# All American #921 1/2 pressure cooker/canner



## RobertParsons (Sep 27, 2011)

Will this work for canning?

I searched Amazon and this is what pulls up.

Thanks for for the help.

Robert


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## Bobbb (Jan 7, 2012)

Every pressure canner can be used as a pressure cooker. The reverse is not true in that not every pressure cooker should be used as a pressure canner.

Canners are built with thicker walls and lids than cookers, so they take longer to heat up and cool down than do cookers and this affects processing time.


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## RobertParsons (Sep 27, 2011)

So the #921 will work for canning?


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## goatlady (Nov 7, 2011)

The 911 IS a pressure canner. That is the original purpose design.


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## Bobbb (Jan 7, 2012)

Like goatlady says. You pay more for a pressure canner than you do for a pressure cooker but you can now safely can foods and you have the bonus of using the canner to do pressure cooking.

Your money spent on the All American 921 gets you a better range of uses than spending less money on a pressure cooker which is designed for the cooking of food under pressure but not intended to be used to can foods under pressure.


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## Startingout-Blair (Aug 28, 2012)

I just received my 921 today! Whoo Hoo! I plan to use it exclusively for canning!


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## OldCootHillbilly (Jul 9, 2010)

Yup it be a canner. A All American be a excellent investmet!

I got one an wouldn't buy anythin else! It be the cadillac a canners.


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## Meerkat (May 31, 2011)

OldCootHillbilly said:


> Yup it be a canner. A All American be a excellent investmet!
> 
> I got one an wouldn't buy anythin else! It be the cadillac a canners.


 Mines suppose to be here today.I spent the extra $75 for the 930 AllAmerican,it cans 14 jars at a time.Total was $296 after SH.


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## DJgang (Apr 10, 2011)

Meerkat said:


> Mines suppose to be here today.I spent the extra $75 for the 930 AllAmerican,it cans 14 jars at a time.Total was $296 after SH.


I bet you are excited!haha!

I'm starting to get jealous of everyone with these all American canners... I'm feeling some peer pressure!

Let us know what ya decide Robert! Look forward to more peer pressure :droolie:


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## Meerkat (May 31, 2011)

DJgang said:


> I bet you are excited!haha!
> 
> I'm starting to get jealous of everyone with these all American canners... I'm feeling some peer pressure!
> 
> Let us know what ya decide Robert! Look forward to more peer pressure :droolie:


 We spent money saved for well,so hope we don't run out of water,haha.But our last one bubbled up on the bottom so that is now a dog bucket.

We started off with it and it was fine for a few hundred jars.So it was worth it,just like a 7 qt would be worth it too,but since we'r older and no help we got the large one.


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## RobertParsons (Sep 27, 2011)

My 921 is on the way.

Thanks for the help. 

now to stock up on jars


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## Dakine (Sep 4, 2012)

lids too! and you'll want to vary your jars from regular to wide mouth depending on what you're canning.

cubed chicken, browned ground beef, cubed roast beef, chili, etc = work in a regular jar just fine

bacon, meatloaf = wide mouth jars only. The bacon is wrapped up in parchment paper and jammed into the jar, so it would be really difficult to get it out without a lot of work, same with the meatloaf. It cooks in the jar, but you need the wide mouth design to get it out without having to cut it all up inside the jar to get small enough pieces to come out.


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## RobertParsons (Sep 27, 2011)

i am buying wide mouth only right now for ease for lids


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## Startingout-Blair (Aug 28, 2012)

I got my 921 about a week or so ago. To be honest, I haven't tried it yet. Several reasons:

1. I live alone right now and, being disabled, have trouble lifting the damn thing

2. I'm not sure what to can first

3. Having never canned before, I am a bit intimidated. I would like to find someone who is experienced here locally and have them walk me through it the first time.

Otherwise, I am still excited about getting started. Maybe I should have gotten the dehydrator first...lol


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## Dakine (Sep 4, 2012)

Well, I just got mine about 6-8 weeks ago I guess, but here's a step by step on cold packing chicken!

To start with, before actually cutting up the chicken, I'll get a small sauce pan with my lids (dont worry about the rings, just the flat lids) simmering, not boiling. It just has to be warm enough so that the rubber seal on the lid gets nice and soft and pliable so it will make a really good seal on the jar. Also at this point, I put 3 inches of water in the canner and get that heating up, you can drop the bottom spacer in there now too, no point in waiting on that. (you'll always use the bottom spacer) There's no harm that I know of from using more than 3 inches of water, but if you run the canner dry, All American says it's ruined. In all of my batches that I've cooked, I've never even come close to running it out of water, and I was really concerned about that. the 3 inches is plenty!!! **NOTE** I put in about 1/2 cup of vinegar and that helps with hard water, it doesn't affect the food at all but it makes the jars look more presentable. Without it they can be a little... dirty? scaly maybe? Anyway, if you have hard water, you might want to do this.

