Water Bath Canning, Blackberries Part 1 An Outline of the Basics

Water bathing is not difficult and you do not need any specialist equipment.  You can get by with a very deep stockpot, a tea towel or a trivet and some recycled jars and lids. You do however in the long term if you are going to carry on with water bathing need a set of jar lifters for safety reasons.  This will help you manoeuvre the jars in and out of the water bath. The way they are pictured is the way that they are used. Also long term you will need a funnel.

Let me start at the beginning.

This is not all the information associated with water bathing but I think the most relevant.

There are two types of jar you can use for preserving.  The specialist preserving jar which is normally (although not always) a two part lid, with a disc and an outer ring.  These are usually Ball jars or indeed Kilner jars. They are usually more expensive.  There are also Weck jars and Le Parfait jars which use rubber seals.

This is a standard 250ml jam jar/Lug jar.

 or you can recycle jars that you have bought goods in.  Sometimes it is cheaper to use recycled jars as stores like Aldi and Lidl sell jam reasonably cheaply and you get the jam and a free jar.  They in many cases work out cheaper to buy this way.  I use the sauce jars, and generally use new lids on them which you can buy from places like Lakeland in one size but bigger companies like the Jars, Lids and Bottles link here: Jars Lids and Bottles (the ones shown here are Lug jar lids).  These are just a couple of examples from this site.  (this is not an advert for them just showing you what is available).

or Bottle and Jar Company offer different sized lids in different patterns. The choice is yours as to what you use.  Link is here: Bottle and Jar Company

Obviously they also sell jars. There are many other companies who provide these as well.

However the tide has turned in the UK and most people are turning to recycled jars rather than the more expensive two piece jars like Kilner or Ball.  Get friends and family to save any jars that they have for you to have a go if you do not have any jars to start with.

More recently I have been using recycled sauce bottles from well known companies with replacement lids like the ones above.  This might be a good place for you to start with recycled bottles and some new lids.  You can keep the lids from them as well (as long as there is no staining on the underside of the lid) and these lids can be re-boiled to sterilise them in a small pan of water and re-used. You can also buy cheaply with jam or pickles in from other supermarkets as well which makes the jars cheaper overall.

The Process for Bottling/Water Bathing

Cleaning/Sterilising the jars

I tend to sterilise all my jars and bottles before I actually start making my chosen preserve.  There are various ways of doing this.  I tend to sterilise the jars either in the oven or in a pot of water on top of the cooker where the jars can stay submerged until you are ready to pack them with your chosen preserve.  Equally they stay warm in the oven. You can also bung them through a hot cycle in a dish washer. There are other methods than these ones I have mentioned but in common practice these tend to be the most used.

Cleanliness for me is the important thing in any type of preserving as attention to this can stop problems developing later on.

I also add the seals/lids to a pan of water and boil, switch off but keep them on top of the cooker to keep warm in readiness for placing on the jars.

Cold/Raw Packing

In a lot of cases the jars are filled from cold i.e. raw packing fruit into the sterilised jars we will use plums as the example. The plums are halved and stoned and sometimes quartered and then packed into the chosen sterilised jar pushing the fruit down into the jar with the handle of a wooden spoon and spacing and layering the fruit to the shoulders or just below of the jar allowing about an inch from the shoulders to just under the ring marks on the jar.  A lot of fruit will produce extra juice as it is processed and may leak out of the jar; whilst this is not really what we are after it does happen in reality it can affect the seal but we will deal with that further on. Therefore what is called the headspace is important and varies from preserve to preserve.

You can then add cold water, brine if a vegetable or, or a syrup.  Syrups can be different strengths I tend to make a light syrup which consists of 8oz of sugar to 1/2 a pint of boiling water.  Stir until the sugar is dissolved and then add 1/2 pint of cold water to cool this down.  Leave until really cold, so this is perhaps best made the day before you need it and keep it in the fridge only if you are cold/raw packing. The reason for me preferring a syrup with fruit is that it presents and preserves the fruit at its best for quite sometime and at the time I learned to water bathe, it was the preferred way of doing things.  Water is quite acceptable though.

Hot Packing

This is basically where your chosen fruit is heated up to boiling point and then added to hot jars.  I made Strawberry and Rhubarb pie filling the other day and this was boiled up and added to hot jars.

