Pioneering Today Academy

Pressure Canner Safety Operation Tips

1. Make sure canning rack is in place before placing jars inside.

2. Add water to pressure canner (2 to 3 inches) and then place filled jars of food
inside.
3. Visually check to make sure vent pipe is clear.
4. Lock lid into place
5. Place pressure canner onto heat.
6. When steam is coming out of vent pipe set timer for 10 minutes and let canner
exhaust.
7. After 10 minutes, place weighted pressure gauge onto vent pipe on pounds of
pressure indicated for specific recipe.
8. Only begin timer when weighted gauge begins to jiggle and hiss.
9. Weighted gauge should only hiss and jiggle 1 to 4 times per minute. If it jiggles
more than 4 minutes per minute, turn heat down in slow increments. If it jiggles
less than once per minute, turn heat up and restart processing time from the
beginning.
10. Keep an extra over pressure relief plug and gasket (if not using an All American
Canner) on hand.
11. Never leave your canner completely unattended while in operation. You are the
biggest safety measure in making sure it hasn’t built up too much pressure or not
enough by listening to how many times it’s jiggling per minute.
12. Don’t ever cool your pressure canner down by running it under cold water or
wrapping it with cold towels. Just turn the heat off and let it cool down naturally.
13. To see if pressure is down (if you don’t have a dial and to be on the safe side) take
a fork and touch the weighted pressure gauge. If it sputters or jiggles, let it
continue cooling. Try again, if no sputter or jiggle, with a hot pad, remove the
weighted gauge, if a lot of steam with force behind it comes out of the vent pipe,
put gauge back on. If no steam comes out, let cool 5 more minutes. (Note: It
takes about 30 minutes for smaller canners and 45 minutes for larger canners for
pressure to reduce pressure totally)
14. After performing test to make sure pressure is down, then with hot pads, remove
lid with it facing away from you to block you from any hot steam still in canner.