Since this is pressure canning and not water bath, you're basically turning the canner into an autoclave, the jars will be sterilized by extreme temp inside the canner, you do NOT need to have them in the canner in warm water prior to filling them with food. **If you buy a water bath canner to do things like jelly, jams and the like, then yeah... I think you have to start taking that into consideration, but not what we're going to talk about here.

1. Buy boneless skinless chicken breasts. You can get the leg quarters and such if you like, but it takes a lot of time to cut that all up, so I've been looking for B/S breasts when on sale for 2-2.50 lbs and I buy that. The 921 will hold 18 pints, they say 19, so I must not be packing the top level enough, but whatever, 18 works.

2. Cut the chicken up into cubes, I prefer 1/2 to 3/4 inch cubes, thats what I'm used to cooking with if I make chicken helper or other types of dishes like that. Each pint jar holds approximately 1 lb of meat. Use your funnel (did you buy the parts kit? it comes with a funnel, a magnet stick to get the lids out of the simmering pot, a head space measure stick and jar grabbing set of tongs) If you use the funnel even while filling the jars, it reduces / eliminates the chances of you getting any of the product on the jar, and that's something you have to keep clean so you get a good airtight seal when you process the jars.

Fill the jars with the chicken cubes and use the measure stick to slide between the meat and the glass jar, this frees air pockets and lets you poke more chicken down there. Leave about 1 inch of head space on the jars, so from the top of the jar, there's 1 inch of empty space before any meat can be touched with the head space stick on it's biggest gauge check. (you'll see what I mean when you see the plastic gauge)

Now drop 1 of those chicken bullion cubes on top of each jar. Use a paper towel or a clean wash rag, and get some vinegar on it, and wipe the rim of the jar, the vinegar helps cut any fat that might have dripped on the jar rim, and after you've done this you can be more confident about getting a good seal.

Grab a lid from the sauce pot with your stick magnet and put it on the jar, then drop the lid right on top of it and tighten it down finger tight. You dont have to get it uber tight, I go more than snug, but not really tightened down. It will seal on its own.

Repeat this step as many times as necessary to jar all your food.

Now you can start putting them into the canner. You can also mix foods as well and by that I mean 4 jars of chicken, 5 jars of chili, 5 jars of ground beef... the contents of one jar will not corrupt the contents of another. I just went with chicken for this example because it's so little fat there's no reason to precook it, and you can go straight from freezer to butcher board to jar to canner without any trouble or concerns.

Lube your AA pressure canner metal to metal seal. The owner manual says you can even use vaseline but that it leaves a residue that has to be cleaned off. I use olive oil, I just dab a bunch onto a paper towel and rub that around both the outside lip of the lid, and the inside beveled lip of the canner pot. Oh yeah, they also recommend spinning off the lid tightening handles and lubing those threads too. They recommend doing the lube thing like every 3 or 4 uses... I have lubed the lid/pot seal every time but I think I only lubed the handles the first time.

**BEFORE you seat the lid, look through the steam vent that the weight will sit on, you want to be sure for a fact that there's no obstruction from food particles, something that slopped onto it while being stored or whatever the case may be, if anything is blocking it, you need to clean that out before using it!!!**

Line up the arrow with the notch so when you turn the lid tight they are lined up and try to keep the gap around the seal about the same... it doesnt have to be within millimeters but if you have a 2mm gap on one end, and it's cockeyed up by 1/2 inch on the opposite side, thats not so good  so just keep it as close as you can. I think it was in the manual that it's not uncommon for the metal to metal seal to vent a little steam the first few uses, so if you see a little of that keep in mind it's probably fine. In my case I was lucky and there wasnt any, I would have been nervous about that myself lol. do the basic thing like you would with car lug nuts and tighten opposite sides so you can get a good seal without pancaking the lid to one side or the other

Now, you should have already had the heat up to high as you were prepping the chicken getting the water hot, and now that you've got the canner lid locked down turn the heat up to full blast and you'll hear the water boiling inside. After a while you'll start seeing steam vent. In my case, seeing the steam is actually kind of tricky... I dont know if it's my lighting or the relative humidity and temp of being close to the coast, but I dont get this huge obvious steam vent, I can see it a lot better though if I cup my hand over it about a food above the vent or if I use a flash light pointing up through the venting steam, that kind of lights it up.

Let the pot vent for 10 minutes and then set your pressure gauge to the setting based on your elevation. For me it's 10 lbs setting.

At this point I start slowly turning the temp down. I'll take it from high to 8 after about 5 minutes and then from 8 down to low 7ish and at this point I'm still getting 11 lbs of pressure on my dial gauge, and the metal weight is jiggling about 3 - 5 times a minute or so. From what I've read this is what you're targeting... as few changes in temp as necessary and yet still hot enough that the jiggler is letting off excess steam about 3-4 times a minute.

