for 250 degrees for four hours To allow plenty of the time for the center of those jars to be hot enough but fully cooked So that is that is not a safe thing to do Heat that's coming in from the outside that's dry heat will not have the same penetration Okay, so then I've also had people that want a can in their dishwasher. I I mentioned that as well It's it's easier than boiling water bath canning and only five to ten percent of the jars don't seal We just put those in the fridge well Again, you're not getting that proper heat penetration. You're not inactivating You know bacteria could also be yeast and you know other molds and and other microorganisms And finally, I'm not going to even go into this one, but I've actually had people say well, you could actually can in your bathtub I don't know how that's done and I wouldn't recommend it So be aware the only ones that we recommend are the ones I talked about already Watch out for what you read. You don't believe everything. It's all over facebook twitter and so on but that doesn't mean it's correct all right Oh, I'm going to answer a couple questions here real quick before I move on Is there a certain amount of lemon juice per quart for tomatoes? Yes, there is and if you go to field to fork our website and just google nDSU extension field to fork and click down to the tomato section I believe it's a I'm not going to say off the top of my head because I might say it wrong but That will tell you the exact amount of lemon juice per quart of tomatoes A friend of mine has been canning using your oven and has no issues. Do you have any experience with that? Well, we just talked a little bit about oven canning and it is not considered safe because of the lack of heat penetration so That's that's my story and i'm sticking with it All right, so now we're on to part two And I will ask in your chat pod Type yes if you have a multifunction cooker such as an instant pot or cuisinar or whatever brand type yes if you have one Great all right They have become so amazingly popular And now I want you to type yes if you grew up in a household where meals were made in a stove top type of pressure cooker Okay Well as I was growing up I always knew we were going to have vegetable soup if I came home from school and I could hear the jiggling sound of the The weighted gauge on the pressure cooker and so I uh, I definitely grew up mainly having stews and soups in pressure cookers. So this this is a new to me in fact pressure cookers really became quite popular the stove top models probably back in the 50s 60s 70s that that era when more moms went to work outside of the home and Needed a way to have quick meals And certainly this one of the big advantages of Pressure cookers are the is the speed we want it instantly. So I just want you to think in your head Uh, what are three advantages of using a pressure cooker? It's going to think of three things. What am I going to say next? My next question can dry beans be cooked in an instant pot? Why or why not? And what is a potential food safety issue associated with instant pots? Okay, you have your you have your answers in your head. You know, let's go well one of the most Popular probably brands is the instant pot. In fact, it's almost become You know a word for the multifunction cooker. That is actually the brand name. There are many other brands than instant pot And last summer we did some research with some of my interns cooking different things And I'm going to share with you one of the pieces that came out of it And I have another piece that I will be working on this spring and summer related to cooking vegetables But you've probably already read all these advantages It's faster. Um, you could cook more than one food at a time And it does a lot of different jobs in some cases. It really depends on the type of Instant pot or multifunction cooker. It can be a slow cooker. It can be a pressure cooker No, I'm not saying pressure canner pressure cooker It can cook rice It can be a steamer. You can make yogurt You can saute in it. You can use it as a warming pot You can cook eggs. You can do all sorts of things with it So if you have one that you might have gotten for a gift and it's still in the box I hope that I inspire you to take it out of the box Read the instructions because they're all a little different and give it a give it a whirl These are pretty cool and we use it regularly in my house So again, read the functions Remember safety um some people will Try to deep fry You know, they'll put Hot oil in there and think okay. Well, we're we're gonna cook this fast. No use a deep fryer if you're going to Cook some french fries or whatever Um, this is not something you want to leave the house So stay in the house same as when you're canning when you're cooking like this You want to be in the house? Um wash it carefully. We'll talk more about that Know those functions of the buttons and know you can have to learn about your own Pressure cooker. I I don't have an instant pot. I have a different brand. So mine is quite different from what I'm going to describe They're all they're all a little different So Again, you might see a bunch of buttons And the first time I looked at one of these I got a little overwhelmed. I have to admit I was like, oh my gosh, how do I do all this? But once you kind of learn what they mean, it might say manual That's all purpose button. You can set it to any time Keep warm. You can set that to any time Um, and you have a timer But this is one where you could have a food safety issue So I I really want you to ponder If you want to put the timer on it that you want to put your roast in in the morning and put the timer on to start cooking it you know An hour before you get home. I wouldn't recommend that So, you know, think about that timer You know with a little safety in mind Um satay function is really great You don't have that in a slow cooker so you can brown meat when you brown foods you're you're adding a lot of flavor you're developing some of those those flavor compounds and You can also, you know set your pressure the And that will alternate between low and high and you can set that to any time. So again, know your device Read about it. Even though the manual might be not the most exciting reading. It's really important So here we go. We might have buttons on some of these devices that say slow cooker Might somebody say soup meat stew yogurt beans. Yes, you can You can cook beans in a instant pot poultry multi grains