only jelly not getting jelled but .with that said, I've done many canning projects where I was fighting to remember if I got the lids too hot or not hot enough or did I put salt in the jars or I was fighting with the temp trying to regulate the rock....It really takes practice and patience. I still have those same issues every year..........

Well we had the old exploding jars of kraut experience years ago. I've related it here several times. Then there was the dead mouse floating in the fermenting pickles crock incident but that was the mouse's blooper, not mine. :)

But from all the canning forums reading I do I think pressure canning bloopers are far more common than they should be. Either because folks don't follow the directions and end up with under-processed foods or they try to rush the process or they insist on doing it the way grandma did when they don't really know how grandma did it or because they don't stay current with the guidelines. Those are the "bloopers" I worry about the most.

Then there are always the oven-processing, open kettle canning, canning butter or bacon, baking bread in a jar, etc. bloopers that crop up on a regular basis despite all the info to the contrary.

Getting off my soap box now. :)

Dave

So you are saying I have to go back through thousands of your posts to hear about the kraut?

I think the other stuff is just a mindset that you either have or don't have. I remember years ago thinking that as long as trades were equivalent there should be no harm in changing up recipes. I mean, that is sort of grade school math stuff, if you take away one apple you have room for three cherries type of thing.

Fortunately, after the safety info just sat and percolated for a couple years, I reached the conclusion that recipes have to be exact in order to be safe. And fortunately I did not actually can anything under the previous mindset, because Darwin would have surely taken care of me had I done so.

Yeah it was the one time we tried the fermenting in individual quart jars idea. Even tho the lids and bands are placed on very loosely it was apparently still too much for the action in the jars. We cleaned kraut off the ceiling and out of the cracks in the pantry floor and the gaps between the appliances and the cabinets for weeks it seemed. Won't even mention the smell in the kitchen and pantry. ;) We went back to standard fermenting practices.

The stupid mouse wormed his way in under the plate cover and the plastic brine bag weight on the pickles. Wouldn't even have noticed it for a few days except he didn't pull the plate back into place once he was in. Now we use a flat fermenting stone on top the crocks.

Dave

A few years ago I decided to make some chicken soup for deer camp. It wouldn't need to be in the jars for long, but I thought to be safe without guaranteed refrigeration, I would can it.

I also decided to add some rice to the soup.

It ended up forming a solid mass that had to be forcefully dug out of the 1.5L jars.

Let's see, the latest was boiling instead of reheating BBB Heirloom Strawberry Preserves after letting them rest overnight - ended up with taffy. Tastes fine if you add hot water to the jar after opening, though.

Last year I had only 1 can of tomato paste in the house when making Annnie's Salsa, and it was a little bulgy so I decided not to use it. The salsa came out a little thin for our tastes, but made great soup (thanks to Zabby for pointing this out!) by adding a drained can of black beans and some frozen corn - I'll have to make some specifically to use for soup this year (largest safe size is pints, so that's a lot to use for soup, at least I have lots of pint jars!).

Not my blooper, and not quite canning, but similar to Dave's fermentation "Oops" - my cousin and her fiance pressed a lot of apples, put some cider in the cellar to ferment - I don't know what they put them in, but he said that he woke up one night to explosions from the cellar, cider all over! Sure hope it wasn't glass...I told him I used a balloon with a pinhole it it over my containers.