Water Bath Canning on a Wood Cookstove

Last week, I finally got finished with school for the year, and on my first official day of summer vacation, I spent some time getting caught up with some canning that I've been putting off.  I make all of our own pancake syrup (don't get excited; it's just imitation maple syrup, not the real thing).  Sometimes, I make just a single batch at a time, but this can significantly increase the time that it takes to make breakfast.  Also, this is not such a big deal in the winter time when the stove is going anyway, but in the summer, when I might use the gas stove or electric skillet to make breakfast, having to also make syrup is inefficient.  I like homemade syrup better than anything that I've found on the grocery store shelves, but the problem with it is that since it doesn't have any preservatives in it, it molds quite quickly.  Ironically, I figure that this means that this syrup is better for you than what you find on the store shelves.  In fact, I know a lady who believes that no preservatives are healthy, and she says, "If it won't mold, I won't eat it."  I don't know if any syrup could be considered healthy since they are all simply another way to pile sugar onto your food, but perhaps this is just "less bad."  Hmmm . . . I think I've digressed.  At any rate, canning the syrup allows me to make a large batch of it all at once but not use refrigerator space to store it.

Secondly, our Qualified range was removed from the kitchen in June of last year before the black raspberry season began.  Thus, when I picked the raspberries last summer, I just washed them, cooked them, let them cool, and put entire pots of them into the deep freeze because I didn't want to spend the propane to make the jelly.  Dragging the whole mess down to the summer kitchen didn't seem appealing, either.  We were down to two jars of jelly on the jelly shelf in the fruit room of the basement, I wanted my pots back, and the room in the freezer was also needed, so I needed to make jelly, too.

Both the syrup and the jelly are canned using a water bath, and so I decided to multi-task.  Water bath canning is a very easy task on a wood cookstove, and I actually think that it is a job that is easier on a wood cookstove than on a gas or electric stove because the cooking surface of most wood burning ranges is so large.  This blog post documents what I did and shows my method of water bath canning on a wood cookstove.

First, on the right side of the stove (the part that is farthest away from the fire in our stove), I placed a metal rack from some long-forgotten appliance.  This rack is more sturdily constructed than your average cooling rack since it was designed for some kind of oven, so I use it on the top of the cookstove for various reasons.  On this particular occasion, I didn't want to put the frozen pots right on the stove because the temperature difference would be extreme and could cause damage, but I wanted to hasten the thawing of the raspberries.

Two pots of frozen, cooked black raspberries thawing on the cool
section of the cookstove.  The rack that they are resting on is
about one inch tall.

I hate to waste an opportunity to use the heat of the cookstove in the summertime, so I decided to really multi-task and put a chicken on to boil, too.  Then I started to cook the syrup.  I use the following rough proportions to make the syrup:

3 parts water

3 parts corn syrup

2 parts white sugar

1 part brown sugar

Flavor with X-tra Touch butter flavoring and Mapleine to taste.

The butter and maple flavorings are optional if you are using brown sugar, but I like the taste that they add.  Be careful about the Mapleine, however; that is such powerful stuff that a little goes a long way.

The syrup is coming to a boil over the front of the firebox; the
chicken is behind it. 

As the syrup was coming to a boil, I put the water bath canner over the back of the firebox.  I removed the lid of the stove so that the canner bottom was directly exposed to the fire.

Water bath canner now placed over the back of the firebox.  The
syrup was now boiling.

Once the syrup has come to a boil, it needs to cook long enough to reach the desired thickness.  The longer it is cooked, the thicker it gets.  I don't want my syrup all that thick because it makes it difficult to keep pancakes from falling apart on my plate if the syrup is too heavy.  I test the syrup for doneness by lifting the spoon from the syrup.  Once the initial syrup has run off the spoon and the last drop clings to the spoon for a long time before finally dropping off, I consider it done.

Testing the syrup for doneness.

