I have been pressure canning and water bath canning since Mama taught me in the 70's. Dry canning is new to me though. I thought I would do some and then do a tutorial to give everyone a different option to store certain dry goods such as flour, oats, rice , beans etc, especially with the current climate we're in. However, now I must include a disclaimer. After talking with family and friends I received a couple negative comments about dry canning isn't safe. One mentioned botulism. So I researched some more and they're are naysayers.

So, I hope to get responses because I'm doing it because I think it's safe. First, I wash my lids and bands in hot soapy water.


Then wash my jars with some bleach added. Then I set them all on a towel to dry overnight.


Next day I put jars in the oven and heated it up to 225, then baked them for 20 minutes. I took them out one at a time and filled them with lentils and put them back in oven for 40 minutes more.
The last 15 minutes I put the lids and bands in. Then I pulled them out, again one at a time. I wiped the rim good with a barely wet paper towel and put the lids and bands on. I set them on a towel, and they all sealed within 2 hours.


I'm doing oats next. Again, do this at your own risk. I'm just looking for ways to store food in case this craziness happens again lol. Opinions and questions welcome!

That sounds very similar to the way I remember Grandma and the neighbor lady doing it years ago. I remember beans, pasta, rice, and a few other things in the jars. It has been a long time ago, but I think there was other things that they dry canned as well. Grandma lived to be 92 which was 31 years longer than the 6 months doctors gave her after a cancer surgery. Don't believe the canning killed her.
Thank you for posting this, I had kind of forgotten about the dry canning. May have to play with the idea myself.

My wife just brought up the subject no more than a hour ago. Usually when warm weather gets here the moths generally appear and we want room in the freezer for other things.

I like seeing how things were done before Tupperware. Thanks!

Yeah, seems it was popular back in the day. I didn't know my Mama did it until talking with my oldest sister a couple days ago. She said her and Gma did a lot of it back in the 40's and 50's. I'm hoping it works out alright.

Very interesting, never heard of dry canning
I will have to investigate this.

I bought one of the food saver jar sealers. I tried it on spaghetti, macaroni. instant mashed potatoes.,rice and flour. They all sealed. I had trouble with one unsealing and found one of my jars had a very small crack on the rim.
We aren't much on beans or lentils so I don't know about them.
just

Yes have heard of oven bottling but passed on it. Use a pressure cooker because, if my research is correct, a pressure cooker gets the temperature above 240. 240 is supposed to be the temperature that kills botulism. Looked into this a few years ago now and would stand corrected if something new has come up since. Have to acknowledge though oven bottling sure is easy looking.

It would be interesting to know what temperatures commercial canners and bottlers require their products to be cooked at in order to meet federal commercial food production standards.

Why can't you just put them in jars and tighten the lids? We do this all the time with no issues. Seems like overkill. Pasta we just leave in the package to store until it is opened and then it goes in a jar. Maybe I am missing something. We don't have bugs in our house either. LLL

Well, all flour, oats, rice, beans and even pasta can have critters in them, from the manufacturer. Part of the reason to heat in the oven is to kill the critters, the other part is to sterilize which is a controversial topic. Dry canning is not like putting them in a jar and then on the shelf, or even using a vacuum sealer. This is for long term storage, some reports say some foods will last between 10 and 30 years.

Thanks Catch very interesting

Don't bugs need air though? I am not knocking what you are doing but just asking a few questions. Who keeps food for thirty years? I keep dried beans over the winter and until new are available in the garden. Some may not garden I am guessing. Again very interesting but never have heard of this and I come from a family that does a lot of canning. LLL

Very cool catch!!! Thanks for posting, my mom and I canned years ago, we always hot bathed, but I'm gonna be looking into this method for sure.

This bug talk reminded me of another I remember, cereal. How many of you have poured a bowl of cheerios to see a few weavels crawling in the bowl? We always got the huge cheap bags and this happens, even in the tupperware canisters they go into. I remember Grandma putting her breakfast cereal of all kinds in the dry can jars to keep bugs out until used.

Yes, bugs need air. You are killing them with the heat. Vacuum sealers do not remove all oxygen from the sealed bags, some only remove 80%. So if you want to vacuum seal and maybe even throw in some oxygen absorber's it would be a good idea to heat first then allow them to cool, imo.

Not all people garden but even those that do can long term storage certain dry goods and rotate them out as you go along. Power outages, and such happen and if your freezer goes down, you have food in jars. Not all your eggs are in one basket.

This "pandemic" left me feeling caught with my pants down. I always had things canned up and I got lazy. When you have food put up, you don't have to worry about being out there in stores with the nuts lol.

Yep, and a lot of times there are eggs that you can't see. You think your good and a couple weeks later, you got creepy critters crawling lol. Buying in bulk, imo is awesome, but your bug issue increases.

