Only money for one: canner or foodsaver?
 

I'm thinking ahead about what to do if I get a good harvest this summer and how to preserve anything for winter. I have a limited budget this year and can't decide if a canner or a foodsaver would give me the best bang for my buck.

I'm planning to do salsa, spaghetti sauce, and homemade V8 juice. I have room for canned items, but I also have a deep freeze that will have plenty of room. We're also meat eaters that try to buy in bulk.

I'm leaning toward a foodsaver, since we could use that for meat as well as garden items, but I'm not sure how much the taste will be affected by freezing. (I realize that you can't use a foodsaver for liquids, so my plan was to freeze anything liquid first, then pop the frozen stuff into a bag to seal up.)

I've read the threads here on freezing and canning, but I kind of get the feeling that most people here do canning instead of freezing. Frankly, I simply can't decide, so talk to me.

my vote is for the Foodsaver

Buy the foodsaver for meats and foods with fats. Buy a 20 dollar walmart enamelware water bath canner and have the best of both worlds. The water bath will save you an easy 80 bucks.

I vote for the Foodsaver- Tilia is wonderful- I have had mine for years. I freeze sauces and veggies in plastic containers then tale them out and vacuum them when they are frozen-- no mess that way.

My vote would be for a canner! With a pressure canner you can preserve veggies and meats long term...no freezer burn either!
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I use my canner so much more than my food saver. I love it for canned beans and broth.

You can use a big canning pot for most tomato products which can be BWB, about $25,would allow money for a food saver?

I would go with the pressure canner if you plan on low acid foods.
With a freezer you keep paying for the food.
And I buy the huge chubs of ground chuck and divide it out into 1/2 pound balls and freeze it in ziplock bags.
This way you can pull out a 1/2 pound ball at a time.
I dont the same thing with chicken thighs .
What I do is put out parchment paper in the big upright freezer and pre freeze stuff.
Every now and then I will turn them so they dont get frozen to the paper.
Then they go in the bags.

A few years ago I used a vacuum port on my motorcycle as a vacuum pump along with a needle to air up basketballs.
I filled the ziplock with tomatoes and sucked the air out pulled the needle as I closed the bag completely.

It worked great.
Any meat properly wrapped in freezer paper should be fine for a year.
Pork will go rancid anyway in about a year or more.
Pressure canned it will last a lot longer.

Worth

I can, freeze and dehydrate things from my garden. BUT, after a hurricane, with the power out for 5 days, I've lost everything in my freezer before because my generator was not powerful enough to keep the chest freezer in the garage going. As for the texture of frozen vs canned, I think it's about the same. I like canned tomatoes but not frozen. I like frozen corn but not canned. It's all about personal preference. As others have said, if you can manage both, even in a modest way, it might be worth your while. Sleep on it for a few nights.;)

I just found this one 21 quart on Craigs List for $175.
And they are $218 on amazon.
[IMG]http://images.craigslist.org/01111_5V8C2m0r8gn_600x450.jpg[/IMG]

What is a foodsaver?

[QUOTE=Stvrob;458139]What is a foodsaver?[/QUOTE]

A person that saves food. :twisted:

No they are those vacuum sealers.

Worth

I have two of the big Prestos. Love them. Sturdy,tough,simple. Don't bother with a guage, buy the weights if it doesn't come with them. One of mine did,the other didnt.
The gauges have to be calibrated yearly by someplace like the Extension office.
I use my dehydrator a lot,too. Makes great dried tomatoes and cheap liver treats for the pets.

Worth... I paid $230 for one just like that, worth every penny!

All American #921 made in Wisconsin

Go to garage sales and you can buy used small canners as cheap as $5. The big ones go as cheap as $10-$15 dollars. They usually are older models, but I see them all the time. Make sure you get the weight(s) and the lid seal.

It really depends on your end goals, what you want to save, and for how long, and under what conditions.

I freeze a lot more meat than I can but can see the issue of being in an area where the power might go out in storms. For things like tomatoes, tomato sauce, etc that can be water bath canned, I prefer that to freezing. Tough call really.

I ended up going with both - Presto Pressure Canner (currently $89 on Amazon) and the Foodsaver V2244 (selling for $69 on Amazon).

I use the canner (either pressure or water bath depending on what I'm canning) for all liquids such as tomato sauce, broth, etc., and the Foodsaver for meats and cheeses I buy in bulk, and dry foods.

[QUOTE=Father'sDaughter;458173]I ended up going with both - Presto Pressure Canner (currently $89 on Amazon) and the Foodsaver V2244 (selling for $69 on Amazon).

I use the canner (either pressure or water bath depending on what I'm canning) for all liquids such as tomato sauce, broth, etc., and the Foodsaver for meats and cheeses I buy in bulk, and dry foods.[/QUOTE]

But will you have enough $$ left over for a dehydrator?

Only money for one: canner or foodsaver?
 