I removed the kettle of syrup to the trivet on the back of the reservoir.  I then moved the teakettle to the front of the firebox because I wanted plenty of boiling water on hand.  I am never sure whether I'm going to need to add more boiling water to the water bath canner because the water level in the canner is dependent on how many jars of food are put into it.  I always put less than I think I'll need into the canner to begin with because removing too much boiling water is a lot more difficult than adding more since the teakettle is always at the ready.  You certainly don't want to add cold water to a canner that has jars in it.

A picture to show that the canner is sitting directly over the fire.

Of course, I had my lids warming in the little saucepan that I use for that task so that the syrup could be put into jars and then into the canner.

Putting the syrup into the jars and the jars into the canner. 
By this time, the frozen fruit had thawed enough to put the
kettles directly on the stovetop.

A shot of the fire at this time.  Obviously, I didn't need a raging
fire to do the water bath canning.  You can see that the majority
of the fire is placed to the rear of the firebox beneath the canner.

Once the canner has everything in it which is going to be canned at one time, pour enough boiling water from the teakettle into the canner to make sure that the jars are completely submerged.  At this point, you just follow the procedures for waterbath canning like you would on any other stove; just keep your fire hot enough to keep the canner boiling.

Seven pints of pancake syrup boiling in the canner.

I then experimented with a vintage cake recipe, and then I was on to the jelly making:

First a word or two about making jelly on a wood cookstove:

Making jelly demands an intense heat under the jelly pot because you need a full rolling boil.  In my experience, if it takes too long to reach this kind of a boil, the jelly can be ruined because too much steam escapes and changes the proportions of the mixture.  In some instances, even though I've had a very hot fire underneath the jelly, it takes a long time to reach the full rolling boil that is needed.  Thus, not only did I have less than perfect jelly, but it was also taking too much more time to make jelly over the cookstove than it did to make it over a gas or electric stove.  I have solved this problem by removing the stove lid beneath the jelly pot.  The pot is then directly over the fire, the cooking time is reduced, and the boil is much quicker.

As a side note, each of the stoves that I have used has had a traditional stove lid configuration on the cooktop.  Therefore, removing the lid to cook directly over the fire is easily accomplished.  There are several stoves on the market today (Kitchen Queen, Pioneer Maid, Ashland New Decade, Flameview--to name a few) which do not have the old-style, removable lids in their cooktops.  If you, dear reader, happen to make jelly on one of these stoves, would you please leave a comment and tell me about your method--or whether this is an issue for you at all?  I want this blog to be an information clearinghouse for all things cookstove, so your input would be helpful.

The jelly is to the left.  Because the canner and the jelly kettle are
too large to have the lids removed under both of them, the middle
rear lid is removed and is under the teapot.  The lid from beneath
the jelly is on the stove's floor pad.

I was using bulk pectin purchased from the Amish down in Redding, Iowa.  This is just like Sure-Jell, so I use the Sure-Jell proportions and method.  Once the juice and pectin have come to a full rolling boil, you add your pre-measured sugar.  Return to a rolling boil, and boil for one minute.  Remove from heat and skim the foam.  Pour into jars and seal in the water bath.

Some astute observers may notice that I don't have jars sterilizing in another pot of water.  I've read that if you water bath anything for ten minutes or more, you don't have to worry about sterilizing jars, so that's what I do now.  I haven't had any trouble with sealing or spoiling using that method, and the set of the jelly remains unaffected.

In some respects, I prefer using Certo for pectin when making jelly on a cookstove because the order is reversed.  When you use Certo, you bring the sugar and juice to a full rolling boil and then add the pectin.  Therefore, while it takes longer to get to the initial boil, getting to the second boil takes very little time. 

The jelly boiling after the sugar has been added.

I made three batches of jelly on that particular day because I figure while everything is hot and the dishes are dirty, get the job done.  In the middle of the jelly making, Nancy came home and assembled a casserole from that chicken that you saw boiling earlier.  We baked it for supper, taking full advantage of the fire.  I have more pics and posts about jelly making to come since I made strawberry preserves the next day.  If you have questions about canning on a wood cookstove, please leave a comment.  I'll do my best to answer!