Home canning is very small scale in the UK. People might do a few small pots of jam, or a few pickled things such as pickled onions. But it is not practised on the same scale, depth and breadth-wise, as is encountered in North America. For one, people don’t have the storage space. Homes are smaller, and basements are rare. Consequently, even bulk food stores are rare (though you may see a grocery store offering a bin or two of bulk candy from time to time.)
Home preserving in jars in the UK is usually called just “bottling”, because that’s all it is: just placing food in a bottle — there is typically no subsequent actual canning process.
If you are set in your ways and have no intention of learning about the newer, safer way to do it, then you might just as well skip this page unless you get frissons of joy from being outraged.
But, and here’s the kicker: the new, safer way of “bottling” actually gives you a better quality food product, is less work and uses less cooking fuel. Click here if you just want that summary.
See also: Review of Home Preservation of Fruit and Vegetables, 1989 (UK), Resources for Home Preserving in the United Kingdom
- 1 How did current practice in the UK come about?
- 2 Change in practice will be slow
- 3 4. Opinion trumping fact
-
4
Some typical questions that British home canners ask
- 4.1 1. What is processing a jar and does that apply to me in the UK?
- 4.2 2. What about sealing with wax?
- 4.3 3. Why is sticking food in a bottle and just whacking a lid on unsafe?
- 4.4 4. Surely all the sugar is enough of a preservative?
- 4.5 5. What is the danger?
- 4.6 6. Many people get “24-hour flu” and never realize it’s from a simple bottle of homemade jam
- 4.7 7. I’m okay with taking any “apparent” risk
- 5 The kicker: doing your home canning safely is actually less work
- 6 Further reading
How did current practice in the UK come about?
Sterilizing everything all together in the sealed jars saves time, money, energy, worry, and guarantees safety, and improves quality. There’s just no downside here.
During the Second World War, it was American and Canadian home economists who were sent over with much-needed equipment and supplies to cross-train Brits in what was felt to be the best practices of the time for home preserving — practices which are now 80 years old and long since discredited and documented as unsafe and unreliable back in North America. After the war, the practice largely died out in the UK, aside from the odd hobby jam made here and there, and allotmenteers who kept the practice alive here and there.
Whatever home bottling / canning advice there is in the UK now comes from private sources, such as cookbook writers, and TV and radio cooking problems, and the voluntary organization called the Women’s Institute (WI.) There is no government funding or official government studies done into best practices for home canning — perhaps because the practice is for all intents and purposes just an occasional hobby in the UK.
Sterilizing everything all together in the sealed jars saves time, money, energy, worry, guarantees safety, and improves quality. There’s no downside here.
Consequently, the UK sources still base their advice on long-term practice in the country ( a large part of which was reinforced by that ancient Second World War home economics body of knowledge), rather than basing it on modern research-based facts and testing. Just as advancements have been made in dentistry and health since World War Two, advancements have been made in the science of safe food preservation. Many things that people are still being advised to do — such as using sealing wax on jars — would have North American health professionals shaking their heads in disbelief.
The main food bottling technique followed in the UK is the long-discredited one of “open kettle canning”. That is the practice of just putting foods in jars, sticking a lid on and waiting for a seal, with no further processing of the jar done.
When the contents of the jar is a high-acid item such as a fruit jam, many old-time canners would say that the product you are going to get is probably going to be or at least seem okay for a while anyway. But certified, trained professionals in the field today warn that that’s not so.
Bernardin says,
Heat processing of all filled jars of home canned foods is not optional! It is essential to create an adequate hermetic or vacuum seal required for food safety as well as delicious taste and quality. All jars of home canned foods must be heat processed by the appropriate method for the correct time for the food type and jar size. Failure to adequately heat process jars can result in seal failure, food spoilage and substantial health risks.” [1] Bernardin Guide to Home Preserving. Toronto, Canada: Bernardin Ltd. 2013, page 4
Dr Elizabeth Andress, PhD, head of the National Center for Home Food Preservation, warns:
An old out-dated method of canning — the open-kettle method — is now considered unsafe….. . This method results in a very real danger of botulism with low-acid foods or acid foods that experience mould growth.” [2] Andress, Elizabeth L. and Judy A. Harrison. So Easy to Preserve. University of Georgia Cooperative Extension. Bulletin 989. Sixth Edition. 2014. Page 18
In an episode from BBC’s 1993 series “Wartime Garden and Kitchen”, Ruth Mott demonstrated the old method of just “bottling” tomatoes, with no canning process occurring to sterilize the bottles and contents together. When asked how long the tomatoes would keep like that, Ruth answers, “We just have to watch them, really, more than anything.” In another episode, she admits there actually was a lot of spoilage. [3]Wartime Garden and Kitchen, BBC. With Harry Dodson, Ruth Mott, et al. Episode 6. 1993. Start time: 16:23.
Change in practice will be slow
Change in British practice will likely be very slow to come owing to several factors.
1. The nationalistic factor
A great deal of national pride enters the argument. You will see dismissive statements such as, “I am British, and have made jam before. I have never heard of “water bathing” jam, so it should be fine.”
It doesn’t help that it’s largely the Americans who have invested in and come up with the modern research-based recommendations, because at some point the discussion always leaves science and facts far behind and it just becomes a bit of a pissing match (sorry but that is the best phrase) as Brits sputter that at the end of the day, they have no intention of adopting American ways.
In the instance of storing food in jars, however, the science does document the danger of improperly processed home bottled food products.
You can console yourself with knowing that there are some things Brits do that scare Americans — such as not refrigerating their eggs — that actually have solid science behind them: it’s safe for Brits to do that because Brits don’t wash their eggs the way Americans do, removing the protective coating on it.
Brits historically have always been on the alert for better food growing and preservation methods, willing to take any amount of effort to produce and preserve the best quality food in the best way possible, so there’s every reason to be hopeful that especially with the easy cross-exchange and trade of ideas today over the Internet that modern, better methods of home food preservation will gain a foothold as the younger generation displaces the older.
2. The “no one’s died yet” line
Home canning is just not as extensive in the UK as it is in North America. Consequently, sickness and illness outbreaks related to home canning are just not tracked in the UK as they are officially and specifically tracked in North America. Consequently, in the absence of tracking in this area, there is no data set.
In the UK, where the emphasis by far has been on commercially-produced food since the Industrial Revolution, food-related sickness and illness outbreaks are only tracked for commercially canned foods.
Not having heard of anyone getting ill from improperly home preserved food in Britain doesn’t mean anything — as these numbers are just not tracked or documented except in the rare instances that the issue happens to be identified as the big B word (botulism.)
The UK Food Standards agency regards home canning as an uncommon practice in the UK:
…home-canning is also quite an uncommon practice in the UK.” [4] Kirsten Stone, Microbiological Food Safety Branch, Food Safety: Hygiene & Microbiology Division, UK Food Standards Agency to Lisa Rayner. Email. Quoted in: Rayner, Lisa. The Natural Canning Resource Book. The Natural Canning Resource Book. Flagstaff, Arizona: Lifeweaver LLC. 2010. Page 64.