[QUOTE=Stvrob;458176]But will you have enough $$ left over for a dehydrator?[/QUOTE]


I too have to spread my acquisitions out. Last year was the Presto and Foodsaver, year before was the Excalibur dehydrator. The year before that was when I invested in a larger supply of canning jars (picked them up just before winter on clearance). And I believe the year before that was when I bought my shelves and lights.

I haven't come up with anything I need this year...yet.

Pressure Canner!

We got a food saver for a wedding gift 21 years ago and love it. I do the canning my wife does the freezing. For stuff that is juicy we put it in the freezer bags close the top with a clothes pin and freeze first then seal. Just found some chillies dated 2006 the other night in the freezer that were as good as anything we froze last year. If you get all the air out and seal good stuff lasts forever. We like to freeze cherry tomatoes to put on pizzas or garlic bread, very tasty !! Also freeze some larger toms for chile and such, the skin comes right off when you run them under warm water.

Good luck
Marcus

Every time someone votes it shows up as a new post but it is only the vote causing it.:?

Worth

Lots of replies! Regarding power outages, we do have them somewhat frequently, but most generally last less than a day and are due to thunderstorms. Our severe weather risks are from ice storms and tornadoes, so if there was an ice storm, I'd stash stuff outside if needed and if there was a tornado, I wouldn't care about the freezer.

My budget for this item is around $70. When I checked Walmart online, getting a WBC with accessories would run me about $40 and a 24 pack of jars would be about $30, and a foodsaver would be about $70. Then there's also the fact I'd need to get a food mill.

I may end up having both, but getting them both this year isn't in the budget at the moment.

[QUOTE=splash79;458292]Lots of replies! Regarding power outages, we do have them somewhat frequently, but most generally last less than a day and are due to thunderstorms. Our severe weather risks are from ice storms and tornadoes, so if there was an ice storm, I'd stash stuff outside if needed and if there was a tornado, I wouldn't care about the freezer.

My budget for this item is around $70. When I checked Walmart online, getting a WBC with accessories would run me about $40 and a 24 pack of jars would be about $30, and a foodsaver would be about $70. Then there's also the fact I'd need to get a food mill.

I may end up having both, but getting them both this year isn't in the budget at the moment.[/QUOTE]

I have a question.
What kind of stove top do you have?
If you have the glass top it wont get hot enough to boil the water in a water bath canner.
At least mine doesn't.
I have to use one of my huge and I mean huge stainless thick bottomed kettles to water bath can in.

One thing about the canner you dont have to buy the bags over and over again.
Just take care of the jars and rings and all you have to replace is the lids.

We have tried pretty much every which way to preserve our food, and we have settled on this: The only thing we still can is tomatoes (and she prefers to just do them either whole or in chunks, depending on the size of the tomatoes in question; she likes to be able to decide what to do with them when the time comes to actually cook.) We decided that we just prefer the fresher flavor and broader cooking options of pretty much everything else when frozen. That especially applies to meats, but also goes for corn, asparagus, peas...well, you name it. So, since tomatoes can just fine with a boiling water bath and don't need a pressure canner, that's what we use. We no longer have a pressure canner. We do have a glass-top stove and a big, cheap, aluminum canner pot, and ours boils just fine. Must depend on the stove, Worth. But our stove is just a low-end Sears Kenmore, with a bit of age on it now.
So for the freezer, we make lots of use of our Foodsaver. For moister stuff and more delicate stuff (like berries) we pre-freeze, then pack up, as has been mentioned.
More recently I have started to dehydrate more. I like the dried produce, in general, but we need to retrain ourselves to remember to actually use it, since it is a relatively new process for us and our habits are old and somewhat dried up as well. Dried tomatoes, Oh Yeah! They add an almost fresh flavor to sauces and a nice thickening, like paste does. Dried leeks were pretty successful. And, of course, peppers and herbs. The nice thing about dried stuff is the minimal storage worries and space required, although I do keep our dried tomatoes in the freezer, since I did have some get moldy on me once.
Shawn

Worth, we have an electric coil range, so we're good there.

[QUOTE=splash79;458292]
My budget for this item is around $70. When I checked Walmart online, getting a WBC with accessories would run me about $40 and a 24 pack of jars would be about $30, and a foodsaver would be about $70. Then there's also the fact I'd need to get a food mill.

[/QUOTE]

I don't know what size jars you use but I get the pints and quarts from around $8-$10 a dozen. $30 for a 24 pack seems a lot higher...is that including shipping?

I have a waterbath canner, a pressure canner, and Foodsaver. The pressure canner basically never gets used because canning with it is SO FREAKING ANNOYING and takes forever. I can anything that I can safely process via waterbath, most everything else is vacuum sealed and frozen. Shoot, I didn't even have a waterbath canner until last year. I just used a big stockpot I had and put rings on the bottom to keep the jars from touching the bottom of the pan.

That said, I also hunt and raise meat chickens, and I process everything myself. I hate canned meat, so I prefer to freeze anything that can handle freezing. If all the air is removed, meat keeps from being freezer burnt for a long time. I have chicken breast in my freezer that's nearly two years old and looks like it did the day after I froze it.

The vacuum sealer gets used A LOT. Best Mother's Day gift ever :)