How to Pressure Can Potatoes Step by Step
This article will show you step by step how to pressure can potatoes. If you prefer, at the bottom of this article is my video on You Tube where you can watch and follow along. We do need to be careful whose advice we are taking in learning to safely preserve food at home especially when that advice is found online. If you’re wondering if you can trust the process and advice I give, I have prepared an article just for you.
UPDATE: Since originally publishing this post, I have observed some things with each batch of potatoes I can and wanted to share my tips with you on how to decrease the starch quantity in canned potatoes. The 5 tips will be at the very end of the article, but I will mention them throughout the article as well and a video covering most of the tips will be linked as well.
How to Pressure Can Potatoes Step 1: Getting Ready
The first thing you need to do when preparing to pressure can potatoes is to gather all your supplies. My canner holds 7 regular mouth quart jars. I have found that depending on the size of the potato cubes and how they fall into the jar, I can get between 1.25-1.5 lb. of potatoes into each quart jar.
Things to do for step 1:
- have your pressure gauge tested to make sure it’s still accurate. This can be done for free or affordably at a state extension office in each county.
- check the pressure canner for any damage. Check the vent pipe and weight for any clogs, buildup, and damage.
- the canning process I am going to share with you today is for white potatoes only.
- I am using quart jars, but you can use pints if you prefer. Only use jars marketed for canning. Check the jars for chips, breaks, fractures, and dispose of if they are damaged in any way as the pressure can cause them to break further.
- check your lids and bands, make sure they are not warped, buckled, dented, rusty, or damaged in any way. I will admit they recommend against it, but I do reuse my lids.
- I recommend always having an extra jar, lid, and band clean and ready to go just in case something happens to one while you’re filling it.
- have a tested recipe laid out in front of you to follow. Only the Ball Blue Book Guide to Preserving or the USDA Complete Guide to Home Canning. I will be following the instructions from the Ball book in this post.
- gather and lay out all your supplies, that will be step 2
How to Pressure Can Potatoes Step 2: Gather and Lay Out the Supplies
To pressure can potatoes, I gather the following: pressure canner filled with 2″ of water (read the instructions that came with your canner; your canner may require a different amount of water) and I add in my clean 7 regular mouth quart jars; kettle full of boiled water; two large pots to boil my potatoes in; jar lifter or tongs; 2 clean towels; funnel; canning salt with 1 tsp. spoon inside; slotted scooper spoon; ladle; heat proof bowl with 8 lids inside with boiled water covering them; bubble popper or chopstick; magnetic lid lifter or tongs; funnel; and 8 bands. I have the entire work area very clean, and once I gather all my clean supplies, I lay them out in the places I will need them. I go through this process mentally and go through the motions to make sure I have every single thing in place before I start canning. I have a video showing all the equipment I lay out for canning.
How to Pressure Can Potatoes Step 3: Getting the Potatoes Ready
As I mentioned earlier, the potatoes in this tutorial are white potatoes, more specifically russet potatoes. I order 50 lb. of organic russet potatoes for canning from Azure Standard. I have been ordering from them since 2011; they are a great company.
To decrease the starch, choose younger, smaller potatoes with thin skin. You’ll notice the potatoes used in this post did not have thin skins, so I peeled them.
Peel the Potatoes
Rinse and scrub your potatoes in cold water to remove as much dirt and bacteria as possible. We use the Norpro Apple Mate 3 to peel our apples and potatoes for canning. You can click the picture for a link to the peeler. To decrease the starch, keep your scrubbed potatoes in cold water.
Detail & Submerge
Once each potato is peeled, use a paring knife to remove any skin the peeler missed as well as ANY questionable areas on the potato. Remove any brown, black, gray, and soft spots. These can harbor bad bacteria. Keep each potato submerged in cold water, completely covered to keep it from oxidizing and turning brown.
Cube & Submerge
Cut the potato in half lengthwise and then cut each half in half again lengthwise. Then cube up into 1/2"-1" cubes. Do your best to keep each cube the same size. You may can potatoes whole assuming they are no more than 1"-2" in diameter. As you cube you may find some bad spots in the center of the cubes, cut these spots out as well. Always keep the potatoes submerged in cold water once peeled. To decrease the starch, rinse the soaking potatoes at least twice with fresh cold clean water.
Why We Remove the Skin & Cube:
-We remove the skin and any questionable areas to cut down on the potential bacteria that could spoil our canned food.
-We ONLY can CUBED potatoes and NOT mashed/smashed potatoes. This is because mashed potatoes are more dense. It isn’t safe to can dense food since you can’t be guaranteed that the pressure and heat reached the center of the dense food for a long enough time. If it wasn’t properly processed in the center of the food, it may cause bacteria to grow such as botulism. However, you can can applesauce even though it is mashed/pureed and dense. This is safe due to fruits being acidic enough to keep botulism from growing.