According to Moira Brett of the PHLS Central Public Health Laboratory in London,
….home preservation of non-acid foods such as meat, fish, and vegetables by methods other than freezing is actively discouraged and is now rare.” [5] Brett M. Botulism in the United Kingdom. Euro Surveill. 1999;4(1):pii=45. Accessed July 2015
Rare though it is, simply because home food preservation itself is so rare, people have died. Two people died in 1998 from home bottling mushrooms in oil.
(See: Botulism in the UK.)
But less dramatic illnesses owing to improperly processed home preserved food almost certainly also happen. That flu that everyone got at the Boxing Day get together at Aunt Beverley’s? It was actually the improperly home canned red currant jelly that grew mould that was just scraped off before being put out on the table, saying no one would be any the wiser.
3. The Women’s Institute (WI) has always done it this way
The WI, founded in Canada in 1897 [6]”The Women’s Institute (WI), a community-based organisation for women, was founded in Stoney Creek, Ontario, Canada by Adelaide Hoodless in 1897. It then expanded to Britain, and later to other countries.” Women’s Institutes. Wikipedia. Accessed 7 July 2016. , has been making jam in Britain since 1915 according to their records. [7] Updated NFWI advice on the reuse of jam jars. 4 January 2013. Accessed March 2013 at https://www.thewi.org.uk/media-centre2/news-and-events/past-news-and-events/updated-nfwi-advice-on-the-reuse-of-jam-jars
However, there are so many areas of health and food preparation and storage from 1915 that we wouldn’t dream of following now because they have been proven by science to be unsafe or dangerous. Food preservation is one of them.
Don’t use old books as your guides. Storing food in jars is a relatively modern art as far as human history goes, and we are still figuring it out, so what we know about it is still being updated — we know more now than they did in 1842 when the Kilner Jar company was founded, and if the Victorians and Edwardians had access to what we know now, you can bet the canny and prudent Victorians and Edwardians would take full advantage of it to profit by it.
Most WI recipes appear to be safe ingredient wise [8] https://www.thewi.org.uk/what-we-do/recipes/jams-and-other-preserves , but modern research-based science and practice says that they should be requiring water-bath processing for their bottled food products at the end to be safe for shelf-storage.
The trusted home food preservation book, So Easy To Preserve, explains what is wrong with the “open kettle” method still advocated by the WI:
An old out-dated method of canning — the open-kettle method — is now considered unsafe. In this method, foods were heated in a kettle, then poured into jars and a lid was placed on the jar. No processing was done. With this method there was often spoilage, because bacteria, yeasts and moulds that contaminated the food when the jars were filled were not killed by further processing. The growth of these microorganisms, in addition to spoiling the food, often caused lids that did seal to later come unsealed. This method results in a very real danger of botulism with low-acid foods or acid foods that experience mould growth.” [9] Andress, Elizabeth L. and Judy A. Harrison. So Easy to Preserve. University of Georgia Cooperative Extension. Bulletin 989. Sixth Edition. 2014. Page 18
4. Opinion trumping fact
For many people, their opinion trumps fact.
It’s understandable today in the food world, where various researchers race to the press with their latest findings in order to encourage their funders to keep the taps flowing, only for the press to run a contradictory story the following week by competing researchers — with a lazy press never bothering to challenge either. The result is that the term “food science” is rapidly becoming discredited today in some people’s minds.
But, the modern science behind canning / bottling — both home and commercial — is not part of these shenanigans. Yes, it is being refined continually, particularly in the home field. (For instance, adding a small amount of acid such as lemon juice to home-canned / bottled tomatoes has been required since 1994, and no sugar needed pectins for jams are now available.) But it is not part of the swiftly-changing “good for you, bad for you” circus, and shouldn’t be lumped in with that.
And confusingly, the same people who scoff at home canning / bottling safety-advice would never dream of licking a raw chicken from the supermarket, because that safety advice they choose to take seriously.
Some typical questions that British home canners ask
1. What is processing a jar and does that apply to me in the UK?
To process your filled jars means to put the lids on them, and then “cook” the jars either fully submerged in a “water-bath” of boiling water, or, in a pressure canner at temperatures far exceeding the boiling point.
Many Brits starting to research home canning on the web are startled to learn that there’s even such as thing as processing your jars, and want to know if it’s just an American peculiarity.
The Australian national system (Fowler’s Vacola) and the German Weck jar system have both for over 100 years required a hot water bath process. All Canadian government advice since after the Second World War has required jars to be processed.
Kilner’s advice about water bathing appears to be either conflicting, or, in transition. Kilner says that water bath processing is only absolutely necessary if you are using their “clip top” (aka bail-type) jars (because they won’t seal otherwise), though their site shows their screw top lids being water bath processed as well.
It’s possible that safety concerns are starting to sway them. Much of their language is now taken from American safety advice, such as “Now your Kilner jars are closed you need to leave them to cool for 24 hours untouched. After the 24 hour cooling period you need to check your Kilner jars to make sure an airtight seal has formed….. If the lid moves, an airtight seal has not formed and you must reprocess your Kilner jars or eat the contents immediately.”
As of January 2014 (if not before), it might be that someone at Kilner is now calling for water bathing preserves including jams. See this video, particularly the mention of processing the Kilner jars as being important [at 2:03.]
Note though that as of summer 2016, other advice including recipe directions on the Kilner site still leaves out processing the jars.
Please note that water-bath processing only applies to low pH foods such as jams, jellies, conserves, relishes, chutneys, pickles, tomatoes (with added lemon juice for safety) etc, which is most of the preserving done in jars in the UK currently. Other food products such as soups, meat, plain vegetables etc must be processed in a pressure canner, no exceptions.
If your mind is still open to at least hearing the science behind why processing of filled jars is vital, here is the research:
D’sa, Elaine M. and Elizabeth L. Andress. Heat Processing of Home-canned Foods. National Center for Home Food Preservation. 22 December 2005. (Link valid as of May 2015.)
2. What about sealing with wax?
Modern research has led to a strong recommendation against using wax as a sealing mechanism:
“Because of possible mold contamination, paraffin or wax seals are no longer recommended for any sweet spread, including jellies. To prevent growth of molds and loss of good flavor or color, fill products hot into sterile Mason jars, leaving ¼-inch headspace, seal with self-sealing lids, and process 5 minutes in a boiling-water canner. Correct process time at higher elevations by adding 1 additional minute per 1,000 ft above sea level. If unsterile jars are used, the filled jars should be processed 10 minutes. Use of sterile jars is preferred, especially when fruits are low in pectin, since the added 5-minute process time may cause weak gels.”[10]”Complete Guide to Home Canning,” Agriculture Information Bulletin No. 539, USDA, revised 2015.
3. Why is sticking food in a bottle and just whacking a lid on unsafe?
The official term for this is “Open Kettle Canning.” It refers to just pre-cooking in a big open pot that people called a “kettle”, then just whacking the food stuff into a hot pre-sterilized jar, slapping a lid on, and if a seal happens, calling it job done. (It is an obscure term, to be sure, that no one understands.)
The process has been discredited by government home canning officials in North America since just after the end of World War Two, and discouraged, then finally officially recommended firmly against since 1989 as the evidence-based research and statistics of illness rolled in.
The fallacy in the logic is in the thinking that because the food was well and truly cooked and then put into clean jars, that you have a sterilized bottled product when you put the lid on.