Yep, the heat killed the eggs and bugs alike. Then you don't have to worry about it until the seal is broken on the jar. I am thinking she kept cereals in 1/2 gallon jars, I do remember they was bigger jars than the other things. May have even been gallon jars, but she passed when I was a pup so it has been a few years.

Use a pressure cooker to can meat and follow the guidelines. Ain't nothing to mess around with. I've canned meat for over 30 yrs and before that while helping at home. It's awesome when you have it, heat and eat.

We pressure can a lot of stuff from the garden, and a common practice among old timers was to also can surplus meats. I did that with some beef roast last year and it was a big hit with older relatives on my mother's side. Rekindled memories of their youth. I still have jars of canned beef and chicken on the shelf. Having said that, I had never heard of oven canning dried goods. Interesting concept.

What I have heard of is a similar process used by the Mormons for long term food storage. Instead of the heat of the oven, they use oxygen absorbers.....which are little packets with a very fine iron powder in them. When the jar is sealed, the oxygen gas component left in it reacts with the iron to make iron oxide......rust, which converts the gas to a solid, and in doing so, eliminates the gas from inside the jar.....creating a vacuum. And since the O2 is gone.......about the only gas left is nitrogen, and the bugs and their eggs are killed. The material used to make the oxygen absorber packet lets oxygen in, but the powder can't get out.

And for those who don't know, one of the practices of the Mormon faith is to store food for occasions just like this. Goal is to be able to ride out a year with what you have on hand at any moment in time. That takes some planning.....and they have it down to a science.

I am not Mormon, but liked the idea enough to adopt it small scale. We always have at least a month of food on hand at any given time........and it has been that way for at least 40 years. Evening meals are planned for a month in advance. Cheaper to do it that way and we always know what we are having for dinner. Lady I'm married to may have some faults, but skills as the food service manager is not one of them.

Cool, thanks

I'm going to get some of the oxygen absorbers and try them on a few things. I think I'll heat first though. I want to make sure all critters are graveyard dead lol.

Great post Catch

good stuff!

Again, I advise everyone to do their own research and see if you think it's right for you. There are some good things written out there about it, and some negative, so be your own judge. Here's a positive article. I tweaked it a bit.

Shut your lid and can it lol.

Quick rolled oats.



I finished up a few jars of quick rolled oats and they had a small amount of moisture in the jars. A few of the websites and Youtube video's said this is normal and will dissipate. I don't like it and feeling as though I lost my confidence in dry canning. If moisture is in sealed jars I think mold or bacteria can grow. So, I wanted to give you all an update and let you know that I don't think I'll be dry canning in the oven anymore. I was hoping to help people find different ways to store food but I don't think this is reliable. Sorry!

TTT

Lmao.

I don’t think you will ever get all the moisture out unless you freeze dry it Catch. I wouldn’t give up if I were you. If you kill the bacteria then the lid seals there should be a vacuum, I don’t think most bacteria can grow in a vacuum. Anyway, I havnt lost the faith yet. I’m still gonna try it!!!

Trapset, the first batch I did seems dry as a bone, nothing sticking to the jars. They seem fine, but IDK.

About the jar sealing.
I was going to fix spaghetti a couple of weeks ago. Tipped the box up and there was dust from the box on the counter. looking closer there were black specs there too. Threw the spaghetti away and bought some more. Several days later it was spaghetti day again.
I tipped the box up and just a tiny bit of dust. I turned the box other side down and something in the dust moved.
That's when I ordered the jar sealer. Bugs do need air to live.
Hope this works.

Hey catch 22
The oats probably had moisture in them. They probably sucked up moisture from the air. Maybe just not a good item to dry can .or maybe just need dehydrating before
don't give up.
I too had never heard of preserving dry like you tried..
.
just

Just, I think your right about the oats. They all said oats were great for dry canning but I'm not in that camp now lol. The lentils I did turned out good. I think I'll get some oxygen absorbers and a vacuum sealer!

Beans,macaroni,rice,powdered milk,potatoe Flakes.I put a 300 cc oxygen absorber in the jars then seal with my vac sealer.Salt and sugar I just vac seal.

I've done some dry canning and have had great results with it. It's easy and effective. I have a little pantry in the basement with some store bought canned goods and some items that we dry canned at home. It's nice to know that when we run out of many things, instead of needing to run to the grocery story, we just go down the basement steps the "grocery store" in the basement.

I'm very concerned about botulism. From what I've read, the botulism bacteria thrives in the absence of oxygen. That's the environment it needs to grow. But the botulism bacteria itself isn't toxic - it's the waste products of the bacteria that creates the botulotoxin. So, low oxygen canned goods are the perfect place for the bacteria to grow. They bacteria eventually die off but the toxic byproducts remain. However, the botulotoxin itself is destroyed by heat. So, by cooking whatever came out of the can, you are safe from the toxin even if there was botulism bacteria in the can. I don't plan on eating raw flour so I'm not too worried about it.

