How do you can when the power is out? Fire? Solar?

[sofasurfer]

If the power goes out, permanently, how will you can? Is it difficult to control a pressure canner over a fire? Does a solar parabolic cooker supply enough heat to run a pressure canner? Is there another way?

[Echo2]

I'm in the process of building a double burner rocket stove.

[Echo2]

http://i1277.photobucket.com/albums/y484/echo26c/rocket1_zps3ac512f6.jpg

like this.....but 2....

[jfeatherjohn]

You can on the top of your wood furness/stove.

[gryffynklm]

If you have a gass stove, just light the stove with a match. Use a wood fire or charcoal for water bath canning, If I were to try pressure canning i would have a large enough space cleared for a fire and a hearth for cooking. I would add and remove coals and wood from the fire to the pot and back to control the heat/pressure. Constant monitoring. This would be difficult on a windy rainy day. The rocket stove would probably allow for a much better control of the heat.

If all else fails there is always this option.
https://www.lehmans.com/p-626-wood-fired-water-bath-cannercooker.aspx

[Echo2]

Water bath canning is easy over fire.....pressure canning is only more difficult because you need to adhere to a smaller range of heat.

It is a PITA to move a big heavy pot of liquid on and off the fire.....but if you can control the heat with dampers.....the pressure canning is easy.....other than splitting the wood.

The dual rocket stove I'm building will have a damper system.....for the stated reason.

[intothenew]

These first two, I have never canned over but would not hesitate to try.

A fire hole.

http://photos.smugmug.com/photos/i-dXzn4nj/0/XL/i-dXzn4nj-XL.jpg

Put a tripod with pot hook, or grate, over it. A pot crane would be nice. You can control the burn of course with the amount of fuel, but also by covering/partially covering the inlet with a rock or sod.

http://photos.smugmug.com/photos/i-gH8GGjF/0/L/i-gH8GGjF-L.jpg


You can easily make a fireplace. This one is simply stacked brick. Rock and/or brick and some clay mix and you can make something a little more presentable if you please.

http://photos.smugmug.com/photos/i-cdv67x4/0/XL/i-cdv67x4-XL.jpg

http://photos.smugmug.com/photos/i-5bLc2gb/0/XL/i-5bLc2gb-XL.jpg

But the shiznit, the way I was taught and still operate, is a wood cook stove. It's on the porch, that can be closed in, so that the heat in harvest season is let to the outside.

http://photos.smugmug.com/photos/i-9bc4hDs/0/L/i-9bc4hDs-L.jpg

You can multi task with it also. There's biscuits in the oven.

http://photos.smugmug.com/photos/i-4Z97wMT/0/L/i-4Z97wMT-L.jpg

[KhonHd]

We have a cook stove at the camp. Temperature control is pretty easy, just slide the pot over or away from the hot (fire chamber) area...now I havent tried it with the pressure canners, but I probably will this winter.

[kyratshooter]

Realistically, when it is time to can in most parts of the U.S. it is going to be too hot to crank up the woodstove in the kitchen. Your temps are going to top 150f by 2 in the afternoon if you have 50-75 quarts of veggies that must be canned immidiately.

When the power goes out "premenantly" do what people did for the 150 years they canned before gas and electric were available for home cookstove use, build a dedicated outdoor kitchen.

In the south outdoor cooking was the norm during the summers and the spaces built for outdoor cooking were refered too as the "Summer Kitchen". Stone firepits and outdoor stoves were used generation after generation. My GG-grandmother still had hers outside the kitchen door when I was a kid in the 1950s.

When wood cookstoves became common he trend turned to having the big meal of the day at noon. That was so the women could cook in the morning when it was not as hot. I have also seen wood cookstoves on rock hearths and under specially built shelters in the well shaded back yard just for use in canning and processing food. They were also used for cooking in summer.

I also remember that the folks got up at 4am in the summer just to get their work done before the afternoon heat set in. They were back in bed about dark, so lighting was nt the issue we try to make it as we do our planning.

Those people knew what they were doing and we have lost touch with that technology and the daily rotinue that made life work.

It ain't rocket science.

Intothenew, that wood cookstove is too close to the walls for my comfort level!

[intothenew]

Metal framed, with metal sheeting inside and out (the grey). The only wood is the piece of baseboard trim. Triple wall flu, through a metal exhaust hood, and through a ceramic fireboard box in the roof. Topped with a spark arrestor.

[kyratshooter]

You thought of everythng didn't you?

I have been forced to place fireboard on the walls when the stove was 2-3 feet from the wall on several occasions.

Looking at your instalation that close to the walls scared me.

That is a pretty stove. You don't find nice ones like that aroud much any more.

[intothenew]

It took two to come up with the parts. The cull parts are at the cabin, functional but not near as aesthetic. And, it helps that Martha is a "polisher", of everything.

[Old Professor]

I am in the process of assembling a prophane set up for pressure canning in my garage (which is where we butcher). I bought a three burner cast iron hot plate from Sportsmans Guide, which will let me use two canners at once. I will be watching the Menards sales to find a double deep laundry sink, which I will be able to set over the floor drain with a flexable pipe into the drain and a hose(s) running from the bathroom deep sink for hot water from an on demand electric water heater and cold water from another outlet. I already have a fridge and a chest freezer out in my garage. I have five 6 ft folding tables for "counter space". I also have a electric pizza oven out there for preparing food when we are in a long butchering session.

[hunter63]

Discussed this with DW, as she does the canning, except the hot pepper sauce, and horseradish which I do out side with a hot plate, so as to not "mace" the house....you will only do that once.

She doesn't use a pressure cooker, afraid to death of them after her mother blew one up years ago.

She uses a 'canner' ....a big kettle with racks in it to lift out the jars when hot.....Like this one.
http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y139/hunter63/latest%20down%20loads/img33b_zpsc0f3e24a.jpg

http://www.williams-sonoma.com/products/9660143/?catalogId=41&bnrid=3120901&cm_ven=Google_PLA&cm_cat=Agrarian&cm_pla=Canning_&_Preserving&cm_ite=Multi-Use_Waterbath_Canner_%7C_Williams-Sonoma&srccode=cii_17588969&cpncode=30-132072456-2

Goes by time in boiling water, so any heat source would work, but normally done on a gas stove.

[Cast-Iron]

Water boils at 212 degrees fahrenheit at sea level. If you're attempting to use a pressure cooker/canner at sea level, with 15 PSI, you would reach an internal temperatures of around 250 degrees F. So it stands to reason that any source of heat which can be regulated and exceed that temperature threshhold for the entire duration would work.

[hunter63]

ITW, love the old stove......we use a gas version at "The Place"......our cabin.

Kinda a funny story....neighbors to the east of us, purchased an Amish built cabin, somewhat smaller than ours....and had a wonderful old wood cook stove....so big it took over the middle of the cabin.
Was heavy as heck, they worked their buttes off getting it in the door and such.

Well, seems like it worked good for cooking, but the small fire box took forever to heat up the cabin in the winter, as they figured to use it as a heat source as well.....so froze a couple of times.

Then they worked their buttes off getting it back out and replacing it with a good wood heating stove.

Big stuff doesn't fit in small cabins......
Still love it though, thanks for posting.

[welderguy]

I can remember my Grandma canning in the summer time, under a lean too with an old wood burning stove.