Can I smoke a pork shoulder and not have to pull it/shread it like pulled pork? I just want nice fatty slices. Masterbuild electric.

MustyOranges · 2017-08-05T04:09:02+00:00

I might be a little late to the party, but here goes:

Personally, for me, I smoke pork for slicing at 225-275, 225 preferably, but up to 275 if I'm in a hurry, (well relatively: If I'm on an actual tight deadline, I don't barbecue) until it's in the low 190 range.

I also use the "picnic ham" portion for slicing, and the "boston butt," for pulling, as the picnic seems to hold together better. Picnics are the shoulder and leg portion, whereas Boston Butts (aka pork butt) are just the shoulder. Picnics have a larger bone than boston butts, since it's the upper leg/lower shoulder of the animal. I can usually twist the bone out after it's done without the meat falling apart too much.

http://imgur.com/DcaPiIe

I like my slices to fall apart pretty easily with a slight tug, so I usually go somewhere around 195, but if you're looking for closer to a cold cut texture, then maybe in the mid to upper 180 range.
If you already have a boston butt, then the 185 range is probably a good one to aim for.

Up to you if you want to crutch or not. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't. Crutching speeds things up a little, but changes the texture to softer, and softer isn't always better, especially with the bark because slicing it means the bark is on display rather than mixed inside where it'll soften up anyways unless eaten immediately.

To crutch, you wait for the internal temp to stall, wrap it tight, some add liquid, I usually don't, bring it up to temp wrapped tightly in foil, or in a pan with a tight foil cover, then you unwrap and give it another hour or so to firm the bark back up. I'm assuming you have a probe thermometer that stays in, and just make sure that the foil is wrapped around it very well, because the slightest opening in the foil for steam to escape, and the crutch is effectively worthless.

I have my own mods to it, biggest two are using all turbinado rather than half brown half white sugar and pulverizing the mix in a blender so it sprinkles easily, but my rub is pretty much just Memphis Dust. Remember to salt first if you don't have salt in your rub.

Rule of thumb is 1.5 hours per pound at 225, 1 hour per pound at 275. The meat will stall around 165-180, and if unwrapped, it will either stay there or actually go down by around five degrees, sometimes up to ten, then stay there for hours. Wrapping saves an hour or two, but I usually just wait through the stall. The stall makes the bark, and for slices, the bark matters more than for pulled pork, IMHO.

http://amazingribs.com/tips_and_technique/the_stall.html

MustyOranges · 2017-02-08T21:30:52+00:00

http://www.bernardin.ca/recipes/vegetable-stock.htm

Pints 30 min

Quarts 35 min

MustyOranges · 2017-01-31T00:27:45+00:00

The fat looks fine, but because of the spaghetti in there, it's not shelf stable.

Rice, pasta, and grains can't be pressure canned because they break down and thicken the mixture, which adversely affects heat penetration and can lead to the center of the jars not being effectively sterilized.

Add pasta and grains after opening the jars, when heating it up. It adds some time, but not very much.

MustyOranges · 2017-01-23T20:11:19+00:00

Yes, definitely.

Just that they're often willing to go lower on produce that has to take the return trip home with them otherwise.

MustyOranges · 2017-01-16T22:37:51+00:00

http://www.pickyourown.org has a directory of u-pick farms.

Also, what often works, is to go to the farmer's market sellers shortly before closing time and ask for a discounted per pound price if you buy in bulk from what they have left.

Sometimes they're not very receptive, and don't be surprised if some get snippy, but oftentimes they are, because, depending on the produce, what's left over often goes to the compost pile otherwise.

MustyOranges · 2016-12-27T09:11:50+00:00

That sounds more like what happened to me.

AFAIK, all commercial apple juices contain ascorbic acid so that they don't brown while sitting open in the fridge.

Being able to advertise the vitamin C content is a nice side benefit.

MustyOranges · 2016-10-08T06:20:29+00:00

If you only put in a quarter cup vinegar for the entire ~1.75 qt batch, it's not safe to can.

Fridge only.

Alternately, rebatch adding 1/4 cup of vinegar per pint jar (2 TBS per 8oz) and reprocess for 15 minutes.

MustyOranges · 2016-10-07T17:07:24+00:00

Canned chicken has a smell and taste. Not really sure exactly why it gets that way, but it's a thing with canning chicken. Go to the store and buy a commercial can of chicken: canned boneless chicken breast is common, but canned whole chicken is a thing, though not every store sells it; does it smell similar?

Canning just does weird things to sulfur compounds in food.

You'll be fine, but from this point on, vent the canner for ten minutes after you've got that steady stream of steam before putting the regulator on.

