An Experiment with Oven Canning

It is great to have good friends.  Friends that bless you and you in turn bless them. Here is a story to illustrate:  A good friend of mine gave us several 60 pound sacks of milled rice.  We, in turn, gave him lots of eggs.  The trouble with rice is that there are weevils or eggs of weevils in the rice.  If you put it in your pantry, one day you'll wake up and open the pantry and be greeted with moths - many moths.  When you kill them, they leave a dark residue on your walls.  If I sound like I'm speaking from experience, I am!

We eat a lot of rice, but wanted to find a way to store the rice so that it will keep for an extended period of time.  We could put it in the freezer, but freezer space is at a premium.  Fortunately, another friend shared a type of canning that we weren't familiar with - Oven Canning.  She gave us an article explaining how to do it that was originally published in Countryside Magazine.  We'll show you the process.  Yet another friend had given us numerous empty Apple Juice bottles that have a ring on the neck.  They are gallon quantities and pretty handy for milk.  The only downside is it makes it near impossible to skim cream, unless of course, you use one of those turkey basters with a bulb.  The directions call for quart canning jars, but we altered to use gallon jars

Here's what you do to oven can:

First, after sterilizing the jars, we used a funnel to pour the rice into our jars.  We're using rice, but this method is recommended for storing dry goods like rice, beans, flour, sugar, corn meal, etc. and protects the contents against bugs, humidity, varmints and other things that might spoil your food.

Filling the jars

We didn't fill the jars all the way to the top.

Ready for oven canning

Preheat your oven to 200 degrees Fahrenheit.

Things are heating up!

Set your jar in the oven on a tray, without the lid!  The article called for it to stay in the oven for an hour.  We altered the instructions to leave the jar in the oven for two hours since we are using a much larger jar than quart size.  We figure that this will allow the contents to heat up enough to kill any bugs or eggs in the rice.

Oven can this for 2 hours

Use a rag to pull the hot jar out of the oven and set on a dish rag.

Removed the jar from the oven

Use a moist cloth to dampen the top of the jar.

Wiping the jar top

Then screw the sterilized lid onto the top of the jar.

In a short time, you'll hear a "Ping!" as the lid is pulled down and sealed.  I like that sound!

Ping!

And here we go: Oven Canned rice on our pantry shelf.  We've canned several jars of jasmine rice and several jars of brown rice.

Pantry full of rice

The rice is now stored for use later on.  We tested and the rice pours out fine.  The article says that this method will store rice and other dry goods for up to twenty years. Check back in with us in twenty years and we'll update you on the success of this method of long-term food storage!  (Smile) Thanks again to our friends for the rice, the storage method and the jars.  It is a blessing to have good friends!