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.