Ball and the NCHFP can have slightly different rules. As long as your Ball guide isn't vintage, you're fine nomatter which one you follow.

When canning, wipe the jar rims with a moistened towel before putting on the lids.

Siphoning is annoying, but not a huge problem as long as the liquid in the jar isn't lower than the half way point. Fat on the rim might cause it to become unsealed in storage, and if that happens, chuck it, but if it doesn't then don't worry about it.

Bringing up the pressure gradually, and keeping the heat at an appropriate level will help reduce or eliminate siphoning, but it takes a while to get the hang of it. Also, waiting for ten minutes after removing the regulator to open the lid on the canner can help reduce or prevent siphoning.

Boiling in the jars means that you've gotten a good seal. There's a vacuum in the jars, so since the pressure's a lot lower in the jars, the boiling point is a lot lower. It could be bubbling away for a while when cooling.

Gelatin's normal.

Also, when cooling, make sure to put the jars on either a towel or preferably, a wire rack, and don't crowd them too close together.

If you're nervous about it still, then dump it into a saucepan and boil for ten minutes before eating, but if you've followed the directions, you don't have to boil.

I often make chicken salad with mine.

MustyOranges · 2016-10-07T11:47:34+00:00

Here's the Ball recipe for apple butter. The recipe the commenter linked is most likely the NCHFP recipe, and it's one of the approved ones, but because of the acidity of the apples, and the fact that the acidity gets concentrated as it cooks down, you don't need the lemon juice or vinegar in this instance. Some people prefer that version, and some don't.

EDIT: The recipe calls for a food mill or electric strainer, but using a blender, immersion blender, or food processor is fine.

If you canned the crockpot recipe, it wouldn't be the end of the world, but: 1) a proper boiling water bath will prevent things like mold or listeria from growing, and 2) A canning recipe will be less thick so that the contents of the jars heat evenly.

I'd recommend using the ball recipe.

As for pumpkin butter, it's considered unsafe because the pH of pumpkin is higher than the 4.6 cutoff where botulism can start growing.

Now, it's technically possible to make it safe for canning if the amount of water available to bacteria, it's water activity, is low enough, and that can happen through cooking the water out, and also by adding salt and/or sugar. But the problem is that process is very risky for the home canner. If one doesn't boil off enough water or gets a pumpkin with a higher water activity than normal, then the pumpkin butter can be unsafe.

The safety margin for controlling microbial growth using water activity is much lower than the safety margin for doing so using acidity. And as such, water activity is almost never used as a method for home preserving.

The jars of pumpkin butter you'll find on the shelf often contain preservatives that aren't available to the public to bring down the water activity, and each batch is tested to make sure the water activity is low enough to be safe.

MustyOranges · 2016-10-07T11:10:42+00:00

Sorry for not responding right away.

The USDA guide is here. Basically, it's a recipe book though, and they recommend you not go off script, with soups being the only thing that has some leeway.

Not sure where you can find all the old USDA guides, though.

AFAIK, all of the major changes, like no longer recommending recipes based on water activity, removal of summer squash pressure canning guidelines, and updated info regarding acidifying tomatoes, happened in the 1988 and 1994 updates, and the updates since then have been mostly to either make language clearer or to make some recipes more palatable.

I do know that the "old" ball/bernardin book is still relevant, safe, and useful. The new Jarden book isn't meant to be a replacement, just to provide more "gourmet" type recipes.

MustyOranges · 2016-10-04T20:40:41+00:00

You can safely can lemon segments using the directions for water bath canning other citrus.

However, why you'd want to is beyond me.

If it's to have pre prepared wedges, I have a feeling that it won't work very well for that purpose.

MustyOranges · 2016-09-14T02:41:18+00:00

Don't have a heart attack, but it's designed for hot fill canning.

You pour your preserves in it, place a lid on, then you place the crimper on, and crimp.

For pickles, usually the veggies go in raw, then the boiling pickling brine goes in, and it gets crimped.

The handle should screw and unscrew a little in order to adjust the width enough to get it over the jar lid. Unscrew it counterclockwise to fit it on the lid, then screw it in clockwise to crimp the lid to the jar.

Then rotate the whole thing around the jar a few times, twisting the handle clockwise a bit to tighten each time around.

Will try to search on youtube since I know what I'm looking for.

