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Best potato for canning..?

Posted By: midlander

Best potato for canning..? - 04/23/20 08:58 PM

Anyone out here canning potatoes? I understand the low starch taters are better for canning. I am plannimg to grow my own for the canner...any favorite recommendations..?
Posted By: beaverpeeler

Re: Best potato for canning..? - 04/23/20 09:08 PM

Never heard of anybody canning potatoes before but I don't see why it would not work. I'm thinking I would go with some of the reds or yellows. Main thing is you will want small potatoes so you need to plant them about 6" apart to get mostly smalls.

Also don't cut your seed potatoes, leave all the eyes for smaller potatoes.
Posted By: justjosh

Re: Best potato for canning..? - 04/23/20 10:21 PM

I like Yukon golds for canning
Posted By: midlander

Re: Best potato for canning..? - 04/23/20 10:24 PM

Thanks JJ....
Posted By: Sprung & Rusty

Re: Best potato for canning..? - 04/23/20 10:24 PM

I thought you can keep them in the basement. Layer them in 5 gallon buckets with sand?
Posted By: Sullivan K

Re: Best potato for canning..? - 04/23/20 10:27 PM

I can Katahdin's. Remember, you have to can them just like meat.
Posted By: midlander

Re: Best potato for canning..? - 04/23/20 10:32 PM

Originally Posted by Sullivan K
I can Katahdin's. Remember, you have to can them just like meat.


Im squared on methods and proper times, just want to be sure to have a good canning variety and not end up with taters that dont hold their form and fall to pieces ...
Posted By: Sullivan K

Re: Best potato for canning..? - 04/23/20 10:41 PM

I can cubes that I just fry up, in butter. I cut some into french fry shapes, and can. Then when cooking the french fries I take them out of the jar and put in a pillow case and roll around to soak up all the water that is in the potatoes, from canning. From my experience canned potatoes do not work for making mashed potatoes. The canned potatoes also work very well in making soups.
Posted By: Sullivan K

Re: Best potato for canning..? - 04/23/20 10:54 PM

I also wash my potatoes before canning. I put them in a sink of water, after I cut them up, and swoosh them around. That rinses off a lot of the starch off.
Posted By: BillyTraps

Re: Best potato for canning..? - 04/23/20 11:00 PM

Posted By: ozark trapper ia

Re: Best potato for canning..? - 04/23/20 11:05 PM

We can kennabec,,red lasoda and red Pontiac. I like the reds best but they are all good. You can make mashed with them but they will not be fluffy, more like paste. We still have about 20 pints and quarts from 2015 and they are still good. Lots of good advice in the previous posts,goog luck
Posted By: trapdog1

Re: Best potato for canning..? - 04/23/20 11:35 PM

I love canned taters! Any of the types mentioned above are good. Just dig them in the fall as usual. Peel, cut into chunks and can.
They make good and fast fried taters.
Posted By: WhiteTrash 88

Re: Best potato for canning..? - 04/23/20 11:51 PM

Canned pontiacs and kinebecs and like the red pontiacs best.
Posted By: GREENCOUNTYPETE

Re: Best potato for canning..? - 04/24/20 12:38 AM

I don't know if there is a better potato for canning.

I just figured canning potatoes was what you did with all the ones that got hit by the spade or fork or had an ugly spot that you could cut off and use or can right away but would not store well.

basically canning salvage grade potatoes so that they don't go to waste.
Posted By: newfox1

Re: Best potato for canning..? - 04/24/20 12:45 AM

I like to grow chieftans, they can just fine.
Posted By: midlander

Re: Best potato for canning..? - 04/24/20 01:29 AM

Thanks for all the suggestions. After checking online sales, looks like some of the more popular ones mentioned are already sold out for 2020. Im ginna hqve to be quicker next year. However, I remember seeing red pontiacs at the local feed store....looks like thats the route Ill go this year.
Im gonna can some plain taters and im gonna can some with onions and garlic clove...making myself hungry already.
Posted By: star flakes

Re: Best potato for canning..? - 04/24/20 01:47 AM

The best potatoes would be the ones which are used for potato salad, meaning a waxy potato. Potatoes come in different main types in boiling, baking and chipping. What makes a good potato for each, makes a bad potato for the other. A russet is outstanding for baking, but it falls apart and soaks up too much in potato salad. Bake a waxy potato like a Norland, and you get a pasty result.

Waxy potatoes tend to be higher in sugar, and they do not keep well. Reds are in this category and it is the kind of potato you would want for canning. Pontiacs are good potatoes for your growing and canning. They do not do well here, but in Michigan they do well. They are an early to mid season potato which means get them in the ground early.

For planting, place them in a trench and fill in soil as the plant grows. Feed them well and water them even more, even if it is raining each week, as potatoes are mostly water and this is where you get your size. Water consistently, or you will get dry rot.

I would grow for size, meaning big potatoes, as in canning you just dice them up like potato salad.
Posted By: J.Morse

Re: Best potato for canning..? - 04/24/20 02:25 AM

I believe Kennebecs were the type we canned, and we did bushels. When I was a kid my folks got hundred lb gunny sacks of "B" potatoes from a local spud rancher. My mother would dump the fresh potatoes into a wringer washer with 2-3 bath towels. A little bit later those fresh dug spuds were skinned and ready to go. She'd halve them and fill Qt jars with them. My Bride did it the same way. I still have the washer out in my chicken coop today. It's been a few years since we did it. Had trouble finding farmers that would sell the B's. I have no memory of the processing time or lbs of pressure used without looking it up.
Posted By: CoonsBane

Re: Best potato for canning..? - 04/24/20 02:31 AM

Canned potatoes have this weird taste to me. Buy them in the grocery store or can them at home. I feel like you could prepare them any way and I could tell you they were canned. Not good, not bad just different.
Posted By: Bigfoot

Re: Best potato for canning..? - 04/25/20 12:47 AM

We can our baby potatoes red pontiacs , kenebecks , purple potatoes .
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