The temperatures obtained in open kettle canning are not always necessarily high enough to destroy all spoilage and food poisoning organisms that may be in the food, depending on the food product. Also, microorganisms can enter the food when it is transferred from the kettle to jar and cause spoilage. They may also be floating by in the air that gets sealed into the jar when the lid is put on. There, the micro-organisms have a safe moist environment with lots of tasty food to begin flourishing. And remember, mould is not always of the visible kind.
Just because a seal on the jar is obtained does not indicate that a canned product is safe. A seal indicates that new contaminants cannot get in, but it tells you nothing about the presence of microorganisms (mould, yeast, bacteria) that snuck into the jar as the lid was lowered on it. Heat from a proper canning process is needed to make sure any microorganisms in the jar of food are killed.
The authors of Putting Food By say,
Mold is one of the leaders in the air-borne danger brigade, and it can settle on the underside of a canning lid and grow. In the process of growing it can metabolize the safe margin of acid just enough to allow surviving C. botulinum spores to develop and throw off their wicked toxin. So your jar of supposedly “safe” open-kettle-canned tomatoes—or dill pickles or jams or condiments or pears or peaches, all of which traditionally have been regarded as strong-acid enough to be protected—may contain a deadly threat. And aside from botulism, there could be mycotoxins from mold itself.” [11] Hertzberg, Ruth; Greene, Janet; Vaughan, Beatrice (2010-05-25). Putting Food By: Fifth Edition (pp. 60-61). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
The USDA Food Safety Information says,
Yes, molds can thrive in high-acid foods like jams, jellies, pickles, fruit, and tomatoes. But these microscopic fungi are easily destroyed by heat processing high-acid foods at a temperature of 212 °F [100 c] in a boiling water canner for the recommended length of time.” [12] USDA Food Safety Information. Molds on Food: Are They Dangerous? August 2013. Accessed March 2015 at https://www.fsis.usda.gov/wps/wcm/connect/a87cdc2c-6ddd-49f0-bd1f-393086742e68/Molds_on_Food.pdf
What can survive high acidity in an unprocessed jar? Well, e-coli, listeria and salmonella are a few examples.
“While these pathogens [Escherichia coli O157:H7, Salmonella enterica, Listeria monocytogenes and other pathogenic bacteria] do not grow in acidified vegetables, they may survive long enough to cause disease. The infectious dose for E. coli O157:H7 may be as low as one to ten cells. For this reason, acidified vegetables must be processed to assure a five log reduction in acid resistant pathogenic bacteria….E. coli O157:H7 has been found to be the most acid resistant pathogen of concern for these products….The research done here documents how innocuous items such as pickled onions could hold E. coli that aren’t immediately killed by the vinegar, and what must be done to ensure its destruction.” [13] Bredit, Frederick, et al. Use of Linear Models for Thermal Processing of Acidified Foods. In: Food Protection Trends, Vol. 30, No. 5, 2010. Pages 268–272. Accessed March 2015.
Ever got Delhi belly after eating someone’s home preserves and wonder where on earth you could have picked it up? You may have been lucky.
Here’s some further reading about the dangers of the Open Kettle Canning that is practised in the UK, if you aren’t leaping out of your jar with outrage just yet:
Penn State Extension. Avoid … Open Kettle or Oven Canning. 29 Mary 2014. (Link valid as of May 2015)
4. Surely all the sugar is enough of a preservative?
Do not rely on sugar to make your product safe.
Sugar has anti-spoilage properties quality-wise but don’t rely on it to keep food safe health-wise. Its primary purpose in canning is taste, and thickening (for instance, by interacting with pectin in jams), as well as maintaining texture and coloration.
“Despite the high-acid content of fruit and the large quantities of sugar that are used to make jellied products, mold growth often occurs on the top.” [14] Boyer, Renee R. and Julie McKinney. Boiling Water Bath Canning: Including Jams, Jellies, and Pickled Products. Virginia Cooperative Extension. Pub No. 348-594. 2013. Page 12. Accessed March 2015 at https://pubs.ext.vt.edu/348/348-594/348-594_pdf.pdf
Only in a few, very rare recipes and instances is sugar used in such extreme quantities as to actually deny water activity to bacteria and thus make a product safe in its own right.
Don’t assume that sugar / vinegar / pre-sterilized jars is a good enough preservative. Assumptions can be dangerous, and doubly so if they are stubbornly held in the face of research-based science that has already proven them wrong.
“Even though sugar helps preserve jellies and jams, molds can grow on the surface of these products. Research now indicates that the mold which people usually scrape off the surface of jellies may not be as harmless as it seems. Mycotoxins have been found in some jars of jelly having surface mold growth. Mycotoxins are known to cause cancer in animals; their effects on humans are still being researched.” [15]”Complete Guide to Home Canning,” Agriculture Information Bulletin No. 539, USDA, revised 2015.
5. What is the danger?
Basically, you can presume that many jars of home preserved products have botulism spores in them, but the botulism is unable to cause any harm because of the low pH (aka high acidic level) of the products.
Moulds in the jars, seen and unseen, can raise the pH of your jam or pickle above the pH safety level of 4.6, allowing botulism spores to finally spring to life, producing their deadly toxins as a byproduct. Mould spores, which live in the millions in the air between the filled jar and the lid you are about to put on the jar, are killed off in the jar during heat processing of the jar.
The authors of Putting Food By explain what happened to one family when mould spores in a jar of tomato weren’t killed off by heat processing of the jar:
…early in 1974 there were two deaths from botulism poisoning traced directly to home-canned tomatoes and tomato juice…. Meanwhile the public health officers discovered what actually allowed the spores of C. botulinum to make the toxin that killed the victims. Common bacteria or molds grew in the food in the jars and thereby reduced the acidity because the natural acid in the tomatoes was metabolized by the micro-organisms as they grew and developed. It was established after compassionate, but thorough, investigation that these bacteria or molds survived either because the tomatoes were canned by the discredited open-kettle method, or entered under the lid of a jar that wasn’t adequately sealed. Inadequate processing is virtually always the cause of food poisoning that develops during shelf life.” [16] Hertzberg, Ruth; Greene, Janet; Vaughan, Beatrice (2010-05-25). Putting Food By: Fifth Edition (p. 119-120). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Above all, remember: “It is not safe to remove the mould and eat the food, because certain types of mould reduce the acidity to a point where botulinus spores may develop.” [17] Cameron, Janet L. and Mary L. Thompson. Canning for the Home. Bulletin No. 128. Virginia Agricultural and Mechanical College and Polytechnic Institute and the United States Department of Agriculture, Cooperating Extension Division. Revised June 1944. Page 5.
The Virginia Cooperative Extension says,
“Recent recommendations from the USDA say that products that contain mold growth should be discarded. Mycotoxins, which are chemical substances produced by molds during growth, are known to cause cancer in animals.” [18] Boyer, Renee R. and Julie McKinney. Boiling Water Bath Canning: Including Jams, Jellies, and Pickled Products. Virginia Cooperative Extension. Pub No. 348-594. 2013. Page 12. Accessed March 2015 at https://pubs.ext.vt.edu/348/348-594/348-594_pdf.pdf
6. Many people get “24-hour flu” and never realize it’s from a simple bottle of homemade jam
While the “B word” is the most deadly that can happen, it’s actually other milder nasties that are far more common. Many people often get a “gippy tummy” for reasons that they can’t fathom, and attribute it to a “24-hour flu”. However, there’s actually no such thing as 24-hour flu: it’s food poisoning.
