There is no safe way to do any canning in an oven. It is unsafe. Don't even heat your empty jars in an oven.

Oven Canning is NOT SAFE, period.

Agree. Oven canning - for any food product - was discredited years ago and has been considered unsafe for many years. And it isn't just because the lids don't seal or the risk of spoilage. The temps inside the jars do not reach safe levels for killing the bacteria.

You may wish to explore the link below for current guidelines, methods, and recipes or if you have a particular thing you wish to can we'd be happy to tell you haow to do it safely.

Dave

Here is a link that might be useful: NCHFP

NCHFP is in my favorites along with my morning News paper and my Hotmail.

Thank you so much everyone for the unsafe method. I guess the old way is the best way!

I guess the old way is the best way!

Not if you mean oven canning. Oven canning a very old way and was used even before the BWB in many cases according to the history of canning.

The best way is to follow current guidelines. ;)

Dave

Maybe word just got to Zone 4 about this method Dave. Last year I had 2 70+ year old farmer wives ask me about the "new" oven method a person told them about for canning, get this...venison!

I'm a pack rat for cooking pamphlets that come with kitchen equipment and I think there is reference in the GE electric stove one from the 1940's or 50's about oven canning.
Now you have my curiosity about the BWB/PC method timeline Dave. I have handy some 1800's books I was looking at for wine recipes I wonder what those say.

InternetArchive (archive.org) has copies of many of the early farm bulletins on canning and other methods of Home Food Preservation. I think 1907 is the earliest one I have read. But they are all fascinating reading.

I especially like the one called "3 day Preservation at 212 Degrees". They used to stick the jars in the hot water reservoir of the wood stove and left them there for 3 days - no baths allowed during this period. And "Food Sterilization by Lemon Juice" is quite interesting too.

But like you I have several 1800's cookbooks and things like cook in a big kettle, fill jars and put on lids, set jars in a pan of water and sit in the oven heated to "baking temperature" for 2 hours. One book says baking temperature is reached "when the skin on your fingernails pulls back from the heat". ;)

Dave

Lizzy, you might find this document interesting. And under "E. AWI Publications " 'In 1944, AWI-93, "Home Canning of Fruits and Vegetables" (USDA, 1944a) replaced AWI-41 and AWI-61. Oven canning was labeled "dangerous" ' ...so seems it was getting attention in the early 40's.

I think I have a couple of old cookbooks that were my grandmothers boxed in the attic, will have to take a look and see if there is anything in those on food preservation - it's been a long time since I've taken them out.

Here is a link that might be useful: Early history

USDA publications from 1931-1942 did recommend oven processing (for high-acid foods). However, even in the 1930's studies were showing risks of jar explosions and inadequate heat penetration.

As stated in the previous post, in 1944 oven processing was no longer recommended. The risks listed above were cited.

Carol

Perhaps I am wrong for the date on the oven cookbook. I know I read it for a "new" method somewhere.
I don't have it handy and Lord knows I need to catalog books.
A blast reading are the 1880's How to be a Good Wife books.

I think the oldest cookbook I have is The Presidental Cookbook of my Great Great Aunt,18something, it's falling apart. I laugh when it reads you make clear jelly by using egg whites. I am grateful I don't have to "cook 4 calves feet" to make gelatin for jelly! lol The only reference to water bath is for vegetable canning 3 hours in the water reserve in that book.

I didn't know I would be ridiculed on this forum. Sorry I asked a question.

HUH??? Why on earth would you feel you are being ridiculed???

Sorry but I think you are misinterpreting the comments made. Granted the discussion switched to some of the funny things in old cookbooks and obviously those responses were emailed to you because you had checked the email box, but clearly none of that was directed at you personally.

Apologies if you were offended.

Dave

Monica, you're not being targeted, we just drifted off the original question! No one is ridiculing you, we were musing over the things people used to have to do to preserve their food - and in many cases, it was preserve it at whatever means were available as best they could or go hungry in winter. The methods can be interesting (as history, not as a method to try) to some of us.

There is lots of good (safe) information available here and plenty of people to help with your questions, I hope you'll join us often. A good place to start too is to pick up the current copy of the Ball Blue Book, a paperbacked inexpensive canning guide (with safety tested recipes) available at most places that sell canning jars and equipment like Walmart, Target, many hardware stores. If you follow the guidelines in it, you can't go wrong.

Monica, sometimes we get interested in a question for its own sake and from that point drift in other directions. There was definitely no intent to ridicule.

And if our comments make you feel embarrassed because you asked about canning via the oven method, please don't be. There is so much contradictory information about canning posted on various sites, it can be very difficult to separate the reliable from the unreliable. Regardless of the motivation for your question, your asking elicited useful information for many readers about what's recommended and what's not.

Believe me, I wish oven canning were possible. It would certainly be a lot less messy.

Carol

Monica,

I can understand why you felt that the group was ridiculing you but trust me - this is one of the nicest and most helpful group of people you can find. They just wandered off into their own atmosphere and forgot the original question and your interest in it.

Please, if you are interested in preserving food, stay here and ask questions. You won't regret it and you will end up with some fabulous food that you preserved!

Ann