porridge steam and rice. So what does that mean? Beans for example, it's high pressure cooking The cook time is 30 minutes. So some of these are automatic settings. You put your food in you punch the button And it'll just take off and do based on this pre-program time Mine's different. I have to set the time I got mine really inexpensively. I will add so I got mine for five dollars and 67 cents with coupons Got it at coals coals cash I had my husband sign up for a credit card. It was five bucks And it works great So the timing of course, why do we buy these devices? Why do we have those? We're all Looking for a little more time to do other things, baby Then spend a lot of time in the kitchen. It's much faster than a slow cooker Keep in mind that when you turn your Your device on it will take 10 to 15 minutes to build up to the pressure If you're cooking from frozen you do need to add more time And then if you saute you will find that it heats up faster for you so Let's say you cook something. It's the first time you're making a particular soup or Some kind of vegetable You can't and you try it out and that meat still isn't very tender or those vegetables are still kind of crunchy Don't be afraid to put the lid back on and just cook it a little longer This is not you don't have to be a true scientist here You're not going to hurt yourself by cooking it longer. This you don't have to worry about botulism or anything like that Um, here's another tip that's very important. You never want to open the pot while it's in the manual pressure mode We'll shut it off And you can do either a natural release or a quick release Usually it takes about 10 minutes for the pressure to go down And of course you always want to open the lid away from you There's a lot of heat going on you have moisture you could steam your face and you could burn yourself So be very cautious about that As I mentioned If you're using natural release, it's going to take 10 to 20 minutes And you want to allow that natural release if you're cooking say meat and chicken because that is when you're really developing that nice tender tender protein product Quick release be sure you put on a good glove and turn, you know, like a hot hot pad glove It'll take one to two minutes You can you can do the quick release on steam veggies And the nice thing about these instant pots is there are so many people using them that you will find all kinds of tips and tricks on the internet In the case of the instant pot Go ahead go to pinterest and you know look at what they're making On that but don't go to pinterest necessarily if you're going to do your your canning You're not going to hurt yourself with cooking Unless you burn yourself Keep in mind that you need at least a cup of liquid And there will be a fill line inside your instant pot or your your pressure cooker I want to keep under that you have to be especially careful about items that swell like beans will swell up And the classic lore in my house growing up in minnesota as I did One of our relatives was cooking beans left the kitchen had too much beans and water in the pot and the The pressure cooker exploded She wasn't in the kitchen, which was a very good thing And they found beans for years Stuck to the ceiling Stuck to the cupboards You don't want that to happen and the nice thing about today's Pressure cookers is that won't happen Because there are lots of safety features built in So you will have a little button that will fall down At least on my model that tells you that the pressure is down All right, I mentioned the maximum line For pressure cooking the maximum is two-thirds full And you want to be especially cautious as I said With grains beans dried vegetables because those are going to expand and in that case, it's just half full Okay, so in the instant pot or pressure cooker You will have rings and these are used to seal the pot. It's similar to the type of ring you'll have in a pressure canner Now keep this in mind Depending on what you cook You will have scented rings So I've had people tell me that maybe they they were cooking Taco meat or something with spice added and then they you know, you might want to make a cheesecake in there Well, if you want taco scented cheesecake Then use the same ring, but it's best to have a couple rings. That's one sweet one savory They're really inexpensive you could have Several a couple dollars I'll be sure those are installed properly And some people even like to have a couple of pots, you know, so the pot that you set inside and Just because they can take on the flavor too of what you cooked So when you're looking at what to what to cook and you're going to cut up your vegetables, remember that smaller is better Small pieces cook faster um There's more surface area And you can release the pressure and add more items So our standard procedure coming up on St. Patrick's Day since it's March Is to make corned beef and cabbage with potatoes and carrots and of course the corned beef Delicious dinner you can make it all in your instant pot And I think we just basically had to cook the meat a bit first add the vegetables and you've got a delicious meal That's all in the same pot. So not a lot to um Not a lot to do. I just found the recipe on the internet So if I made you hungry It's it's good. You can write to me directly and I'm sure I can find that recipe for you All right, what about the difference between the two different types of um multifunction cookers the electric models versus the stovetop So let's say you've got a recipe and you had an instant or a stovetop model Keep in mind that the instant pots operate at a lower pressure range 11.5 pounds per square inch compared to 50 15 on the stove So you want to add 20 to the cooking time? So if you took 10 minutes At that higher pressure on the stovetop model would take 12 in your instant pot So you can make the calculation 20 minutes on the stovetop 24 30 36 So it's it's not too difficult to convert The other nice advantage for using This is that it consumes little electricity Actually consumes less than half of the electricity The electric model compared to the stovetop So you're going to save electricity Um cleaning is really important. You want to clean the edges with a foam brush You know take your time clean these up so they're going to last a long time Remove that silicon silicon seal Um, don't forget to clean all the parts of it the steam release handle the Shield the float valve because you could end up with some