Some of the more common pathogens in improperly processed home canned foods can include Staph. aureus, Clostridium perfringens, C. botulinum, Campylobacter, Listeria, Bacillus cereus, E. coli, and Vibrio (parahaemolyticus).
Of these, the most common apparently is E. coli:
“The primary public health concern associated with …. with acid or acidified canned foods the threat to public health is from Escherichia coli O157:H7 (Breidt et al. 2010) or Listeria monocytogenes (Breidt et al. 2014).” [19] Etzel, M. R., Willmore, P. and Ingham, B. H. (2014), Heat penetration and thermocouple location in home canning. Food Science & Nutrition. doi: 10.1002/fsn3.185. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/fsn3.185/full
Some people’s bodies might be able to process the pathogens without incident, if they are healthy adults, or just get a bit of “Delhi Belly” or think they had a mild case of the flu, but for people are have comprised or weak immune systems (older people, children, people on chemo, etc), it could be very dangerous.
These other nasties are all dealt with handily by simply processing your filled jar.
7. I’m okay with taking any “apparent” risk
That’s your decision. Your body, your safety choice.
However, you don’t have the right to impose that risk on others. Consume improperly canned food yourself and don’t feed it to anyone else. The open kettle / “just bottling” method has been proven decades ago in labs to be not safe.
Here’s a quote from a discussion group about assuming home canning risks:
I simply won’t take the chance with myself, my loved ones or friends I gift my home canned foods to, by giving them home products canned with questionable outdated methods. I can’t imagine how anyone might feel that gifted that one jar that carried botulism spores not destroyed during processing. It’s just not worth it….I too, jarred up jellies with wax years ago and scooped out the mold. Now, I process them in a hot water bath. It’s just safer as well as not messing with hot wax and it looks better. I also feel better about gifting it for the holidays.” [20] User Rosey. Comment posted on 11 October 2013. Accessed March 2015 at https://www.hillbillyhousewife.com/oven-canning-method.htm/comment-page-4#comment-45764
The kicker: doing your home canning safely is actually less work
It’s actually less work for you to water bath process your filled jars than to do it the old unsafe way.
The Killner company still advises the old way (with and without a water bath), which is that you sterilize your jars first for 10 minutes, then separately sterilize your lids for 10 minutes in another pot.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4l9X3KUC-cg
Up-to-date lab-based research, and official, government-backed advice based on this research, has some good news for you: NEITHER of those steps is necessary anymore for anything being processed in a hot water bath for 10 minutes or more (or being pressure canned): the sterilization will happen anyway as part of the processing.
So instead of spending time futzing to sterilize the lids and jars, separately, it’s actually less work to do it the right way, and sterilize everything all together as a whole at the end of the process. You’re just shifting that sterilization work to the end of the process and saving some futzing while you’re at it.
It saves money, it saves time, it reduces your carbon footprint, it guarantees safety, and it delivers better food quality — who in their right mind would object?
And wax tops and wax sealers? Completely unsafe. But it was such a messy process anyway, who would miss it? Use the 2-piece Mason jar lids instead for ease and safety, as sold by Kilner (their preserving line), Leifheit, le Parfait Famillia Wiss, or Ball.
The science is clear, and it’s less work. Now go away and mutter about how the WI still does it the old way and no one’s been killed yet (that you’ve heard of personally) and you’ll be darned if you’ll let foreigners suggest how Brits should do things — after all, everyone knows the natural order is the other way round!
But think about it — it’s less futzing, it’s safer, and it gives a higher-quality product. And, again: It. Is. Less. Futzing.
Further reading
Resources for Home Preserving in the United Kingdom
References
OldGreyBeard
One of the problems with US home food preservation books is that the recipes are not all appropriate for the UK whilst the British recipes are fine even if the techniques aren’t always. You could use the British recipes with US methods but this hits the other problem: the need to use preserving jars. These are far too expensive to use for jams, chutneys, pickles etc. Even the metal lids cost £0.75 each in volumes of a dozen. A dozen jam jars with single piece lids cost £0.62 each or are free if you reuse them. New lids cost £0.20 each if you buy 100. The problem is that even if you use metal lids instead of the wax disc & cellophane I’m not convinced that these are suitable for waterbath canning. They are designed for single use and then off to the bottlebank to be recycled. Would they break under the repeated stress?
The cellophane and wax seals can easily lead to mouldy jam and yes I did used to scrape off the mould and eat it anyway but I haven’t done that for years as it doesn’t happen with metal lids. We did many things differently thirty years ago.
I do tend to reuse jar lids which were just used for jam… I doubt that anyone has used paraffin wax to seal jars for decades. Most if not all home made jam, jellies & chutneys I’ve seen uses jam jars with single piece metal lids. The wax discs & cellophane covers are still readily available but I’ve rarely used them because they’re rubbish.
Fruit bottling is another kettle of fish.
Firstly, the cost of jars:
Ball Mason Glass Wide Mouth Screw Top Jar 490ml (x4): £12.76 for four £3.19 each – special offer
Lids: £6.90 for 12 = £0.58 each
Kilner 0.25L £2.50 for one
Lids £8.50 for 12 = £0.71 each
i.e. expensive. But why?
I do have a lot of vintage Kilner jars which were inherited or bought at car boots, charity shops and local auctions. These are made of thicker glass than the modern Kilner jars and still work fine. The rubber sealing rings or lids and some other spare parts are still available. https://preservingjarparts.co.uk/
There have been four major styles of Kilner jar over the years. The disc lid style was produced between 1969 and 1978 so wasn’t available in 1989 when the book was published. These had a larger lid compared to the modern ones. Leifheit lids & rings are compatible with them.
Now the cost of kit. You can now buy a hot water bath canner in the UK.. https://www.lovejars.co.uk/shop/catalogue/jam-making-equipment/ It’s made by Tom Press and costs £189.90. They are a French company and offer a wider range on their own website but that would mean importing from France which has become a great deal more expensive and difficult recently. You can also buy a pressure canner. The Presto 23 Quart pressure canner 01781 and it costs £309. You can buy an awful lot of commercially canned fruit & vegetables for the price of this kit
You can see why keeping costs down is emphasised so much and that’s before you think about fuel.
One problem with the US guidance is that it doesn’t include some produce which is commonplace here e.g. rhubarb, and it does include things we can’t grow like peaches.
Pressure canners are not easy to find in the UK and never have been.
The Government funded research establishment that produced home food preservation advice was commercialised and privatised in the 1980s along with many other such establishments. These now focus entirely on money earning work for commercial clients. Who would pay for independent updates? The Government wouldn’t.
The only solution is to rely on the USA, again, as in so many other things. This is rather annoying but what can you do? Risk food poisoning? Gain comfort by wrapping myself in the Union flag whilst vomiting? The UK hasn’t invested in the guidance but relied on 90+ year old research and lack of interest in the subject to keep people safe. The US has invested and the USDA has made their canning guide available to all for free (those lovely people) on the web and of course there are the US books available for mailorder. There is also the guidance from various local extension programmes available on Youtube and websites. To ignore the US advances doesn’t make sense.
