Important Information Before You Start Dry/Oven Canning

So as you all know I have been getting into dry/oven canning lately. Well today I wanted to share a few more important pointers to help you in your adventure with dry canning. 

 Last week I went to Winco and bought a 25 pound bag of lentils. By purchasing the 25 pound bag - I was able to get my lentils for just 67 cents per pound. Much cheaper than if I were to buy it by the pound bags. I also got lucky and found a couple more dozen large mouth quart sized jars. I was upset that Winco upped their price on the quart sized jars by 99 cents. Since then I have found quart sized jars at Walmart and HEB - and the dozen package was running about 10.58. A better deal than the 12.35 that Winco was charging. I am happy I just bought the one dozen at that higher price. I had not seen the quart sized jars at Walmart the last several times we had been there so I did not think I would be able to get them there. So I was very happy to find them there. And a better deal. 

So my first bit of advice is to be sure and compare prices. Don't allow places to price gauge just because it is getting harder to find things. 

Another thing that i wanted to share was I shared this photo of my shelving unit. 

It is a craftsman shelving unit. And it cost about $65.00 at Lowes. I love it! Each shelve is suppose to be able to hold 250 pounds. Well someone pointed out that by putting the heavy jars towards the top of the unit - it could get top heavy and tip over. That would be a disaster. All my hard work and money down the drain. Well there is something important that I wanted to share with you all - this unit came with some brackets that you connect to the unit and the wall behind - so that you secure the shelving unit to the wall - making it sturdy and safe to store your important things on. I am very happy that my hard work and investment in the future is secure. 

When learning something new - I would like to suggest you take in several different references. Don't just go by one persons information. No matter how helpful someone feels they are being - they will more than likely leave out just one key part of information that would be very helpful. Let me explain what I mean. Over the last couple of weeks I have watched 6-8 different youtube videos about dry/oven canning and I have learned so much, but I still had a lot to learn. Thursday morning - as I was looking at a list of videos that I might want to check out - someone had posted a video about dry/oven canning. So I clicked on it and I am SO very glad that I did. You see she told about something she does that ended up saving me a problem later down the road. She said that once a week she goes through her canned items and kind messes with the lids to make sure there was still a good seal. No one else had mentioned this important piece of advice. Well I went out to my sun room and I went through my cans. Guess what? I found 3 jars that had very loose lids- that kind of just flicked off!! Three jars! I was so glad I discovered this before a lot of time went by and my stuff was ruined. So be sure and do a lot of research - you may think you have all the information you need - but you just might be surprised with some new bit of information that is very helpful. 

So there is one more thing that I learned. So as I have watched the videos - people have done things a little different. Some people put their canning jars filled with wheat berries, oats, beans, or what ever on a sturdy cookie sheet and then place all the jars in the oven at the same time. Well this morning the lady that I was watching - placed her jars one by one on the oven shelf. Well every time I had done dry/oven canning I had placed them on a cookie sheet. It is quite heavy and then you pull the whole thing out at one time. So Thursday I decided to try it the way the lady on the video did it. I liked the bring one jar out at a time. So I got all 12 jars in the oven and I let it heat up and when the timer went off - I started bringing them out and wiping the tops and placing the lids and rings on. Everything was going very smoothly until I got to the 9th jar - at the back corner- and I accidentally tipped it over and spilled 1/3 of my lentils out of the jar...uggh what a pain! I had to wait until the oven cooled completely down before I was able to vacuum the floor of the oven out. At least my oven is nice and clean now. But I did decided that it might be a bigger job to bring the whole try out at one time but I will more than likely do it that way - unless I just think i can be extra careful. But I am thinking the cookie sheet is the way to go. It was frustrating to spill part of my stuff.. The other 11 jars all popped within 45 minutes. It was fun to hear the popping even from the other side of the house. 

So today we learned a lot more information about dry/oven canning that I think will be very helpful for the next time I do some. 

I found some half gallon sized Ball jars - I believe I will do some wheat in them. I will measure out how much wheat goes into each jar - then I will know how many batches of bread I can make per half gallon. I know when I did some wheat in my quart sized jars - that it will probably take 2 of them to make a big batch of bread. 

So what do I have planned to try next? Well you will have to come back to see. I have a few ideas rolling around in my head and I look forward to trying them.