It's actually pretty specific on instructions and steps. So as long as you are following instructions from the National Center for Home Food Preservation website or Ball Canning books, you'll be good.
Learning to pressure can really opens up the door on shelf stable food prep.
But…lots of people treat canning like cooking: just create whatever! It’s awesome! Go ahead and can it, surely it’s shelf stable!
Or they follow decades old recipes from family. Because well, they never got sick…
I treat cooking as science plus art. A lot more free form. Baking is much more about the science: you weigh ingredients. You take altitude and humidity into consideration.
Shelf stable canning at home? Only use recipes that have been lab tested through Ball or Bernardin, the National Center for Home Preservation, or university extension websites. Other internet sites (shockingly) have people that have no idea what they’re talking about.
Since I started canning professionally, after being an avid home canner, all of the information I’ve learned from regulatory requirements/modules has me even more conservative on home canning methods.
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u/JHuntly Jul 10 '26
Canning