I have numerous ordinary ones, stove top and electric but not the chutzpah to deviate from canning instructions!
Try the one you have. Seriously, tell us what fruit or veg or meat you have and one of us will let you know how best to can it using just an ordinary pressure cooker.
Cleanliness matters, absolute sterility isn't necessary, the pressure and acidity of the food deals with it, but clean and tidily prepared matters. Boiling water cleans well, iimmc.
Decent jars and seals matter, and not everything needs to be pressure canned. Hot water bath canning works very well for many things.
Put it this way, I have heard American 'canners' rant and rave about how toxic our traditional jam making is. I jest you not, one lady claimed that forty people had died in the uk in a year with botulism from jam.
Total and utter rubbish.
No one in the UK died from botulism from such a thing.
62 cases in total between 1922 and 2005 of botulism in the UK, and apart from an incident with wild duck paste in 1922 most have actually been among drug users, not from food at all.
There are a lot of scare stories out there pushing the 'MUST / MUSTN'T do this', usually with links to some specialised cooker or book or seals, or their recipes/sites, etc.,
Jam making is canning, so is traditional European tomato (Red) sauce making....they don't even use specialised jars, they just use every glass bottle and jar they can find that has a decent fitting lid. Washed out, dried properly and re-used. Not pressure canned at all....and it lasts safely for years.
So, instead of looking at it as some dark art, maybe look on it as practical kitchen skills. If it worries you, just can what you'll use in say the next month. See how it goes.
It becomes kind of addictive (ahem, British Red
.....excellent tutorials, but boy does he also have excellent storage space) and you'll find yourself doing everything from left over soup to stewed apples for crumble
It's handy, and there's always the makings for meals in the pantry with it. Tidily deals with gluts of food too if you grow your own.
