Canning (packing in screw-top or soldered tins)

How to make it

1. 1

   For canning fruit, greens, meat and fish, tins with screw lids, soldered tins as well as Weck's new apparatus for preserving vegetable and animal foodstuffs, besides several others, are used.

2. 2

   All tins and lids must be completely clean; they must be scoured with sand, soda and boiling water inside and out before being used, then rinsed and dried.

3. 3

   The rubber rings should lie for a few minutes in soda water, be lightly dried off and placed on the tin immediately before the lid is to be screwed on. After boiling, screw the lid on as tightly as possible.

4. 4

   Soldered tins: if you want to be self-reliant, you can perfectly well solder the tins shut yourself, but in that case you must have a soldering iron, a piece of sal ammoniac, a bottle of soldering fluid and solder tin.

5. 5

   Packing in screw-top or soldered tins: what is packed in should not reach higher than 3 cm from the rim; up to the rim the stock or brine is then poured in; the tins are closed with a screw lid or by soldering, and set in boiling water in a pot with a flat bottom; in the bottom of the pot a wooden base should be laid, in which holes have been made fairly close together; the wooden base should lie about 3 cm from the bottom of the pot; small pieces of wood can be laid in for want of the wooden base.

6. 6

   The pot must have a tight-fitting lid; if it does not fit tightly, wet sacks can be laid both over and around the lid.

7. 7

   The boiling time must be governed by the things that have been packed in; when the boiling is finished, all heat is removed at once, and the pot stands untouched for 2 hours.

8. 8

   The tins are taken up, dried, marked with contents, date and year; set in a cool place; they should not be moved and must not freeze.

9. 9

   Make sure the tins are tight; if small bubbles come up through the water, take note of it and solder anew.

10. 10

    If a tin's lid bulges during boiling, take it up, prick a hole in the middle of the lid and solder it shut again at once.

11. 11

    When the soldered tins are to be opened, lay glowing coals or a hot soldering iron on the lid until the tin melts.

12. 12

    Set the tin in warm water for a while before opening it, so that the contents can come out more neatly.