When I started looking into this a couple of years ago I got thoroughly confused about the different guidance. I did make mincemeat (page 101 from “Home / Learning resources for home canning”) for Xmas 2019, which as you may observe isn’t processed at all, and so I haven’t dared eat it!
The only sensible thing to do is to take the US methods and adapt them to UK conditions i.e. the types of produce and the cost of jars.
Harbinder
I have recently been making and testing my chilli and tomato relishes cooked in oil, spices and vinegar and then sealed in hot jars which are first washed either in dishwasher or in hot soapy water before going into the oven to ensure they remain hot up to the time I am ready to fill them and which after filling are sealed, with lids that are also hot, and left inverted until cold. Just before sealing I top up the relishes with 1tsp of oil before sealing. Should I be ‘water bathing’ them even if they have been cooked down in oil? There seems to be very little information as regards relishes/chutneys cooked in oil. I also saw a YouTube video jars being steamed in a pan like steamer with a lid, an alternative to ‘bathing’ or boiling. Any information would be greatly appreciated.
Regards
Healthy Canning
Hi Harbinder, the oil has zero preservative or safety effect in this context. See: https://www.healthycanning.com/home-preserves-jars-must-processed/
OldGreyBeard
Stupid question time from the UK: Why is home canning so popular in the USA? Why don’t you simply freeze the stuff instead? Is the electricity supply too unreliable (in which case why not buy a standby generator) or do you just have more fruit & veg than would fit in your much bigger freezers? This doesn’t include jams, chutneys etc, just fruit & veg that can be frozen.
Jam, chutney & pickle making are popular in the UK but fruit bottling isn’t. It was replaced by home freezing in the 1970s. Pressure canning is almost unknown. We just freeze fruit & veg. There is no equivalent to the USDA guidance i.e. up to date with a support network. The most detailed guidance is from 1989 in the HMSO (i.e. UK Government) publication “Home Preservation of Fruit & Vegetables” and this is based on much earlier research. It’s reviewed, not favourably, elsewhere on this website.
A Canning Fan
I’m from the U.S. and I know this is old, but perhaps someone else will wonder the same thing. First, much of the U.S. has very hard winters. Like, brutal in some places. After WW2, people still had gardens and needed to store their food. This was the generation scarred by the Great Depression. Plus, it was popular in rural areas with a lot of poverty and land to grow things on. Until the late 60s, much of rural America didn’t have electricity. President Lyndon Johnson’s Rural Electrification brought electricity to my great aunt’s farm and many others like hers. Before that, no freezers. The only way you had to store things was drying, root cellaring, and canning.
Home canning became cool again with the back-to-the-landers in the 60s. They were the hippies who wanted to buy a farm and live off the land. It sort of fell out of favor, with it happening in the background until the 2000s, when millennials got into it again. Then, during the pandemic shutdown it became popular again.
We have more land, bigger houses, and more storage space than in Britain. It has been in the background, culturally, in the U.S. since canning was invented. It goes in and out of ‘cool’ but chances are, everyone knows someone who cans stuff.
OldGreyBeard
In the UK it is now possible to buy replacement lids at reasonable prices for most of the sizes of jar that jams and chutneys are sold in. Kilner, Le Parfait, Mason etc jars are all far too expensive and even just the sealing disc on its own is more expensive than new jam jars. Thus I use a lot of reused jam jars for jams and chutneys. I do have quite a lot of Kilner jars and these are used for fruit.
It is more economically viable to use the larger Kilner jars for jams etc but its not ideal to have a massive jar of jam or marmalade in the fridge.
I really don’t understand why the jars are so expensive. Is it simply that so many more are sold in the USA? You would have thought that the EU would be a massive market as well.
Jessica Gallagher
Can sanitation be done in a 212 degree oven for a certain amount of time after filling jars rather than boiling or pressure canning? I’ve seen a certain UK based famous baker recommending this as recently as a year ago
Healthy Canning
No. That method is unsafe and unwise for several reasons. https://www.healthycanning.com/oven-canning/ The sheer volume of bunk home bottling advice that gets passed around in the UK these days is infuriating.
Emmie Norfolk
Please can someone advise if it is safe to ‘bottle’ (using the 10 minute boiling method) a hot fudge sauce that contains real dairy cream and butter? I’m getting conflicting info when I Google this. And if so, how long will it be okay for?
Another question is using newly Jam Jars and lids that are not 2 piece lids, but pop down when sealed. (Like supplied from https://www.waresofknutsford.co.uk/) Are these safe?
Healthy Canning
No, it’s not safe to can that sauce, freeze it.
Re the one-piece lids. In North America, the current recommendation is to prefer 2 piece lids. They are easy to use and easy to tell if you have a successful seal In North America, such lids are cheap and abundant. Outside North America, not so much.
So what are people outside North America who want to can safely supposed to do, who can’t get those two-piece lids at a realistic price, or at all? A highly respected canning authority, “So Easy to Preserve” says that ultimately, it’s not so much about the closure system used on the jar, but rather were proper canning (sterilizing) techniques used.
“Some of these jars have one-piece or other types of lid systems that may or may not offer the same type of air venting and sealing success as the two-piece metal lid system….. As long as the proper jar type, size and shape is used with properly researched canning procedures, the lid choice itself (e.g. two-piece metal, plastic or one-piece metal lids) does not affect the microbiological safety of the canning process. The issues become ease of use, success in sealing and maintenance of vacuum and food quality during storage.” Andress, Elizabeth L. and Judy A. Harrison. So Easy to Preserve. University of Georgia Cooperative Extension. Bulletin 989. Sixth Edition. 2014. Page 24.
So, while the one-piece lid may not be as satisfactory in operational terms, the actual critical control factor for safety is: were “properly researched canning procedures” used.
Linda
Great article and a very intresting read! I use a jam maker from Lakeland, it only does small batches but that’s fine for me, I get my jars from them and from Wilko – I wash my jars in the dishwasher and while still hot fill them up, lids on ,then into a deep pan of boiling water for 10 mins, the out and left to go cold – I,m not sure if I,m overdoing it with the boiling water or not. to the lady above about Ball jars – Lakeland sell those too, although sadly not as cheap as our American cousins can get them!
Healthy Canning
You are doing the right thing by processing the jars in the boiling water bath. All jars of preserves should be processed.
Maisie
does this method work if you are recycling jam jars and lids from shop bought jams for instance bonne maman? Or do you have to go through the expense of buying special lids and jars?
Caryn
You generally can’t reuse jar lids because the rubbery stuff inside the edge of the lid is spent and won’t form a good seal a second time, at least not reliably, when hot water bath canning.
Diana Hammond
I hot water can but would love to pressure can as well but cannot afford to ship one from the States. Any idea’s.
Julie
I’ve just emailed lakeland.co.uk and asked them to consider making a pressure canner for the UK market. If enough of us ask them, maybe they’ll do it.
Sue Etherington
A most interesting article. I live in the south of England. I spent many years living in Germany where I witnessed the amazing stores of bottled fruit and veg. An aftermath of the second world war. I have always made jam and marmalade but not bottled anything else. I have three freezers which i use to preserve blanched veg. I really would like to do veg canning/bottling. It seems complicated in that you require special canning equipment in the form of a pressure canning pan. I assume the kilner jars or Mason jars can be reused but not commercial jars. What I would like is a very simple step by step guide for a first canner!