How to Pressure Can Potatoes Step 4: Canning
As I mentioned in the “things to do” section under step 1, my quart jars have been heating up in my canner. I do this so the jars are hot. You don’t want to put hot liquid in cold jars and risk the jars bursting.
My potatoes are cubed up and have been covered with water the entire time. Now we need to boil them for 10 minutes. That means to bring them to a full boil for 2 straight minutes if they are 1/2″-1″ cubes; if they are 1″-2″ whole potatoes, boil for 10 minutes. To decrease the starch, choose to cube potatoes in 1/2″ cubes and only boil for 2 minutes. Once they have boiled then the canning process can begin. I choose to stir my potatoes gently while they’re boiling. I like to use a wooden spoon and bring the ones on the bottom up to the top. This is not necessary, but while they are cooking, they will soften considerably then when you pressure can them, they will soften much more. So this just helps to ensure that the ones on the bottom won’t be considerably more soft than the ones on top; they should all be even.
TIME TO BEGIN:
Everything is laid out and ready to go from the “things to do” section under step 1 and from step 2. Our jars are hot and our potatoes have boiled for 2-10 minutes, depending on the size you’re using. Once the potatoes have boiled, you can lower the heat to low. If you have two pots, place a lid on the pot you’re not yet using. Make sure your water kettle is full of hot water and that your lids are covered with the hot water. NOTE: You must make sure that your canner still has 2″ of water (or whatever the manufacturer of your canner specifies) in the bottom. This is 2″ of hot water BEFORE adding the filled jars.
Use the jar lifter and remove your jar from the canner, dump out any water there may be inside of the jar. Sit the jar on a clean towel. Drop in 1 tsp. canning salt. You may use canning salt, pickling salt, or even Redmond Real Salt. Regular table salt including iodized salt usually contains an anti-caking ingredient and can cause your canned foods to have a cloudy brine, sediment in the bottom, or turn your food a darker color; it’s not visually appealing. Also when canning vegetables, if you prefer, you can leave the salt out.
Place the funnel on your jar and using the slotted spoon, scoop the potatoes into the jar leaving 1″ of headspace. Headspace is measured from the top of the food or liquid to the top of the jar mouth.
Once your potatoes are in the jar leaving 1″ of headspace, use the ladle and fill the jar again leaving 1″ of headspace with the hot cooking liquid from the potatoes. To decrease the starch: use clean, clear, fresh, boiling water to fill the jars instead of the cooking liquid. If you happen to run out towards the end, you may top it off with some of the boiling water you have in your kettle. Notice the two blue “cirlces” on the jar? Here I am pointing out the trapped air bubbles. After you pour the liquid in, you need to use a bubble popper or bamboo chopstick and remove those air bubbles. This can be done by sliding the chopstick around the outer perimeter of the jar and down through the middle gently pushing the potatoes around.
Removing the bubbles is important because if you don’t then while they are processing, it will cause your headspace to be more than you need and may cause some liquid to be pushed out of the jar by the air trying to escape, which can cause food to come between your lid and the jar mouth and that could cause your jar to not seal properly. This exact scenario is why it’s also important to not have too little headspace as the food can come between the lid and jar mouth as the food boils and bubbles inside the jar.
Take you other clean towel and wipe the mouth of the jar off well. Visually look it to make sure there are NO particles on the mouth. Any bit of potato or salt can cause the jar not to seal. Now take your magnetic lid lifter or tongs and remove a hot lid of the bowl, pat the lid off, and place the lid on the center of the jar. Grab a band and screw the band on the jar to fingertip tight. Fingertip means you are only tightening with your fingers; you are not using your hand and cranking down; only your fingers.
Once you have all the jars ready to go, place them in the canner. Again MAKE sure that your canner has 2″ of hot water in it BEFORE the jars are in. Or whatever amount your canner manufacturer recommends.
Once the jars are in the canner, place the lid on correctly into the LOCKED position. Open the steam valve. On my canner, the screw that I open is called a Petcock screw. I open it all the way and once a steady stream of steam comes through, I set the timer for 10 minutes. After it has steamed for 10 minutes then I close the Petcock screw fully to cut off the steam. That’s when the canner will begin to build pressure. If you have a weighted gauge canner or one like mine, this video should help explain this process.
Adjust your stove to a medium heat. Once the pressure gauge hits 10 lbs of pressure (10 psi), start your timer for 40 minutes for quarts. The gauge must be at 10psi for the ENTIRE 40 minutes to be properly canned. It is ok if it goes a bit higher, but definitely NO lower than 10psi. Even if it goes higher, you MUST still process for the full 40 minutes. Stay in the kitchen or close by while this is processing. Pressure canners are made with safety things such as an overpressure plug and others, however you cannot always trust those and nothing replaces you being present. Keep on eye on it. Depending on your stove, it may heat hotter than mine and other peoples’ stoves, watch the pressure gauge. NOTE: 10 psi is for my elevation at less than 1,000 ft. If you live above 1,000 ft, look up and see how high psi you must process at. Also, it’s 10 psi for a weighted gauge and 11 psi for a dial gauge.
