Dry Canning Thought

Homesteading & Country Living Forum

Help Support Homesteading & Country Living Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
I've actually never done the dry canning process of putting it in the oven and heating it up. I do dry can by putting stuff in jars with an oxygen absorber and put the lid on. I like to do dry canning with many things that might get buggy or attract rodents. I have many cases of foods in jars: varieties of beans, rice, some spices, powdered sugar, misc. stuff.
 
I dry can or mylar most all dry goods. I fill up my large flour cannister in the kitchen, and all other flour gets dry can. It's not done to keep the flour fresh, necessarily, I do it to keep it bug free. Either dry can in the oven, or use an o2 absorber, or the food saver lid attachment. Also do pasta, oatmeal, grits, all kinds of flour, corn meal, chocolate chips, beans, rice...anything that's dry. Just did 10 # of chocolate dipped peanuts and ranch dressing dry mix. Will be doing a tub of rice flour for a cousin tomorrow. Will grind it fresh today, will put it in a plastic bag in a small lidded tub. Will put some bay leaves in the tub. Am doing it that way, because I suspect she'll be using it in the next few months, and that's good enough. Bay leaves keep the bugs out, too.
 
So...dry canning is a term used for either oven canning or seal saving in a jar? I already seal save in a jar, choc bits, beans, pasta, spices.
oven canning is not a guarantee to keep bugs out? So I can toss an o2 absorber in a jar with flour, put the lid on and it will store for how long?
 
So no o2 absorbers in jars with flour? Just seal save them and call it a day?
i just watched a few videos where the one guy used his pressure canner to seal his jars. Took about 3 mins. But you figure that would be 7 jars at a time. Another one used a brake vacuum or something lie that, 🤦🏻‍♀️ It was hand held with his seal saver attachment.
i am so glad I asked. Now to wash more jars.
 
You can do any of those, but if you want to save money, just seal them.
That's a brake bleeder you're talking about. It does what a foodsaver jar sealer does.
All the new pandemic preppers I've been watching on youtube have been freezing flour, rice, cornmeal for 48 hrs, letting it thaw and dry out (so there's no condensation) and doing it again and then storing it. I think that's alot to do. Haven't seen any weevils in my stuff, but if I did, I'd cook up pancakes for the chickens with the bugs in it or something, and wouldn't throw it out. I don't think bugs could hatch in no oxygen.
 
So...dry canning is a term used for either oven canning or seal saving in a jar? I already seal save in a jar, choc bits, beans, pasta, spices.
oven canning is not a guarantee to keep bugs out? So I can toss an o2 absorber in a jar with flour, put the lid on and it will store for how long?
I think the term can be confusing if not defined.
I have read about oven canning. Of course, some things couldn't be oven canned, such as chocolate chips. They would melt. I would think things that you can dry can in the oven would include beans, rice, wheat, cornmeal, and things that are dry already.

I do know that things that do not need to be sealed in any way are sugars and salt. They will turn into bricks. They are both preservatives themselves, so putting them in jars and putting on a lid would be sufficient. I do know that people get sugar ants, so having sugar in jars with lids would be important.

Flour can be sealed and have an oxygen absorber or sealed with oxygen removed. I do know that flour can get into food savers and on the rim of the jar and prevent the jar from sealing well.
 
https://fyi.extension.wisc.edu/safefood/2020/06/09/say-no-to-dry-canning/
Why dry canning isn’t canning. “Dry canning” techniques generally call for putting dried food like grains, beans, or nuts into canning jars, placing lids on the containers, and then heating sealed jars in an oven, usually at around 200°F . In other directions, the food in jars is heated without the lids, which are then placed on the jars when they come out of the oven.

What may make dry canning unsafe. Even dry foods contain moisture. Common foods like dry flour, dry beans and even dried fruits contain 11-30% moisture (water). Placing any food in a heating oven causes moisture to ‘move’ or migrate towards the surface of the food where the moisture may evaporate. Moisture migration in dry foods can actually cause pockets of moisture to develop within a food or moisture to condense on the inside of the container. Once the container is sealed, these pockets of moisture could support the growth of mold, bacterial spores (think Clostridium botulinum), or even some pathogens such as Salmonella that are resistant to drying. This could be especially true of home-dried foods that are ‘canned.’

Dry canning may also cause product quality to deteriorate. Lipid (fat)-containing nuts and grains show increased oxidation on heating; so nuts and whole grains may go rancid more quickly if subjected to dry ‘canning.’