Hermine
Hi,
Honestly, I can not say how happy I am to have found this resource. I have only read the beginning of the article and I am hoocked. I am based in the UK. I was researching the best way of preserving home cooked food. I was also looking into home preserve to sell potentially. To be honest, I started researching it a few years ago but I was put off by the excess sugar/ excess vinegar/ botulism.
So I stumbled into canning processes (water bath / pressure canning method). To be honest the video were fascinating. It’s so foreign in the UK that I could not find a pressure canner any where in the UK. Nevertheless, I couldn’t understand why there were no Brittish sources speaking about canning or bottling…
Thanks for the research, your article is very amazing and really helped me understand the differences to the core. I was considering canning using jam preserve jars (haha) it’s very difficult finding ball or klin jars in the UK. I was going on the basis that all sauces in the UK are in basic preserve jars (typical jam jars).
So I am continuing my research to find the best solution that would be practical and cost effective for me. This article was a big push towards the right direction.
Lastly, I have been making commercial cosmetics for the last 4 years and I discovered earlier on that everything you put on your skin must be tested according to EU regulations. However food recipes do not require any mandatory testing. As a result, there is no extensive research budget to find very safe alternatives.
Big Thank you for your research.
kris
I can’t believe this is true! What’s wrong with people? I’m a Brit and I’ve been boiling jars of food for many years. I didn’t know that people in the UK just put stuff in jars and stored it.
OldGreyBeard
Parts of this blog are fair and others less so. I’m not outraged by this at all, I just think it’s giving an incomplete view. Let’s start with the title.
Safety is a spectrum from risk free to lethal. I don’t think it’s fair to safe that the old British method is known to be unsafe. It’s more accurate to say that it is riskier than it was thought to be.
Whether home canning is small scale in the UK I really don’t know. It’s certainly true that making of jams, pickles & chutneys is covered by many modern cookery books and the equipment is readily available. This suggests that at least the making of jams, pickles & chutneys is quite common. Bottling of fruit is in my experience less common. I certainly don’t know anyone else in my town of about 40,000 people who does it. People are far more likely just to freeze stuff as most homes have a freezer.
It is true that British homes are typically smaller than US ones. It’s a matter of land and the number of people. We have about 1/5 of the population of the USA in a land area smaller than many US states. To add to that most of the land is owned by very few people. The biggest landowner near me is a Duke whose family was gifted the land by Henry VIII. It’s not the size of the houses that is the problem it’s the lack of the cool, dry, dark place to store produce. Houses are no longer built with cellars or basements probably because the land costs so much in the first place. All the 19th century houses I’ve lived in including very small ones have had a basement or cellar. None of the 20th Century ones have but often the ones built pre war have had a larder or pantry with tiled of slate shelves. Modern houses don’t have these and are better heated & insulated. People keep food in the fridge or freezer. My house was built in 1880 and has two basement rooms plus built in food cupboards, This was one of the reasons I bought it.
You can buy food in bulk quite easily. We buy 10Kg bags of Basmati rice and you can also get large tins of oil from the supermarket which is a 5 minute walk away. Other stuff is available mail order.
How did current practice in the UK come about?
It is true that during WW2 the USA supplied a lot of home canning equipment (The Dixie can closing machine seems to be the one that appears the most ), thank you very much, but it isn’t true to say that this is what introduced home canning to the UK. We were already doing it using home manufactured equipment . Obviously during WW2 factories were otherwise engaged.
The key publication is “Domestic Preservation of Fruit & Vegetables” which was first published by the UK Government in 1929 based on research by the Long Ashton Research Station which started in 1919. This publication went through five editions before WW2 and included bottling & canning of fruit as well as canning/bottling of vegetables in a pressure cooker. All the editions are available at the British Library. The Library of Congress holds the 1942, 1962, 1966 and 1968 editions. The name was changed from “domestic” to “home” in 1968.
This publication is important because the methods used are often those used in later publications including quite recently published ones. The contents changed over the years with canning of fruit and canning/bottling vegetables being removed in the 1989 14th edition and freezing being added in the 1958. 9th edition.
The final edition (14th) was in 1989. This is basically a metricated version with updating of the language. It was however overseen for techniques by a respected Food Scientist, Prof David Southgate.
Since 1989 as far as I know it is true to say that there has been no government funding or official government studies into the safety of home preservation of food. People, my Mum included, did bottle fruit up to the 1970s but then freezers became much more affordable and it is an easier process. Freezing is the most widespread form of home preservation but people still make jams, pickles & chutneys. Home bottling is more niche.
The techniques for fruit bottling, jam, pickle & chutney making have not changed since the first editions which were based on research which was done between 1919 & 1929. Some of the bottle sealing advice has changed e.g. it no longer suggests using a pig’s bladder to seal jars, but the wax technique is still there. I’ve never used it or seen it used but I have seen it illustrated in a book published in 2018.
When bottling jam the traditional method is to wash the jars in hot soapy water, dry them and then warm in the oven. They are then hot filled and a wax disc (two sizes available) put on wax side down. Then a cellophane cover is applied and held on with a rubber band. This is all based on re-using commercial jam jars. New jars are too expensive whether they are jam jars or Kilner jars. I have a collection of reused commercial jars and Kilner jars. The Kilner jars are a variety of styles dating from pre WW2 to modern. Metal discs & rubber rings are available for all of the Kilner jars and it’s easy to get new lids for the commercial jars compared to even a few years ago. The problem is the cost. The new lid/disc/rubber ring cost about £0.70 each whereas a good commercial jam is around £2.30 for 340g. This is why people re-use jars & use wax discs etc. It’s a matter of cost.
You mentioned the 1993 BBC series “Wartime Garden & Kitchen” and all I can say is the bottling of tomatoes doesn’t sound like it followed the official government guidance! I have seen a Kilner jar of rhubarb dated 1940 in Beccles museum which looked fine.
I have bottled fruit using the slow water bath method which raises the temperature to about 88C over an hour and then keeps it there for a specified number of minutes. It varies by fruit. This is a fiddly technique even with a thermometer. It would be much easier to just bring the water to the boil. I use a stock pot with a trivet and I’ve also bought an old bottling kettle for a tenner at an auction. Boiling water canners are not that common, at least I’ve never seen them in Lakeland or John Lewis. Boiling water canning is a much easier process and therefore more likely to be done properly.
I have read the USDA guidance and a US Dummies book on food preservation because I’m interested in the subject. The US researchers are obviously very capable and properly resourced so their guidance has to be taken seriously. I’m certainly not one to dismiss something because it’s not British. There is a cultural issue which you touch on which is that “good old fashioned” is a common label of quality and any technique from the war has an almost iconic status. It isn’t always easy to apply the USDA guidance in the UK not least because the fruit & vegetables types differ as well as equipment. The key message is the need to use the highest level of hygiene suggested.
I doubt if I’ll be doing bottling of vegetables. I can freeze those and the electricity supply is very reliable plus a pressure canner is very expensive. I will be taking more care over hygiene. And no, I haven’t ever had food poisoning from home bottled jams, fruit etc.
