Ensuring High-Quality Canned Foods (part 1 of 2)

---------- Recipe via Meal-Master (tm) v8.02

Title: Ensuring High-Quality Canned Foods (part 1 of 2)
Categories: Canning, Information
Yield: 1 guide


Begin with good-quality fresh foods suitable for canning. Quality varies
among varieties of fruits and vegetables. Many county Extension offices
can recommend varieties best suited for canning. Examine food carefully
for freshness and wholesomeness. Discard diseased and moldy food. Trim
small diseased lesions or spots from food.

Can fruits and vegetables picked from your garden or purchased from
nearby producers when the products are at their peak of quality-within 6
to 12 hours after harvest for most vegetables. For best quality,
apricots, nectarines, peaches, pears, and plums should be ripened 1 or
more days between harvest and canning. If you must delay the canning of
other fresh produce, keep it in a shady, cool place.

Fresh home-slaughtered red meats and poultry should be chilled and
canned without delay. Do not can meat from sickly or diseased animals.
Ice fish and seafoods after harvest, eviscerate immediately and can them
within 2 days.

Maintaining Color and Flavor in Canned Food

To maintain good natural color and flavor in stored canned food, you
must:

* Remove oxygen from food tissues and jars,
* Quickly destroy the food enzymes,
* Obtain high jar vacuums and airtight jar seals.

Follow these guidelines to ensure that your canned foods retain optimum
colors and flavors during processing and storage:

* Use only high-quality foods which are at the proper maturity and are
free of diseases and bruises.

* Use the hot-pack method, especially with acid foods to be processed
in boiling water

* Don't unnecessarily expose prepared foods to air. Can them as soon as
possible.

* While preparing a canner load of jars, keep peeled, halved,
quartered, sliced, or diced apples, apricots, nectarines, peaches, and
pears in a solution of 3 grams (3,000 milligrams) ascorbic acid to 1
gallon of cold water. This procedure is also useful in maintaining the
natural color of mushrooms and potatoes, and for preventing stem-end
discoloration in cherries and grapes. You can get ascorbic acid in
several forms:

** Pure powdered form--seasonally available among canners' supplies
in supermarkets. One level teaspoon of pure powder weighs about 3
grams. Use 1 teaspoon per gallon of water as a treatment solution.

** Vitamin C tablets--economical and available year-round in many
stores. Buy 500-milligram tablets; crush and dissolve six tablets per
gallon of water as a treatment solution.

** Commercially prepared mixes of ascorbic and citric
acid--seasonally available among canners' supplies in
supermarkets. Sometimes citric acid powder is sold in
supermarkets, but it is less effective in controlling
discoloration. If you choose to use these products, follow the
manufacturer's directions.

* Fill hot foods into jars and adjust headspace as specified in recipes.

* Tighten screw bands securely, but if you are especially strong, not
as tightly as possible.

* Process and cool jars.

* Store the jars in a relatively cool, dark place, preferably between
50 degrees and 70 degrees F.

* Can no more food than you will use within a year.

===========================================================
* USDA Agriculture Information Bulletin No. 539 (rev. 1994)
* Meal-Master format courtesy of Karen Mintzias

-----