We've dry canned flour, oats, sugar, salt, beans, powdered milk, and an oatmeal mix I use when camping. For the oatmeal mix, I prepare a mix of oats, salt, cinnamon, powdered milk, and brown sugar. When I go camping I can just mix in boiling water, or if I want to dress it up, throw in some butter and raisins or dried apples.

I do leave my jars in the oven a little longer - usually about 1 hour. At this temperature it drives off nearly all the moisture and leaves the contents bone dry and free of humidity from the air. I'm sure the dry canned goods will last for decades although we usually cycle through them every 3-4 years.

Things we can keep in our basement pantry for years - in addition to the dry canned goods:
ketchup, mayonnaise, barbecue sauce
Vienna sausages
tuna
soup
canned fruits and vegetables
pickles and olives
sardines
Spam
baked beans

Great post Kart. I did do the oats different. They were in for just over and hour. This video has over a million hits and she addresses moisture and says if it goes away within a few hours your good. I just don't trust it. I'm thinking the oats are getting dumped.

A few comments and observations.....

On botulism, I make smoked sausage now and then, and one of the key ingredients for adding to meats you plan to smoke is sodium nitrate....aka, "cure". The purpose of the cure is to prevent the botulism producing bacteria from going active during the smoking process. Botulism bacteria are actually quite common and are on all kinds of foods we eat each day. They only present a danger under the right conditions.....when they go active and start producing their deadly toxins. To go active, they require heat (within a certain range), moisture and an anaerobic environment. All are present in a meat smoker at the normal smoking temps of around 160 or so. I refer to "cure" added to smoked meats as being similar to the passover instruction of putting goat's blood on top of your door. It is what signals death to pass you by.

Dry canning under heat would seem to produce similar conditions. Heat over 200 degrees may be above the level where botulism can survive. Can't say. But we don't add cure when smoking pork butts, brisket, ribs, etc, and those are generally up in the range of 225+.....also high moisture and also anaerobic. So maybe dry canning is a risk, maybe not.

I got out my Ball Blue Book, the bible for home canning, and it makes no mention of dry canning in ovens. Closest reference was to use glass jars with canning lids to store dehydrated foods. None of that was for long term storage.

Boning up on the use of oxygen absorbers reveals some interesting facts. They start out by saying for dry foods to remain stable, they must start out at 10% moisture or less.......not sure how the average person would know what that is. They probably sell moisture meters for such......but I've never seen one. I have one for measuring moisture in baled hay.....but don't think that would work in the kitchen. But they also explain that once the absorber packet goes in the jar, the dry food goes in with it and then gets sealed up at room temp. The iron in the packet then combines with the oxygen in the jar....which they say is roughly 20%.......the O2 gas then combines with the iron to form rust.......converting gas to solid.....and creating a vacuum in the process. And it gets nearly 99.99% of the O2 out, so all bugs and eggs of bugs die. About as stable as you can get. They say the vacuum is actually greater than what most vacuum packers can do, the latter of which still leaves some O2 gas in the package. And the rust process also requires some moisture, so even works on lowering that too. Overall, the oxygen absorbers would seem to be the way to go.

Beyond that, the Mormon literature also claims you can use PETE bottles to do this......basically the same plastic bottles we get juice, gatorade and other liquid products in. All things considered, the O2 absorbers seem to be the simple, cheap and effective way to go.

The germophobe in me wants to point out that your barely wet paper towel wasn't in the oven, that you are touching every jar with it before you seal it, and that it is most likely a source of contamination.

Good luck. If you read about even wet canning food there are the same negative nancys saying it'll kill you too. I wouldn't worry about it. Theres some in every crowd.

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org...-begin-a-3-12-month-food-supply?lang=eng

and if you missed it.........what you need to ride out a 3 month pandemic with relative ease.....

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B4E...0Y2NiLThkNWYtMjc3M2FiYTM0ODcx/edit?pli=1

Sounds to me like they don't intend to be roughing it........

I'm a novice on this. But here is what I have found.
There are 2 types of jars wide mouth and regular. It seems that there are two mfgrs of jar fixtures. I have the foodsaver machine. I bought the fixture on line. It did not come with the hose needed to use it. I had to order that separate. Make sure the one you order is for your vacuum machine.
Speaking of vacuum machines I have read that you can vacuum jars with a auto brake bleeder vacuum. Available st harbor freight. So I bought one. To my wifes dismay. lol I cannot squeeze the pump long enough to make it work. Results may vary.
It took a little practice to make the foodsaver work as it should and I had a little trouble because of a tiny crack in a jar but it does work.
I did not find any instructions to seal jars so it was just trial and error.
I found that they will unseal if you don't screw the rings on.

That's about all I can tell you.
Good luck
just

A 300cc oxygen absorber will seal up to a half gallon jar with the lid and ring screwed on just finger tight.