Healthy Canning
Thank you for taking the time to write a very thoughtful and informative comment, and very well-written, too.
I wanted to get back to you on a couple very minor points.
“The key publication is “Domestic Preservation of Fruit & Vegetables” which was first published by the UK Government in 1929… The name was changed from “domestic” to “home” in 1968.” << The first publication date was 1926, and it appears to have been called "Home preservation" right from the start. The date and name were documented by the USDA in 1927 (and in various newspaper reviews). https://gyazo.com/3345978fcce0413c9fc481bd0fc5b958 I wonder if there were another publication called Domestic which started in 1929 — it’s possible, there are many similar sounding titles. The Americans even released a book called “Home Preservation of Fruit*s* and vegetables”, with a S on fruit.
“freezing being added in the 1958.” << It's possible that freezing was not added until 1968. I found two newspaper reviews of the 1968 edition which referred to the freezing section as being newly added to the book. "This publication is important because the methods used are often those used in later publications including quite recently published ones." << It was interesting to find all the methods documented and reviewed in a Long Ashton study from 1953. "I have bottled fruit using the slow water bath method which raises the temperature to about 88C over an hour and then keeps it there for a specified number of minutes. It varies by fruit. This is a fiddly technique even with a thermometer." << The 1953 Long Ashton study documented a high level of shelf spoilage with this "Slow Water Bath Method". I hear anecdotally that it can produce high quality results, but it appears that someone, somewhere, on one side of the Atlantic or the other, needs funding to throw out all the old suggested processing times for it and develop new ones. "Since 1989 as far as I know it is true to say that there has been no government funding or official government studies into the safety of home preservation of food." << So what would be your guess about what era the advice in the 1989 edition actually dates from. I've seen marketing blurbs from 1989 saying that the 1989 book, which I have in front of me, "takes account of the many social and technological changes that have occurred". But you suggest that really it just added metric, and a bit of updated language. I see the exact same processing techniques in it being evaluated by Crang and Sturdy at Long Ashton in 1953, and they discuss the techniques as though they have been extant for some time already. So would you think the book at its core is really still drawing on 1950s, or 1940s or even earlier science? You have a very good point about reusing jam jar lids, and using wax and wax discs, simply because of the cost. The cost of home food preservation supplies certainly is eye-popping in the UK, and the price of a Kilner lid absurd, as you say, especially compared to the price of what you can get a jar of jam or pickles for. We've managed occasionally to get a few boxes of Kilner lids for a couple pounds off now and then in the sales, but that's been rare. The irony is that Kilner production has long been farmed out to China, so in theory that should have resulted in savings that could be passed to the consumer. Will the cost come down if demand increases, or, will demand increase if costs go down? It may be a chicken and the egg thing. You might be interested in our Review of Home Preservation of Fruit and Vegetables.
DOREEN
Your point about the longevity of bottling fruit and veg in the UK strikes a chord, @OldGreybeard. This was all happening in Australia too (I remember being amazed by the shelves of bottled fruit and veg in the kitchen of a farmer we knew. I am certain that it was a continuum of tradition from Britain rather than an import from the USA. There was very little influence from the USA in these parts until it started to drift in during the 1970s with appliances like the Crockpot and various white goods such as freezers and refigerators. This was despite the substantial presence of American troops in Brisbane and in north Queensland.
OldGreyBeard
I have to admit that I am alarmed by this article. I’m British BTW. I use a book called “Home Preservation of Fruit & Vegetables” published in its 14th and last edition by the UK Government in 1989. It doesn’t include water bath processing of jams, pickles etc. In fact the text is very similar to an earlier edition I have from 1968. Another book I have which was published in 2010 doesn’t include water bath processing of jams etc either.
I don’t think the UK Government has put any effort into home preservation techniques for decades. I only know a few people who make jam & no one who bottles fruit. I use the water bath method for processing the jars when bottling fruit, which at least is still safe. I use a variety of mostly inherited or secondhand (from car boot sales or charity shops) Kilner jars with glass lids/rubber rings/metal or plastic screwband or a metal disc lid & screwband. You test for a seal by lifting the jar by the lid with the screwband removed.
I had begun to wonder about some of the techniques, hence why I found your website. Not due to any illness.
I do agree that home made jams that my Mum made did often develop mould on the top! I put that down to the inadequate lids. You didn’t used to be able to get new jam jar lids so you used a waxed paper disc on top of the jam & a cellophane disc stretched over the top of the jar as the lid, held on with a rubber band. Still on sale today.
As for the mouldy jam, we just used to scrape the mould off… It’s a wonder we survived.
dempo
I am also confused. So, how do I do this hot water processing? Do I just submerge the whole jar in boiling water and leave it for 10 minutes, or do I put the large pan on the hob for 10 minutes?
Healthy Canning
For hot water processing, you bring the water to a boil in a pot. Then, you put in the hot, already-filled jars with their lids on. When the water returns to the boil, you start your processing time count. (There are further considerations for high altitude over 1000 feet / 300 metres, but that is rare in the UK unless someone is preserving jam on top of a mountain. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest_points_in_the_United_Kingdom.)
N r k
I’m confused. I don’t home can, but recently I have been following internet American recipes (only highly rated popular ones) such as kimchi and picked red onions. You sterilise the jars in the oven, create the mixture, put it in the jar then store the jar in the fridge. It’s a Kilner jar with the clip mechanism and not an airtight can as far as I know. Is this what you’re talking about or something different? Are the recipes wrong? Should I be doing something different?
Healthy Canning
Oven sterilization of jars is recommended strongly against by all the home-canning expects. Any sterilization that might happen would be oven. And no Mason jars or home food preservation jars are tempered for dry heat, only moist heat, so the risk of the jars exploding is real and does happen in the face of someone attempting to retrieve a jar out of the oven. Sterilize in boiling water instead.
For fermented foods, you would store them in properly sterilized jars, bottles or even plastic canisters as appropriate, and then store those jars in the refrigerator as you would any food. So those recipes are fine, as long as the presumed sterilization method is corrected. There is no canning or bottling process that happens as they are not aiming at a shelf-stable product.
Catherine
This was a very interesting article — I had seen the baffled and defensive comments from Brits on some Facebook canning groups and now I know where they are coming from. (Social history of homemaking is so fascinating and so little attention is paid to it.) In Canada of course it has been a few years since the government concerned itself much with our food storage practices, but we can always hear the loudspeakers from across the border and it’s not hard to go along with the official advice. Especially the part about not sterilizing the jars.
Katharine Glen
I wonder if it is possible to sterilise filled jars in an oven instead of using a water bath? If so, would the lids be closed first as in the water bath method??
Healthy Canning
Oven canning is unsafe. See the article here on oven canning.
James
Hi,
I see you have said that you do not need to ‘sterelise -> fill -> sterelise/process’ and that you can just ‘clean them -> fill them -> sterelise/process them’. Is this right as I thought that the food needed to be poured into a hot jar.
Thanks for the great piece 🙂
James
Healthy Canning
Heat the jars first to avoid the thermal shock of hot food going into cold jars — the thermal shock can weaken or crack the glass. They can be heated in hot water, or in a dishwasher.
Susan in Portugal
Thank you! I just found your article and has answered most of my questions! I am a Brit and live now in northern Portugal and for some years now have wondered about the canning thing that our American friends do!