One time just to be stubborn and test the water left over, I left it much higher than I normally would, yep, I boiled off more water but I still wasn't even close to running it dry!

since we're using pint jars in our example we're going to process them for 75 minutes. The timer starts when you put the gauge on the vent pipe. * WRONG!!!* sorry, about that. The timer starts when the dial pressure gauge reads the proper pressure for your altitude, NOT when you put the gauge on the vent pipe.

Now that your 75 minutes is up, do not touch anything on the pot, turn the temp on the stove off completely.

periodically check the pressure inside the pot with the dial gauge... eventually it will come down to zero on it's own. After the gauge reads ZERO, then you can take the jiggler weight off the vent pipe.

Any excess steam will come out, it wont be a geyser or anything like that, but there might be some still so use an oven mitt or something, actually the steam probably wont hurt you at all but that jiggler is still pretty warm, use the mitt for sure lol...

now you can undo all the locking connectors and take the lid off. Leave the jars in the pot for 10 minutes after you remove the lid. You're still not moving the canner at all, just removing the lid. You may even hear the lids start to pop shut at this point.

After your 10 minutes is up, use the jar tongs that came in the parts kit and pull the jars out, set them on a towel in a cool dark place out of direct sunlight if possible and let them be. You might even see bubbles boiling up still inside the jars, that's perfectly normal. The chicken has cooked, you'll see that there's plenty of juice/water inside the jars, and it's turned a nice yellow'ish color from the bullion cube you put in.

The book says leave the jars undisturbed for 24 hours. You'll be hearing the lids snap as they pop down. the next morning or whatever, check all of the lids, make sure they made a good solid seal. You're making sure that they are nice and completely firm, like when you buy a jar of pickles or salsa at the store. There really shouldnt be any noticeable play in the lid or bubbling sound when you push down on it. If you do find any like that, refrigerate right away and cook it with one of your upcoming meals, or check the jar rim for cracks or deformities that might have prevented a good seal, if none found you could try to use a new lid and reprocess the jar(s) that had a problem.

At this point, I use a sharpie marker and label the lid with the date and batch number I made, and that's it... you've canned chicken in 1 lb servings ready to be used next time you want to cook, or a couple years down the road!

If I missed anything (I dont think I did, and I'll re-read all of this to check) hopefully someone else will chime in!

-Dak


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## DJgang (Apr 10, 2011)

Startingout-Blair said:


> I got my 921 about a week or so ago. To be honest, I haven't tried it yet. Several reasons:
> 
> 1. I live alone right now and, being disabled, have trouble lifting the damn thing
> 
> ...


Damn, sure do wish that I lived closer.


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## Startingout-Blair (Aug 28, 2012)

So do I DJ! I could use some help. I think it's just a case of first-time jitters.


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## Moby76065 (Jul 31, 2012)

I have been a big fan of the American Pressure Canner 921 for years.
Well built. I believe that for preppers, it's the most important piece of gear right after your home denfense firearm.


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## DJgang (Apr 10, 2011)

Startingout-Blair said:


> So do I DJ! I could use some help. I think it's just a case of first-time jitters.


Probably so! I grew up watching grandma and mama canning all the time, it was the norm around here, so once I got my own, I'm a canning machine.

I have a presto the same size as the 921, I think. It barely fits under my hood. I actually would like a smaller one for quick batches of stuff, but my mom loves mine...I think that I may have actually just talked myself into getting another canner, haha!


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## Dakine (Sep 4, 2012)

DOH!!!! I did notice one mistake, the 75 min timer starts after the dial pressure gauge reads 11 lbs (for my altitude)... not right after you put the weight on the vent pipe. 

Let the pressure canner get up to temp/pressure and you'll hear it tell you it's there when the jiggler rattles. now set your timer for 75 minutes!

Sorry about that!!


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## Meerkat (May 31, 2011)

Meerkat said:


> We spent money saved for well,so hope we don't run out of water,haha.But our last one bubbled up on the bottom so that is now a dog bucket.
> 
> We started off with it and it was fine for a few hundred jars.So it was worth it,just like a 7 qt would be worth it too,but since we'r older and no help we got the large one.


 I forgot to tell yall,the canner that bubbled was not a All American,it was a Mirro cooker canner.

Now we have the All American canner.


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## RobertParsons (Sep 27, 2011)

Dakine, thanks for the how to write up. 

Learned a ton. 

so with pressure canning and canning pork. I dont need to cook it before canning?


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## OldCootHillbilly (Jul 9, 2010)

When I can pork I smoke it ta 165 degrees, refrigerate overnight. Cube it, rewarm ta 165 degree's an then can it. Normally a pork butt be smoked ta 195 degree's so it can be pulled, but it would be mushy ifin ya smoked ta 195. 

So by undercookin (it actually be fully cooked at 165 just not tender) it an then cannin it the texture be just right.

Hot pack (precookin some) gives a nicer lookin product. Cold pack be fine to, but don't look as appealin as hot pack.

Best thin ta do be try both an see what one ya prefer.


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