This blog post summarizes my first time canning experience — you can watch it here on YouTube. I made this strawberry jalapeño jam, which was both straightforward & delicious.
My First Time Canning Was An Experience
Everything always looks so easy when someone else does it, right? Somewhere along the way, I worked up my first time canning experience to be extremely intimidating. Sure, there is plenty to consider when preserving food in jars. There’s always the risk of contamination. In order to prevent dangerous food preserves, there are many steps to sanitizing food & work space along the way. However, as many experienced canners have pointed out, as long as proper precautions are taken, there is nothing to fear. And based on how well our vegetable garden is doing so far, it’s high time I learn.
During my first time canning, I did some things right, and I did a few things wrong. I’m going to focus less on the major steps, since I’m still no expert in jarring. If you want to learn more about home food preservation, there are tons of resources by bloggers & vloggers who can walk you through step by step. Me? I’m just going to tell you what went right & what went awry during my first time canning.
Beginner Food Preservation Successes
Going right in line with my character, I worked up my first time canning to be more complicated than it actually was. By watching YouTube tutorials on how to can, I was able to remember most of the steps without having to reference text. Here are a few of the major wins from my first try at jarring.
- Successful seal on 97% of the jars
- Recipe was delicious & set at a nice consistency
- Easily remembered sterilization steps
I was pretty stoked when all but one of my jars proved to have a successful seal. Even the one wasn’t an issue, as we just popped it in the fridge to eat right away. Surprisingly, my first time canning resulted in a nice thick jam. Typically, I have trouble achieving the proper consistency with my freezer jams. However, the consistency of this strawberry jalapeño jam recipe is perfect. (Could the freshly picked berries have helped?)
Finally, I have to say that it was pretty easy to remember the food safety precaution directions. I’m not sure if it’s because I was over prepared, or if it’s because it’s a simple concept in the first place. However, the decontamination steps for water bath canning were easy to remember.
First Canning Try Failures
While things went pretty well during my first time canning, there were some major hiccups as well. Here are a few things that went totally wrong during my maiden attempt at jarring food.
- Pressure canning shouldn’t be used for making jam
- The order of the pots should be considered
- Pressure canners don’t make good water bath canners
As you probably saw in the YouTube video, initially, I planned on using our new pressure canner to preserve jam. Pressure canning is considered a more complicated, but more “safe” method of canning, since the food reaches a higher temperature. A higher temperature means more bacteria are killed in the process. However, this was a first time canning mistake because pressure canners will also break down the pectin in jams. Pectin is what gives jam its nice, thick consistency. At the risk of having 30 jars of syrup, I decided to skip the pressure canning idea, and go with water bath canning instead.
It’s easy for things to get hectic during the canning process. I made the mistake of placing my water bath in between the pot of jam & my filling station. This meant more transportation of jars & sticky, hot jam liquid. Not a great combination. I chalk this up to a pretty average first time canning mistake, and I think it’ll be much easier from here on out.
Finally, I learned the hard way that pressure canners do not make good water bath canners. The pressure canner has an extremely thick wall, and is larger than many water bath canners. Because of the extra surface area, more heat was escaping than was being retained when I was trying to bring the water to a boil. After waiting for an hour for the water to boil during my first time canning, I loosely threw the lid on, and was finally able to achieve a rolling boil. Still, it took forever to get the thing to start up again any time I’d add or remove jars. I do not recommend using a pressure canner for water bath canning
Canning Lessons Learned
All in all, I don’t think my first time canning was a disaster. It definitely made more of a mess than I expected, and it took much longer than I predicted as well. However, there’s no teacher like just getting your hands dirty and giving it a try. The mistakes I made this time are an easy fix for the next, so I’d call my first time canning an overall success! (I mean, how could 30 jars of delicious strawberry jalapeño jam not be a success?)
What was your first time canning experience like? Was it a disaster, or a total breeze?
Disclaimer: We’re not professionals or experts on this topic, so all we can do is share our own personal experience in hopes that it helps you in your journey! We always recommend consulting with the pros directly.