Peach time

[Spike188]

Mom always used the water bath method for canning and that was the method she taught her sons. After searching ads for 6 months. A restaurant closed and put this pressure cooker up for sale a month ago and it lingered on market place. When the seller was contacted the reply was I don't show it because I don't have time. My responce was "That might be why you haven't sold it."

It is a 23 quart pot and uses 3 Quarts of water to do a full cook. It is a masive time and fuel saver of the water bath method. This will allow more time to restore CCI tractors.

That is unless we are eating canned peaches.

[Eugen]

Nice find the canning pot! Something I want to get in to one day.

The peaches, do you can them fully ripe or before that, when they're hard? They must be yummy preserve next winter!

[Gordy]

Thats a good sized pot, BUT 23 gallon ??? It don't look like a half of a 55 Gallon barrel Or are north of the border gallons smaller than south of the border


Gordy

[Spike188]

Nice Catch Gordy, It is 23 quart. I wiil edit post.

Spike

[Spike188]

Eugen, They need to be hard just pre-ripe. The ones last night had soft spots and slow prep down a lot. We trimmed the soft spots to make jam.

[Toolslinger]

I just picked the peaches... First time we actually got any from the "new" tree. It put up a nice bunch 2 years ago, and the week I planned to pick them, they miraculously disappeared. Last year it didn't put up anything for some reason. This year, my aunt and uncle have been across the street all summer, having company up, so I'm thinking their presence has kept the (insert explicative) neighbor from absconding with the harvest...

Probably only 36 total, and they're on the small side, but they are excellent. Just in the nick of time too, since the ancient tree on my uncle's property is way past it's peak, and has just about rotted apart. Haven't had a peach from it in years now...

Never canned any peaches. My mother did chopped and frozen. 10 years from now, I'm going to have to think about the canning when this little tree starts putting up enough to not enjoy fresh. I believe our canning put and rack holds 7 quarts at a time. No pressure cooker, just a giant blue agate pot here...

[Spike188]

Spatterware water bath system has been our standard method for years. The benefits to pressure canning is reduced energy consumption. Only 3 quarts of water are used in pressure canning. With peaches only 5 pounds of pressure is required with cold packed jars. No pre sterilization of the jars and lids required. Starting with warm water in the canner, the boiling and weight dance was reached in under 15 minutes followed by 10 minutes of reduced heat, just enough to keep the 5 pound weight dancing. Cool down for pressure cooker lid opening took another 20 minutes. The first batch of 7 quart took 37 minutes from burner on to burner off including the 10 minutes of reduced simmering heat.

The water bath method took longer to preheat, and 20 minutes of simmering cook time. We did not need to Hot pack the peaches meaning that there was another energy reduction.

The cost of the pressure cooker would have stopped me from switching methods but splitting the purchase with a friend made it more doable. Also hunting for the best buy took 6 months so the cost of the pressure canner was less than 25 cents on the dollar. Home canning is not done for price points. The cost of lids alone pushes home canning cost up.

Processing the first batch of peaches made a convert out of me so I am on the hunt for a second 21 to 23 quart cooker. 16 quart units do not have enough steam head space to maintain even cooking pressure. The 5 pounds pressure required for fruit raises the cook temperature from 212 to 227F.

The instruction and cook time for pressure cooking are readily available on manufactures website.

[Eugen]

How do you know the pressure though? Does the pot have a built in gauge?

[Gordy]

Google "pressure cooker weight valve. If the picture works, this is what I am used to using. Also known as the dancing valve or jiggle valve because how it acts as it releases excess pressure.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlLsP6hPhmI

Grams overloaded a pressure cooker with tough stew meat, the valve plugged and the emergence plug let go 3/4 of the cookers contents ended up on the ceiling and all over the kitchen


Gordy

[Spike188]

Because we were sold peaches that were too ripe for canning, the soft spots were trimmed off to make jam.

1/2 bushel made 7 quarts of canned peaches and 6 1/2 pints of jam plus Merri snagged at least 1 peach and ate it then hid 6 more in the back of the fridge. She is worse than a kid in the cookie dough batter.