Once the 40 minute timer goes off, do NOT open the canner!
Turn the heat off, leave the canner on the stove, do NOT move the canner. Let the pressure on the dial gauge naturally come down to zero completely on its own.
Once it’s come down to zero then open the Petcock screw or remove your weighted gauge. A bit of hot steam will come out. Wait 2 minutes. After 2 minutes, remove the lid with the lid facing away from you so you don’t get burned by the steam.
Once you remove the lid, do NOT take the jars out! Instead, set the timer for 10 minutes. After the 10 minutes, you may remove the jars carefully from the canner.
Use the jar lifter to carefully remove each jar from the canner and sit them on an elevated rack or a thick towel. Be careful NOT to tilt the jars when removing from the canner. The reason for this is because the jars are not sealed yet and if you tilt the jars, food particles or the liquid can come between the seal and the jar mouth causing the lid to not fully seal. The water on top of the lid will evaporate off. I like to make sure the ceiling fan is off and there are no drafts. Once they are on the rack or towel, I prefer to cover them with another towel just to protect against drafts or a sudden temperature change that could cause a jar to bust, but this is not necessary only if you have a massive sudden predictable fluctuation in temperature change.
Let the jars cool for 12 hours. After 12-24 hours, remove the bands from the jars. After removing the bands, make sure each jar is sealed. Use your finger and press the center of each lid. If it is sealed, it should not move; if it pops or moves up and down, place the jar in the fridge and use that week. After removing the band and pressing the center of the lid, I also grasp the lid using ONLY my fingertips and lift the jar off the counter. Only grab by the LID. If the jar stays connected to the lid while suspended in the air, it is sealed. I like to wipe the lids and jars off to remove any sediment left on the outside of the jar from our well water. Lastly, I date and label the contents of each jar. Finally, I store each jar in the coolest, but not freezing, and darkest part of our home.
How to Pressure Can Potatoes Step 5: Storing
If home canned food is properly canned and properly stored, it can be good for years if not decades. Each home will vary as to where they can store the food, but the best place to store food, even store bought food, is out of direct sunlight and in as cool of a place, without freezing, as possible. Currently we have a basement and the room where our food is stored has no windows and stays around 55-70 degrees year round, depending on the season. However, we have lived in other homes with no basement and windows everywhere. We have actually stored food in the kitchen on top of the cabinets where they were exposed to sunlight and heat all the time. The food didn’t go bad, but over time, stored this way, it does cause food to lose some of its nutritional value.
How to Use Your Home Canned Potatoes:
Home canned potatoes are pretty versatile. You can use them for most the same meals you would use fresh however there are some differences in flavor, texture, and preparation.
- Dump a jar into soup
- use canned potatoes to make potato soup
- use them to make fried potatoes, see this article on how
- although it requires a bit more finesse, yes, they can be turned into mashed potatoes, but they will not be quite as fluffy
- they can also be made into potato salad
- while they cannot be made into a baked potato as you have a fresh baked potato, you can modify them into a loaded cubed up baked potato. I’ll work on an article for that in the future.
How to Pressure Can Potatoes Tips:
-Some foods can be water bath canned and some MUST be pressure canned, but that’s an article for another day.
-Before I got my water bath canner, I used my largest pot to water bath can in; I did this for YEARS!
-Before I got my jar lifter, I used tongs for YEARS!
-Before I got my magnetic lid lifter, again for YEARS, I used tongs.
-Because we have hard well water, I always wipe the mouth of the jar off before placing my salt and food into it. This is so I remove any possible minerals from hard water that would prevent a good seal.
-I also wipe off the lid that was sitting in hot water before placing it on the jar, this is again to remove any possible minerals in our hard water that may prevent a good seal.
-When I place the lid on the jar, I make certain that the lid is centered and most often hold the center of the lid down with my finger while screwing the band on in order to keep it centered.
-If a jar didn’t seal, place it in the fridge and eat it that week.
-Be careful not to bump the lids on the jars so you don’t accidentally break the seal.
-When you store the jars, you may double stack only, not triple stack. Only double stack if there a piece of cardboard between the two rows.
-We remove the bands so that we don’t think something is safe to eat when it may not be. If the band is taken off and the jar is starting to spoil, the lid should pop off.
-Remember botulism is odorless, colorless, and tasteless. Even though Botulism poisoning is rare, it can be deadly. This is why we must follow a tested recipe to make sure we are properly preserving our food.
Tips for Canning Potatoes with Less Starch:
- Choose young, smaller potatoes with thin skins
- after scrubbing the potatoes, keep them stored in cold water
- Cut potatoes in 1/2″ to 1″ cubes and keep stored in cold water. Rinsing the water at least twice after being peeled; this helps to extract and remove the excess starch.
- Boil the cubed potatoes for 2 minutes
- Ladle fresh, clear, boiling water into the jars instead of using the boiled potato liquid.
You may watch the video here or directly in the second video shown below.
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