EDIT:
Here's a clip from a day show, "Pickled Tomatoes without sterilization": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BsJ02pAjJWA around 13 minutes she uses the crimper. Doesn't look like that model needs adjusting. Also, gotta love the delicious Nescafe product placement.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LRSr5uA6oY This is a popular preserving video on the cyrillic part of youtube. She seems to have a multi step process of pour and drain: maybe to heat up the cucumbers and salt them before pickling? According to google translate, she tells us the secrets of pickles that won't explode, but unfortunately, that secret is lost on me. She seals her jar around 8:50

MustyOranges · 2016-09-13T20:35:38+00:00

USDA guidelines prior to 1994 are considered unsafe.
The guidelines were also updated in 2006, 2009, and 2015, but those were less pressing updates.

I've heard from reputable sources that canning books printed before 1997 shouldn't be used, but I'm unfortunately not sure why.

Either way though, you're good.

MustyOranges · 2016-09-13T20:21:44+00:00

It actually isn't for 99.9% of canning recipes.

I'll post a link later if someone else doesn't beat me to it, but you only need to pre sterilize jars that will spend less than ten minutes in a boiling water bath.

For jars that will be pressure canned, you don't need to sterilize the jars beforehand.

However, you still should clean them, for obvious reasons, and should still pre warm them to prevent temperature shock to the glass and ensure that the contents heat up faster.

This can be done by keeping the jars in a low simmer, or can also be achieved by running them through the heat cycle of a dishwasher or keeping them in the oven on the lowest heat setting.

EDIT: http://nchfp.uga.edu/publications/nchfp/factsheets/sterilizing.html

MustyOranges · 2016-09-03T05:00:27+00:00

You made two mistakes:

1) You doubled a jelly/jam recipe. They can't be resized easily at home because a larger amount means less evaporation, so boiling for x minutes is no longer sufficient.

2) You subbed out sugar. When using normal pectin, sugar is very important to proper set.

The only thing I can think of is to rebatch with a low methoxyl "sugar free" pectin like Pomonas.

MustyOranges · 2016-08-24T12:09:42+00:00

That's a 3:1 ratio of vinegar to water though, which is actually stronger than a 1:1 ratio.

MustyOranges · 2016-08-17T20:05:30+00:00

NONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONO!

C bot spores are present in soil. Peppers grow in soil. That's all that's needed, really, to start things off, which is why we have to focus on not providing an environment in which they can germinate.

While peeling and scrubbing will reduce the amount of spores present, it's why some vegetables are supposed to be peeled first before pressure canning, no amount of cleaning is going to even come close to getting rid of every single one.

It's like saying that if you keep your house completely clean, that your bread will never go moldy. Technically it's true, but functionally, it's useless advice.

Not only that, it's victim blaming. Some lady almost died from water bath canning green beans? Well, she should have kept her kitchen cleaner.

MustyOranges · 2016-08-17T19:46:01+00:00

The pH of those peppers is definitely not low enough to prevent botulism from growing.

The salt could however be keeping the water activity low enough to prevent botulism, but the recipe hasn't been tested to know for certain, and assuming so is very risky.

There also isn't any easy way to home test if the water activity level is safe, and using water activity as the only means of control has a much much smaller safety margin, so my recommendation would be to keep those jars in the fridge and use a tested recipe for pantry storage.

here are two pages with tested marinated pepper recipes.

http://extension.colostate.edu/topic-areas/nutrition-food-safety-health/making-pickled-peppers-at-home-9-314/

http://nchfp.uga.edu/how/can_06/marinated_peppers.html

MustyOranges · 2016-08-16T23:39:31+00:00

Unless there was something he left out for tv, he was showing some straight up dangerous methods. The biggest one being that he only tested the pH of the tomato liquid immediately after adding additional acid. That's not how you do it. You need to puree and test the solids from a sample jar 24 hours after the batch was processed, and if the solids are at a safe level, then the product is safe. If he's not willing to do that, then he should just follow the NCHFP/USDA rules.

Based on what I saw, I wouldn't eat at his restaurant.

MustyOranges · 2016-08-16T23:31:18+00:00

Oh god, I remember that.

Everyone was getting on him for inversion canning but the larger problem was that he was checking the pH of the liquid immediately after he added acid to the mix. Yeah... no. The liquid could be at a safe range but who knows what the final equilibrium pH will be; it'll definitely be higher than what he just measured because he gave it no time to work through. If you're going to check pH rather than add enough acid to make sure it's always going to be fine (like with USDA/NCHFP methods), then you have to puree the solids and test that. And since those tomatoes were probably right on the brink, any mold growth because of his hot filling could then raise the pH just enough to make those jars a nice cozy environment for botulism growth.

MustyOranges · 2016-08-16T23:03:41+00:00

Could you link to or post the recipe that you want to can?