Oven canning is never a recommended or approved method. Dry canning may have developed from the unsafe process of ‘oven canning.’ In oven canning, food is placed in a sealed canning jar and heated for a period of time in the oven until the process is ‘done.’ The ‘oven canned’ product is stored on the shelf. Oven canning has incorrectly been touted for preserving of meat and poultry, and presents a real risk of botulism poisoning. The only way to safely can meat or poultry is to use a pressure canner. See B3345 in the Wisconsin Safe Food Preservation Series.

What are safe ways to store dried foods like nuts, beans and flour? Thoroughly dried foods may be stored in airtight containers at moderate room temperatures or in the freezer. If you want to vacuum seal containers of dry foods, methods that may preserve them safely and may retain quality include*:

  1. Using a vacuum-sealing machine that has adapters for jars (FoodSaver is one manufacturer). No heating is involved so the food retains quality.
  2. Using oxygen absorbers inside jars of food (sold at retailers such as WalMart). Oxygen absorbers may help preserve the quality of foods and may aid in insect control.
 
People have only been doing dry canning for decades so what do they know huh? The above article is probably from the same people who freak over sun tea too, saying it creates bacteria because the water doesn't get hot enough. Again people have been making sun tea for decades and are just fine.

No you shouldn't dry can nuts because of their oils( they need to be frozen to last). They'll still go rancid, but dry goods are fine to dry can. Its not for long term storage like mylar and O2's. Its for mid term storage really
 
We have used a variant of the vaccum-sealing with O2 abaorbers in Mylar bags, we had large (~6 gallon bags) and we used the 02 Packets, a 2X4, an Iron, and a shop vac. We lined a bucket with the mylar bag, put 02 packets in the bottom of the bag, poured in what we were storing, placed the 2X4 accross the opening of the bucked, pulled up the remaining mylar bag up over the 2X4 so it was laying flat, placed the shop vac hose in the corner of the opening, ironed close the bag up to the shop vac hose, turned on the shop vac and once the bag had collapsed we ironed it closed as we removed the hose of the running shop vac, made sure the bag was well sealed, put the remander of the bag in the top of the bucket and closed the bucket lid.... Seems to have worked okay.

Then again the seal-a-meal is fine for larger grains, I just put a single sheet of paper towel in at the last to form a U shaped filter between the grain and the opening so the grains are not sucked into the sealing area (which blocks the seal), I usually leave enough bag to make a second seal about 1/2 inch outward from the first to ensure a good seal, works really well with oats and rice. I keep these type of stores in Ice Chests so they don't get exposed to light and it further reduces pests problems....

Flour can be difficult to store in bags because the dust gets drawn into the sealing surface, making the bags leak. We tend to use the jars, leaving 1 1/2" of head space and wiping off the jar rim before apply in the lid and pulling the vacuum. We have been buying AP flour in #10 cans, it saves us some work. But, we still need to repackage our bread flour.

We have had a problem with store bought buckets of corn going bad, I think it was due to the moisture in the corn....
 
I had never had a rodent problem until recently, and I am now being extra careful with how I store things. I just got another half dozen half gallon jars. I am going to put flour in them. No bugs, no rodents.

Wife swares by Bay Leaves, she says it keeps the bugs out of things..... But it also pays to seal thing up and keep food storage areas clean.
 
Wife swares by Bay Leaves, she says it keeps the bugs out of things..... But it also pays to seal thing up and keep food storage areas clean.
I have many buckets, cans, and jars. But yes, when I started getting careless, and restaurants in the area were closed, here they were. I also think bringing pots of mint into the house for over wintering helped. I know the mint would revive in the spring, but wanted it in the house. Neighbor told me he has mice now.
 
Which is better for flour storage, mylar with o2 or jars, seal saved?
WVDragon, how about seeds, pumpkin, flax etc seal saved?
I don't do seeds so can't help ya. flax meal I just vacuum seal because I put it in a lot of stuff.
LTS of flour I guess would be mylar and O2's. I froze mine for 1 week, thawed, let dry, then vacuum sealed in a food saver bag big enough for it and some extra. They're hard as bricks but they're not for LTS.
I also have buckets of wheat in mylar and O2's for the real LTS. Have my grinder for it too so we will have flour if necessary
 

Latest posts

Back
Top