Canning What’s “too cold” for canning outdoors?

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Arnina

Contributing Member
I am cooking up a storm for Thanksgiving. Requires freezer space I don’t have. Thinking of setting up my pressure canner outside and canning up as much as possible to make room. Have all the right stuff and most of the know how. Just never had to think about cooling temps for the canned jars before now. I’d like to set up the cooling table outside, but am afraid these chilly days might not be safe making the jars cool too quickly. I can’t find an answer in any of my books or by searching here.

Any canning experts here know the answer? I’m okay with rebel canners too. Just that it’s been tried, and no one died, lol.
 
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WalknTrot

Veteran Member
Arnina said:
I am cooking up a storm for Thanksgiving. Requires freezer space I don’t have. Thinking of setting up my pressure canner outside and canning up as much as possible to make room. Have all the right stuff and most of the know how. Just never had to think about cooling temps for the canned jars before now. I’d like to set up the cooling table outside, but am afraid these chilly days might not be safe making the jars cool too quickly. I can’t find an answer in any of my books or by searching here.

Any canning experts here know the answer? I’m okay with rebel canners too. Just that it’s been tried, and no one died, lol.
Click to expand...
How chilly is "chilly"? I had 18F this morning. Some folks consider 60F chilly.

Personally, when I'm canning, I don't even have a window open in the kitchen to give my jars a draft.
 
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summerthyme

Administrator
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You sure don't want to pull boiling hot jars out of the canner and set them in a cool draft. However, if you plan it so you can leave each batch in the canner for a minimum of an hour after turning the heat off, you can probably get away with it. I can outside (under a roof) at below freezing temps, but I leave the jars to cool in the canner as long as possible.

Summerthyme
 
AlaskaSue

AlaskaSue

North to the Future
We’ve folks up here who regularly can outdoors in winter, especially if they have game to pressure can - and it gets very cold, way down in sub40s-60s.

They do have a careful process re preheating jars and do not can if there is a breeze. Simple Living Alaska do this a lot but they recently moved north (where it’s much colder) of me so will be watching this winter. I’ll look for an example…..
 
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