DIY pressure cooking preservation

[ateallthepies]

Say if I wanted to combine various tinned goods with other tins or make meals from tins and add cooked rice, could I then make into vacuum pouches and cook in a pressure cooker to make a long lasting meal?

I tried one of those 'look what I found' pouches and while it tasted ok was rather lacking in substance. This made me think that if I could combine a tin of beef curry with a pack of uncle bens cooked rice and some other bits and pressure treat it in a vacuum pouch I would have a proper meal ready to eat?

I am wondering if a home pressure cooker has enough oomph to do the business and make the food sterile or if a proper. Pressure canner would be needed?

 

[British Red]

You can do it in a pressure cooker, the retort pouch would be the problem. You cannot have the pouch sealed when you heat it (it will explode), but it must be sealed when hot otherwise new contamination can creep in. When canning in jars, a clever two part lid solves this - it acts as a "one way valve" during processing and seals as the jar cools. If you could find a pouch that does this, then yes, in theory it would be possible (and not just combining tinned meals - you could make meals from fresh ingredients)

You would of course have to use a canning "bible" to work out canning times and pressures just like canning in jars.

 

[xylaria]

I use a pressure cooker to seal jars. It does a better job of stopping spoilage than just potting while hot, but it doesnt seem to sterilise like I presume the high temperatures and pressures of a proper canner would. It gives a shelf life of months not years.

As you are bag sealing foods with low sugar and neutral ph I would go for doing properly personally. Follow proper guidance as British Red says.

 

[rik_uk3]

Errr, why not just take the tins? If your only out for a day or two and feel the urge to not carry empty tins home just empty contents into a zip lock bag before the trip?

 

[ateallthepies]

Cheers for the replies.

I really wanted these meal pouches to last up to a year but most would be used within a month or two, just having some made up in advance would be good. I think I will have to do more research before I would be confident of having a sterile product under DIY conditions.

Cans are great for storage and I have quite a good store of them. But are an inconvenient shape for my wanderings. Filling zip loc bags on the day is a good idea and I would be happy to consume within a day or two so can do that but having realistic size meal pouches that could be made up at a fraction of the cost of commercial ones would be great.