I promise to do it right and can from now on! But despite saving money and resources by using this method I will regret not being able to reuse my prettier jam jars as most of us have done for years. And I presume I have to do this to my pickled onions etc and my piccalilli too?
A question remains for me though. Here in Portugal we have olive trees, and we jar up and use them to eat. There are a few methods the locals use. Soaking in heavily salted water ie 1kg salt to a litre of water, for about 6 weeks (time depends on texture and flavour…and the local!) Some then rinse them all quickly pop into jars with bay leaves (dried) etc, while others only take them out of the brine, rinsing a smaller amount for immediate use with oil and are consumed within days. Is this safe? What would be the safest way of processing olives?
Thank you so much once again!
Healthy Canning
Have a look on this page, for an excellent free publication on preserving olives safely based on research-based testing: https://ucfoodsafety.ucdavis.edu/UC_Publications/UC_Home_Preservation_and_Storage_Publications/
sheona goodyear
Yesterday I met an old UK friend who has barely survived 5 years’ poisoning with botulism from another family’s home made picked onions and beetroot. The lady and her husband have both died and which led my friend to have to help the authorities diagnose the problem with her as no one could find what was making her so ill!
I am now really worried about about the safety of jam and chutney I have been making for years the same way as my mother following Women’s Institute type methods!
Healthy Canning
That is very tragic, so unnecessary. The safety guidelines have been documented for over half a century now. I hope she is getting the proper treatment now?
It’s somewhat scary too that illness from improper home bottling in the UK is not being documented by health authorities, so that others can realize that bacteria know no border. Thanks for letting us know.
Jackie McAvoy
Hi, this is such an interesting article. One question: the jam should be put in the jars once the setting point has reached. However, if the jars are then to be boiled for 10m doesn’t this affect the jam set?
Healthy Canning
Good question Jackie. No, it doesn’t affect the jam set. That being said, you will as in all things get one or two people who say that it does, but the vast majority of professionals who are very aware that they will hear it about loud and clear if people’s jam doesn’t set say that they detect no difference in jam set by processing the jars. A side bonus in all this is, you get to skip the whole pre-sterilization futzing of jars and lids, as they get sterilized when processing times are 10 mins or over, so you really end up saving time and cooking fuel money. You also get stronger seals on the jars.
Emma
Thank you for this well-written and entertaining article. I am UK based and have been trying to learn about home preserving and there is so much conflicting advice out there, including from sources such as the Kilner website.
This article answers many questions I’ve had (particularly about why the Americans seem to be so much better at this than we are) and has given me the confidence to pursue doing this properly.
Healthy Canning
Thanks Emma, we’re actually just back from England with a load of Kilner stuff, and will soon be writing about doing home-canning with the Kilner 2-piece lid jars, and about other preserving methods (fermenting, dry storage) with their other types of jars. Cheers.
Sensible
Ok. Answer me one question and I’ll accept your points. Why does the UK not have much higher rates of botulism than the US?
Healthy Canning
That question is fair.
The data on incidences of illness related to home canning in the UK is simply not tracked, as it is in Canada and the US. Incidences on how many people got sick from, for example, eating mouldy home-preserved jam, or home smoked fish in a jar, would have to be flagged as such (home food preservation), in order for that data to be rolled up into an actionable data set.
To our knowledge to date, this is not done, perhaps because the UK government doesn’t consider home preserving to be a large enough occurrence in modern British life. “…home-canning is also quite an uncommon practice in the UK” (Kirsten Stone, Microbiological Food Safety Branch, Food Safety: Hygiene & Microbiology Division, UK Food Standards Agency)
If home canning (bottling) were to start becoming more widespread in the UK, and be done with the same old outdated unsafe methods, the Daily Mail would likely have some lurid new tales to mesmerize its front page readers with.
This could also be why home preserving jars are so eye-wateringly expensive in the UK. (In the UK, £13.00 will get you 6 Ball pint jars. In America, for £6.00, you will get 12.) The reason could be that there is just not the widespread demand for them that there is in North America, where home canners will often routinely have at least several hundred in their inventory and still want more.
In the same vein, while bread flour is routinely sold in 10 kg bags for a pittance in the Canada and in the US (in the range of £2.50), in the UK it’s only sold in smaller, much more expensive bags. This is a sign that homebaked bread just isn’t made as much in the UK as it is in North America. If the consumer demand for bread flour did increase in the UK, no doubt the cost of it would go down and the size of the bags would increase as British supermarkets can be very competitive when they need to be. (One of our favourite breadmaker books is actually British: The Ultimate Bread Machine Cookbook, by Jennie Shapter.)
See section 2 for a discussion of this: https://www.healthycanning.com/why-old-british-method-of-bottling-is-unsafe#2-the-8220no-one8217s-died-yet8221-line
Another question might be: how do we persuade a nation of people seduced by instant chiller meals from Tesco’s, bought in BOGOF sales at that, to switch their eating habits and return to some home food preservation? Brits have been used to having so much of their food being commercially produced for close to 150 years now. If they are finding their breadmakers too much work, how do we interest them in bottling / canning?
Alison Collin
Interesting that absolutely no mention is made of “Home Preservation of Fruit and Vegetables” which was a government publication produced by the Ministry of Agriculture/Agriculture and Food Research Council. It was first published in 1929 and my latest version, the fourteenth edition is from 1989, 212 pages. Extensive scientific research was conducted in the different methods of preserving techniques. The book includes a lot of information regarding the interaction of pectin, acid and sugar in jam making, as well as techniques of canning with metal cans.
Nowhere in these books is “Open Kettle” method advocated for bottling (canning) of fruits. To be sure the methods described include two methods of Oven Canning, Quick Water Bath Method and Slow Water Bath, along with instructions for Pressure Bottling of Vegetables. My grandmother, mother and I always bottled fruit but would never have used the Open Kettle method for that, nor would any of our friends or relatives. We always processed bottles somehow, albeit in the oven.
It does however consider Open Kettle method for jams to be adequate (and still describes covering jams with waxed discs and cellophane).
I think that many of the mysterious British techniques that you mention may have originated in these books. For example they speak of the Slow Water Bath method, which is a cold pack where you raise the temperature of cold fruit and syrup in jars over a period of 90 minutes to the processing temperature which varies according to fruit type – 180degrees for plums- and then hold it for 15 minutes. I did this once and had the very best canned peaches that I have ever tasted!
I realize that a lot of the information is now considered outdated. I presumably have been lucky – a Brit who has, after 55 years of trouble-free jamming and bottling of thousands of pounds of fruit using these antiquated methods, finally converted to the USA system. I am grateful that I have survived!
Healthy Canning
We wrote an article about “Home Preservation of Fruit and Vegetables; it’s on a separate page, which is here: https://www.healthycanning.com/home-preservation-of-fruit-and-vegetables-review The processing methods you mention were also covered in a lab study back in 1953 done at Long Ashton, Bristol. They found a lot of shelf spoilage occurred with the Slow Water Bath Method (as well as with the oven methods). There’s a link to that study in the article. Cheers!
Dozena Dymes
I made lemon marmalade once and it was delicious, but I kept all 6 jars in the fridge till I’d finished them. Why take chances, I thought.