The rule is if you choose to cold/raw pack everything must be cold.

If you are choosing to hot pack everything must be hot.

The reasons behind this are that if you pour hot pie filling or fruit into a stone cold jar you are inviting what is called Thermic shock where the jar will end up shattering.  This is not what we want to achieve.  Equally if you pour cold filling into a hot jar yet again you are leaving the jar open to Thermic shock.

Once the jar has been filled to the correct headspace, you then wipe the top of the jar with a cloth with a little cold white vinegar on it.  The reason for this is that it will remove any stickiness that can stop the two part lid from sealing correctly. I still do it for the Lug jars just to make sure.  You then place the metal disc/seal on top of the jar, and then put on the ring so that it winds down over the seal evenly you turn this until it is finger tight.  For Lug lids you close the lid firmly.

You then put either a trivet or a tea towel into the bottom of your stockpot and space your jars on it around the pan with the jars not touching (thermic shock again).  Add hot water if hot packing and allow about 2 inches above the jars if you can. Equally if cold packing cold water to the same measurement. Once the pan is full, bring to a boil.  You will need a lid on the pan to maintain the temperature.  You only start timing the preserve from the point of boil.

Once the time required has been achieved switch off the pan, and allow the contents to rest for about 10 minutes.  Then remove your hot jars onto a countertop where they will not be disturbed for 24 hours to cool down.  I usually place them on a firm wooden board with a towel on it - yet again to minimise any thermic shock. Sometimes the lids pop as you pop stuff down on the counter at other times it takes a bit longer so leave at least 12 hours for the jars to seal.

You can tell the jars are sealed when the tops go hard and you cannot depress them at all and there is no movement in the seal or lid.  Another way of telling is to put a credit card on top of the lid, and if the middle of the lid does not sit flush with the credit card and dips a bit in the middle then seal has been achieved.

Some recycled jars have a button in the middle of them.  Most lug lids do not have this although the lug lid will not give once sealed as explained above.

With the two part Kilner or Ball lid system.  The seal will go hard and cannot be depressed once sealed.  After the cooling down part the ring is then removed from the jar as you do not store the jars with the rings on as this can create a false seal which can lead to the loss of your preserve.  Once the ring is off you then lift up the jar with your fingers on the rim of the seal (just make sure you have something underneath in case the seal is faulty and pulls away).  If it holds then the contents are safe.  You can then wash your jars to clean them up a bit, let them dry and label.  I usually mark when the preserve was made and also give it a year as a Best before date.  Often homemade preserves keep a lot longer than that and are still more than edible. The Best before date is just a guide for Pantry management more than anything else.

This I think is all the basic information you will need to know about surrounding water bathing.  I have simplified it as best as I can.  Water bathing is usually used for high acid foods - not low acid.  However, it would appear that we can actually water-bathe all foods, without a pressure cooker.  The difference between pressure canned food and water bathed food is that pressure canned food you can eat straight out of the jar, water-bathed food has to be reheated to 100 deg C for 10 minutes before you can cook with it. This is frowned on by a lot of people because of the risk of Botulism which cannot be seen.  However if I understand it correctly the botulism spores (if any) can be neutralised so that they do not cause any harm by the extra processing for 10 minutes at 100 deg C.  This makes the food safe for consumption.  If you would like more information on this there is a private group called Preserving and Canning UK which is on Facebook. This site covers many forms of preserving and the ladies here are exceptionally helpful and encouraging. The choices are down to you basically your kitchen your rules as how you to choose to process things.  However, I would just clarify that lots of European countries have been water bathing and preserving their foods including pates and meats for hundreds of years and they are still using these methods today very successfully.  Please go to the Le Parfait site on the Internet link here: Le Parfait Recipes to have a look at what you could potentially make.  These recipes are all water bathed and they are the most up to date timings for water bathing food and they have been tested on behalf of Le Parfait.  If you follow their procedures you will have no problem.

This is the background information that you will need to have a go.  I may have over-simplified this as there are lots of other bits and bobs if you want to learn more.

Recipe for processing Blackcurrants and also making a syrup two ways will follow on the next post.

Pattypan

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