Dry Canning

My husband and I have been talking for years about being prepared for an emergency. But when this Covid-19 pandemic hit, we found we were pretty low on many staple items for long term supply. In the beginning, I only had a six-pack of paper towels and a 24-pack of toilet paper in the hall closet. I mean, the items we had in the pantry would probably last us two or three months if we had to stretch it. But what we would really feel more comfortable with is having a year's supply of basic food items such as beans, rice, flour, sugar, salt, and water. Also toilet paper, paper towels, and disinfectants.

Anyway, we were soon able to catch up on our supply of toilet paper and paper towels once the grocery stores replenish their inventory. and I will probably never do my weekly grocery shopping again without buying an extra pack toilet paper! But it was time to get serious about food storage. 

I already keep most of my pantry staples in glass mason jars. I have some half gallon jars in which I keep different types of flour, cornmeal, quinoa, oats, white sugar, brown sugar, powdered sugar, etc. I have several types of pasta in the boxes that they come in, but when I open it up, I pour it into a glass storage jar because I don't normally cook a whole box at a time. 

I also have I also have anywhere from 3-6 cans of a variety of soups, beans, tomatoes, tomato sauce, tuna, and jars of salad dressing, vinegar, oil, lemon juice, and condiments on hand in my kitchen. So that being said, everything I have stored now could probably keep us going for a couple months. 

So my plan was to buy case lots of items that we use frequently like cans of pinto beans, black beans, refried beans, chili beans, corn, peas, green beans, tomatoes, tomato sauce, pineapple, tuna, chicken broth, soup, chili peppers and maybe some other can fruits. Those are the products we use most frequently, and having them available in a 15 ounce can size works for daily meal preparation. 

One of my most recent trip to the store I found a 25 lb bag of white rice $13.49, which happened to be grown and produced in the USA. We are trying to be more aware of where food comes from and have been reading labels more carefully, so I thought this was a good find! 

I bought a six-pack of half gallon size Ball canning jars. The plan was to dry can the rice into the jars and store them in our garage storage cabinets. We figure this amount of rice will probably last us for a year. 

I started by running the new jars through the dishwasher cycle to clean and sterilize them. I let them dry overnight and then fill the jars with the rice from the 25 lb bag. We measured out that one jar would hold 7-1/2 cups of rice. The 25 lb bag actually filled seven half-gallon jars, so I have one jar in my kitchen pantry in 6 to store in the long-term storage. 

Then we put the filled jars into the oven and set it for 225 degrees and let them heat for almost 2 hours. This process is to kill any insects that might be in the rice. 

Then we took out the jars, put the lids on and proceeded to vacuum seal them. You can see in the picture how the divots sucked down and the lids are on tight.

I added some labels with what kind of rice and the date that we sealed them. Now they're ready for the pantry! Next up: black beans, pinto beans, flour, sugar, salt.