Get out your Jars!®

Canning Season helps you get the most out of your home canning and food preservation efforts. Your podcast host, John Gavin, brings his friendly storytelling format to every episode.

Latest Podcasts
Have a question or a great idea for a show? Let me know! Contact John

Celebrating and Sharing the Abundance®

Canning Season is an uplifting show dedicated to home canning and food preservation.
It first ran in 2013-2014 and came back in 2020.


Latest Podcast Episode:

View more episodes →
Category:
  • Podcast Episodes
  • No categories

CS-002: Tips & Tricks from Marisa McClellan, Author & Expert Canner

July 11, 2013 in Podcast Episodes

Marisa McClellan, expert canner and author of the book,  “Food in Jars: Preserving in Small Batches Year-Round“, joins me for a conversation on how a person new to canning starts.  Whether brand new to home canning or a seasoned veteran, Marisa has great information for all skill and experience levels.

During the podcast, I briefly touch on how I spent my 4th of July weekend “attempting’ to make strawberry jam. With the benefit of Marisa’s epert advice I was able to learn what I was doing wrong and how to correct it for the future.  I end the show with my upbeat and personal take on what I mean when I use the term, “the food preservation lifestyle”.

Beginners will learn:

– Which berries are the worst/best to start canning with.
– Canning terms: Pectin and “A Good Set”.
– The equipment needed for canning (Good news. No fancy equipment needed!).
– The jars needed for canning.
– Ingredient selection and how much it matters to can in versus out of season.
– Amount of berries needed for your first batch.
– Basic steps when creating your first jam and how to add flair to them.

Both expert canners and beginners will learn:

– Understanding the role of sugar in a jam recipe.
– How to safely cut the sugar from jam recipes. FYI, as I learned from my experiment last weekend, cutting the sugar in half will produce syrup, which is not a bad thing if it can be used as a topping on ice-cream.
– 4 different ways to test for set.
– How to add flair to your basic jam recipes.

Marisa McClellan’s website: Food in Jars

Marisa’a Book: Food in Jars: Preserving in Small Batches Year-Round(affiliate link)

Can You Do me a Favor Please?

If you like what you hear, would you please go to iTunes right now by clicking here and leave me a good rating (if you think I’ve earned it, that is!).   It helps a lot and will go far in bringing more people into our canning community.

Get the Newsletter!

Get the Canning Season Newsletter delivered right to your inbox. Always free, cancel anytime!