other residues lodged in these And that could alter the pressure level and it might not cook the way you want it And if you have a dirty float valve, you know, look again got to learn the names of all your pieces That could be prone to sticking So clean it well Uh, you might find and I've noticed this in our pot at home That the water will cause some stains. What can you do? You can use a non-abrasive scouring cleanser Uh, or you can clean it with a cup of white vinegar Let it rest for five minutes and pour it out and rinse it So vinegar will will bring back that nice clean look Okay, now you want to put it away Again, manufacturer's directions. Mine says don't Don't put the cover on and seal it down. Just lay the cover on top So look at what your particular model is and store it accordingly Do you want this to last a long time? These are a bit of an investment Okay, what if you have a slow cooker recipe and you want it to be in your fast cooker? Well, it's not too hard to actually make a conversion So eight hours on low in your slow cooker or four hours on high Will only take you about a half an hour in the instant pot So a little experimentation again, but if you have a great recipe you love and you don't want to Cook it for eight hours. Try it in your instant pot. That's the typical conversion Okay, here's our answer and I and I do have a A nice resource for you on this because we did a lot of cooking in instant pots and other pressure cookers last summer with dry beans Anytime you're cooking dry beans or grains you want to have some water but not too much The nice part about cooking dry beans in an instant pot is that you can cook them without soaking them first uh, keep in mind that when you soak beans you are removing some of the undigestible sugars that lead to the tendency of beans reputation of causing tooty so um Keep in mind that you might want to soak at first But you do adjust to unsoked beans We always want to rinse dry beans well and use the natural release And another little trick is to spray the liner of the instant pot To prevent the foamy So on our on our website I asked bob Who kindly linked our brand new pressure cooking dry beans publication? Um, these are some tips. I've already mentioned them. I'll just grab a couple We never want to fill the pressure cooker more than a half full Including all your ingredients We have several recipes in this guide. Basically, you just have to put it everything in your pressure cooker And close the lid and cook it for the length of time recommended and you have a delicious chili or bean soup or whatever Some other tricks with beans is that you might want to add Some vegetable oil one to four tablespoons and a little bit of salt and those Two ingredients help the beans keep their shape and also their exterior skin So those are two tricks to just retain the quality. They're still going to taste the same But those will retain that that shape and that integrity So remember that a pound of dry beans which is about two cups makes about six cups of cooked beans So it's a dry beans are Very inexpensive and compared to canned beans Um We'll have much less salt So we're almost done here Food safety remember in this case botulism isn't a concern Um, I talked about delayed cooking. It can be a safety issue And keep in mind that if you're going to delay your cooking Raw protein legumes beans lentils frozen foods. You don't want to leave those out at room temperature more than two hours So if you're going to cook your roast You know, put it in cook it now Don't leave and come back and program it because that could be a safety issue Um, I have watched sometimes late night tv where they have some different devices like this Kind of like an instant pot, but a different brand Even if they say on tv. Yep. Go ahead and pressure can no don't do that The usda has not tested these devices for pressure canning I'm sure somebody is working on the research right now, but currently there is not a safe method to do it So you could use this for you know, the pot itself for boiling water bath canning So, um, just wrapping up Some additional information one one nice thing about this is if you're in the mood to cook You can cook a you know, a large pot of food and then freeze it Always read your recipes twice. You know read them. Make sure you've got all your ingredients and You know, you're all set up put everything in place And if you have dairy that you're going to add like sour cream Add that right before serving or at the very end of cooking And then another piece if you make your meal You can use your instant pot or your Multifunction cooker to keep your food warm up to 10 hours. So that is totally safe So I hope you were able to answer all these questions as I was going through your three advantages Your dry beans and some potential food safety issues Know that this this PowerPoint in pdf form Is on our field of work site And with that I'm going to check if anyone has any questions for me Let's see Okay, uh question here. We're going back to canning a bit What is your experience or thoughts on steam canners? Well, there the research has been done in wisconsin At the extension service in wisconsin. So if you just google wisconsin steam canning They will have barb in our team will have that information available for you And let's see if anyone else has any questions All right, I'm not seeing any does if anyone has a question for me. Please type it in the chat unless bob. I've missed one I don't think so. Brian just popped one in. What's your opinion on making homemade beef or chicken broth in a pressure cooker You could certainly do that Yep, you could definitely Definitely make that that the thing to remember with um A pressure cooker like we've been discussing with the instant pot is that you're not going to have that long prolonged time That allows for development of flavor and in the case of homemade beef broth You're not going to have all that good extraction of those minerals and so on out of the bolens if you're using bolens It would be safe to do but Probably you'd want to just follow directions to make stock like vegetable stock meat stock And you'll get more of that extraction of those flavor compounds and that sort of thing good question If you want to can that you have to pressure can it though All right, I don't see any other questions. So uh, thanks so much for a great presentation. Julia really appreciate it Thank you. Thanks everyone for joining us and join us next week with brian