Larry,

I don't think you're crazy and I say that you should do what makes you happy.

I have toyed with the idea of doing it, but I like being in the air-conditioned house, so I haven't set up a canning kitchen outside. If the heat doesn't bother you, then I say go for it....assuming it won't cause problems between you and your DW.

There are quite a few people who post on the Harvest Forum here at GW who do their canning outside either all the time or most of the time.

My only concern is that you said you already have too much to do as it is. However, if you're going to be canning anyway, then it won't take up any more time to do it outdoors than indoors.

Dawn

Dawn,

Thanks for the reply, I may visit the Harvest Forum, but I am afraid DW may be right. Even if she said she wanted a canning kitchen, but please finish all your other projects first, I am not sure I live long enough to get to it.

I dont like to hire anything done. My mind is telling me about all the wonderful things to do, my body is telling me that I am not the man I once was.

Larry

I think outdoor kitchens are a great idea.

Please do some reading in the Harvest Forum about safety. Pressure cookers/canners are not to be used on outdoor propane burners. If I understand correctly, it is because propane gets so much hotter so much faster than traditional indoor heat sources, and is more difficult to regulate. The results can be disastrous.

If you are talking about using the campstoves and turkey fryer to cook ingredients or do boiling water baths, those things don't have the same red flag safety issues.

I hate to plunk and run without going into further detail, but I'd feel even worse if I didn't encourage you to read up on the saftety issues, then something happened.

Incidentally, because the outdoor propane burner gets so much hotter than an inside burner, I do all my stir frying outside on the propane burner. It also keeps the splatter mess outside.

Seedmama

Seedmama,

Thanks for bringing up the safety issue. If I go that route I will use a home cook stove and hook into my home tank. The outdoor burner is much too large to safely use under a pressure cooker, altho they are great for heating water quickly.

Larry

We sometimes visit a little town named Nauvoo, Illinois that has a lot of restored homes from pioneer times and some of them have outdoor kitchens. I have wanted one for years. They are very small and were mostly to keep the heat out of the house in the summertime, I think.

I was entering a contest the other day that was for a new kitchen or bathroom, and I told DH if I won I would choose a new kitchen OUTSIDE, because I just got a new indoor one.

I wrote this message about 8 hours ago and for some reason didn't submit it. Just got back from Joplin and it was still here. I guess it's that age thing again....LOL

My mother tells of canning outside when she was younger and coming close to having a heat stroke. I would think it would work ok early and late in the season, but I sure wouldn't want to do it during July and August. I do my putting by in the kitchen with the AC running. Just a big wimp, I guess.

I think I will have to forget about outside canning, doctor told me to slow down. I dont know how I can get any slower.

We are installing new cabinets in the kitchen, got a 700 sq. ft. deck started, still not finished with my shop, plan on covering each end of the deck, remodeling the house to make it handycap friendly, building a garage or carport. I work alone and it takes me forever to build anything. If I get any slower I will never get any of these projects finished.

I know in my mind that I can build an oven that will fold shut around the pressure canner just below the handles to shield them from the heat, power the oven with the two burners on one side of the stove then vent the heat to the outside. If that fails I have two window air conditioners. I already have a roll of insulation like used inside central heating units to insulate the oven on all surfaces. All I need is the time to build it.

Larry

Seedmama, I'm glad you brought up the safety issues because they are valid ones.

Does anyone here remember that way back in the day lots of folks had "summer kitchens" so they could cook in the summer kitchen without heating up the house or burning the house down? Of course, they didn't have A/C back then either, so that wasn't a part of the decision-making process. There's one house not too far from us that was built in 1912 and it has an outbuilding fairly close to the house that I would bet was built originally for use as a summer kitchen.

In the 1960s, my grandparents had an old wood stove on their screened-in porch, which always confused me because I never saw them use that stove when I was there at the ranch with them. My grandmother did a whole lot of canning back then, and now I wonder if she used that woodstove on the screened-in porch as a 'summer kitchen'.

Larry, You are too busy! I don't know how you have the time to do everything you do.

At this time of year, between dealing with harvesting and putting up root crops, cleaning up the garden, putting compost and manure in beds for next year and doing all the housework/holiday prep type stuff, there's not enough hours in the day. In some ways, it is worse than spring. (At least in spring it stays dark longer and I can stay outside working until almost 9 p.m.)

We are working on lots of projects around here, including turning the screened porch into a real sunporch, but with the way the fire pagers go off around here at this time of year, we never get to work on any project for more than an hour here and an hour there. I suspect, for example, I'll never have a greenhouse until after Tim retires because there is no way he'll ever have time to help me build one until then, and it isn't a project I'd tackle on my own.

Carol, A full-fledged ourdoor kitchen would be so cool.

Dorothy, Like you, I prefer to can in the air conditioning. I spend enough time roasting outside in the summer heat without standing over a hot gas stove doing some canning. I think it wouldn't be so bad in fall, but by fall of most years, my canning is about done because all the jars are filled.

Dawn