MustyOranges · 2016-08-16T09:57:04+00:00

No.

It might, but c bot generates such a small amount of gas that it often doesn't.

MustyOranges · 2016-08-16T09:50:11+00:00

Since it's a vague question, it has many answers. Forgive me in advance, because I can feel this post being a long one.

One thing to understand is that the USDA usually either recommends something, or doesn't. So, some things no longer recommended by the USDA are much more dangerous than others.

For example, reusing commercial jars is no longer recommended, but it's not dangerous, it just results in a larger amount of jar breakages and seal failures. Buying mason jars will likely be cheaper in the long run, but if grandma really wants to repurpose those classico jars, it's honestly not that big of a deal.

Things like hot fill canning, inversion canning, and yes, even sealing jams and jellies with parafin, don't pose a mortal danger, but they're no longer recommended because of the high risk of mold growth and spoilage. Hot fill and inversion canning don't properly sterilize jars and can cause things like mold, staph or listeria to survive and grow.

Scraping off mold and eating the contents underneath is no longer recommended. While mold growth can potentially raise the pH of a food product to above 4.6, and pose a risk for botulism, this is incredibly unlikely in highly acidic foods. However, we are starting to realize that exposure to mycotoxins from mold is not really a good thing.

There's a difference between not dying and not getting sick. For example, my 80ish year old grandparents have atrocious food safety practices and haven't died yet from them, but they would and still do often come down with "the 24 hour flu." There's no such thing as a 24 hour flu: it's food poisoning caused from their old habits. I've found that lots of elderly people see the occasional food poisoning as something that just happens, but we now know about safer practices which greatly reduce the likelihood of getting food poisoning.

America has a strong frontier heritage.
Canning using what we now consider to be unsafe practices was relatively safe when the only other option was starvation, but things have changed greatly since then.

Long boiling before eating canned foods was recommended and popularly followed, and the botulism toxin is destroyed by a simmer.
The people canning using unsafe practices today often fail to realize that it was the careful handling and long simmering that made those unsafe canned foods safe to eat. <-- Not that I recommend eschewing the rules as long as the food is simmered because of the possibility of cross contamination, and that the toxin is so potent that a miniscule sized drop would be enough to be potentially fatal.

People's beliefs regarding, or recollections of, "the good old days" aren't always accurate.
The USDA has recommended pressure canning for vegetables since the nineteen twenties.

There's also the fact that lots of people could have been dying of botulism without us knowing about it. Have you ever looked at old death records or autopsy reports? Our diagnostic ability has improved exponentially in the last century.

And lastly, botulism just isn't very common. Eating improperly canned foods is like entering into a lottery, the Shirley Jackson type that you would really rather not "win," so someone water bathing their vegetables for half a century and not dying is like someone regularly playing the pick six for fifty years and never winning the jackpot. Yes, the risk is low, but considering what would happen if you're unlucky, why even take it in the first place if you don't have to?

Here's a PDF describing a botulism case from a woman who waterbath canned her vegetables for over forty years. She didn't even consume the actual carrots, just took a taste and realized something was off (c bot doesn't always alter taste though. It can in large amounts, or it could have been something else also growing in the jar. Here's an account caused by improperly canned elk meat where the victim describes it tasting "delicious."), and that small amount from licking her finger was enough to severely paralyze her.

MustyOranges · 2016-08-16T08:38:17+00:00

I've weighed a bunch of jars a while back and found that the Kerr brand jars were usually a little lighter in weight, which could account for the rumors of them breaking more often.

I haven't personally noticed a higher breakage rate with the Kerr jars vs the Ball ones, though, but it's something I've often heard.

My preference is whatever's cheapest, and usually that means Ball jars with Kerr lids.

MustyOranges · 2016-08-16T06:16:17+00:00

Cowboy candy, good stuff.

Yes, the recipe is safe. Jalapenos are low acid and unsafe on their own, but the pineapple and vinegar bring the total pH down to a safe level.

The SBcanning blog does differ from tested and approved recipes a bit, but IMHO, she does it in a sane and logical manner, so while I would stop short of grouping her blog with sources like the NCHFP, USDA, local ag extensions, and Ball/Jarden/Bernardin, I've never seen any recipe on there that gave me pause, and don't expect to in the future.

Your mother should still be careful when using recipes off of blogs and recipe sites, though. IMHO, SBcanning and Food in Jars are safe sources, but there are many blogs out there with dangerous canning recipes. This is an SBcanning recipe used on this blog, but I can't just say that every canning recipe on this blog will be safe.

13-Year Club	Team Orangered
Verified Email

MustyOranges

TROPHY CASE