Commercial version of pressure canning

[Mike Waters]

Hi. I have a food product I'd like to commercialize (i.e. sell in grocery stores). I gather that for home preservation, it would need to be pressure canned, because it's a low-acid food. I approached a commercial co-packer to ask if they offer pressure canning and he said it was not widely available, which struck me as strange. How are low acid foods you find in grocery shops canned? Do the commercial canners have a different name for pressure canning? Or do they use a different process? Thanks! Mike

 

[dcSaute]

commercially they use what is technically an autoclave.
big container with dogged doors into which live steam is injected.
one can superheat steam (i.e. raise it's temp _way_ beyond the boiling point)
which is how they get the temp needed to sterilize skid loads of canned goods.



since residential steam-superheaters are hard to come by, one uses a small pressure canner.

 

[Mike Waters]

Wow. Thanks! And do you know if they run this process with glass containers as well as metal cans?

 

[taxlady]

They must do it with jars as well. There are low acid foods sold in jars and if they weren't heated to temperatures that require pressure, they wouldn't be safe from botulism.

Commercially they may refer to the device to get that kind of pressure as an autoclave rather than as pressure canning. But, it's basically the same thing. A home pressure canner is a form of autoclave.