Canning and Bottling Process

Canning or bottling fruits and certain vegetables, jams and jellies and beverages like beer, wine and even soda can save money. It also ensures you aren't consuming additives, preservatives or chemicals. Major university extension services, USDA and the Ball Blue Book provide recipes and safety precautions for canning, freezing and storing foods.

Using a Canner

For the safest canning results, USDA recommends using a water bath or pressure canner. Using other canning methods can result in food tainted with bacteria that can cause diseases like botulism. Family recipes may not reference either method, especially recipes created before 1990.Low-acid foods include dairy, meats, sea food, poultry, vegetables and some fruits work well for canning. Can tomatoes with additional acid to prevent the danger of botulism. Water bath canning involves submerging jars with canning lids in boiling water to vacuum seal them. Bath canning works well with acidic foods.

Unsafe Canning Methods

A variety of canning methods are considered unsafe for home use. Simply sealing jars and inverting them --- open kettle canning --- is not safe practice, as the cans need to be properly processed to prevent contamination. Heating jars in the oven, using a steam canner or the microwave are all unsafe canning methods. All these procedures allow the canning jar and food to come into contact with open air and air-filled bacteria right before sealing.

Bottling Beverages

Wine and beer are the primary beverages bottled at home. Wine goes through two fermentation processes before being bottled. Beer is bottled after two weeks of fermenting. It sits sealed in its drinking bottle two to four weeks before it's ready to drink. Where carbonation formed during the fermenting process is removed from wine, carbonation is desired for beer, so priming sugar helps leftover yeast from the fermenting process consume the sugar, creating alcohol and CO2.

Tips for the Beer and Wine Bottling Process

Brewing and bottling beer and wine involves allowing contents to ferment while yeast produces alcohol. Just as you need sterile jars for canning, you also need sterile bottles. Also check bottles for chips and cracks, mold collection and other debris. Remove any labels by soaking them in a water-ammonia bath overnight. Always fill bottles so they have about 1 to 1 1/2 inches of head-space for proper carbonation development during storage. For wine bottling, soften corks in steam for 3 to 4 minutes so they fit into the bottle neck more easily. Keep the bottles upright for several days to allow the corks to dry inside the neck before resting them on their sides.