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My mother has two canners, both Mirro, she always preferred the Mirro. Mirro stil produces replacement parts for every cooker they ever manufactured.

Back in the day Monm would be loading one as the other was processing. As the first was cooling, the other was being brought up to pressure. They are still out in the garage as my little garden didn't produce enough to save.

One summer she canned 120 quarts of green beans and over 200 pints, Tomatoes were canned in about every shape from whole to juice. Potatoes--Yes you can, can baby new potatoes and they are wonderful. One whole room of the old farm house was full of canned goods.

When she was growing up they didn't have electricity and hence no refrigeration; so Grandma canned their meats as well. She would tell during canning season Grandma didn't have her own canner so she would borrow the neighbors down the road when she was done for the night. Grandma would can all night and return it back the next morning for the neighbor to do her days work. BTW--with 17 kids, Grandma canned in gallon jars. If you wanted to make it through the winter everything was canned, dried, or cured.

Terrible that such a tragedy in Boston is going to be linked to a hard working home appliance.
 
My father's mother canned meats. I thought that the canned chicken she brought to the table could have benefitted from a little better presentation because it was mighty pale and boiled looking, but for people who did not have electricity or even when they had it and did not have a freezer, canning meat was the way to preserve it. I think I would have cut the chicken off the bones and used the canning broth to make a soup with some vegetables and noodles. Hell, if I was really inspired, I might have used it to make chicken and dumplings, but that's not the way it was served and I obviously did not die of starvation.

When Sandy was blowing in and the weathermen were predicting mayhem and power failures and wearing suit coats and blazers to hide the fact that they were tumescent and leaking with excitement, I browned up hamburger and onions, threw Manwich sauce over it and canned it in the Mirro 16 qt because it's easier to get to than the Presto 16 qt. All the while it was processing on the Heat Minder unit set just below 250, I kept expecting the lights to go out, but they never did and my emergency stash of sloppy joes is still on the shelf. If the lights had gone out, that's several pounds of ground meat that was safe without refrigeration.

When I am canning, I add some vinegar to the water so that the inside of the cooker does not discolor so much from the water.
 
The Magic Seal toggle weight has a screw set into its top. I guess it's for venting pressure. You can back off the screw (counter-clockwise) and it will divert steam sideways through side holes in the weight. I wonder if the screw adjustment is also used to help regulate pressure? That would be cool if it was.

As for as the Boston bombs go, I suppose there might be increased scrutiny of pressure cooker purchases, but let's be real. No reason to be afraid to buy a pressure cooker if that's what you need or want. Don't let the nut job(s) who planted those bombs ruin your food preservation agenda.
 
You probably would not want to regulate pressure that way because the instructions for canners caution against letting the pressure fluctuate because it draws liquid out of the jars since pressure builds up in the jars equal to the pressure in the canner and if the pressure in the canner drops, stuff is sucked out of the higer pressure atmosphere of the jars. It might be for emergency use if you suddenly notice the pressure start to climb, you could bleed off a tiny amount of pressure before it would affect the jars amd then close it once the heat was lowered, maybe.
 
Re Canning in the old days!

I remember my Mother and Aunt telling about canning in the thirties before they had electricity, They said Grandmother sat on the poarch breaking beans for hours, starting early in the morning,she canned in a copper wash boiler that held about 16 quarts, beans were boiled three hours....now imaging that on a big Majestic wood cook stove..in August, in a room about 12x12!! Mother said she remembered Grandmother going inside to add more wood and coming back to the poarch wiping sweat, at about 5.00 she went in and cooked supper!! Mother said the house was so hot you could never get any sleep after a day of having that stove near red hot!
 
RE Mirro parts!

I wish they DID make parts for the old cookers, If you know where a gasket can be bought for a Model 394 cooker, please tell me.
 
The rest of the story!

Grandmothers niece worked at Belks Dept store, their housewares dept sold Presto and Mirro products, when they re modeled the house in 53 she got a Presto canner...Which my Aunt is still using at age 86!!!
 
hot pack

When I was a little guy, I had to wash and sterilize the jars for Grandma to hot pack tomatoes. She had a big ole' Coldspot freezer, and when the jars were packed we lined them up on the top of that freezer and covered them with tea towels. One by one you would hear those jars "POP" and seal all through the evening. Next day, they went to the "root cellar". I hated that cellar.

I only remember one time she hot-packed green beans (shelley beans, she called them). The majority of the time, that big pressure canner was put to use. If a lot of a particular vegetable or fruit was "coming on" she'd use a hot water bath canner--THE STEAM! I think for jellies, it was always the hot water bath. Anybody else remember having to "look" the blackberries?

We slept in the yard a lot during canning season--the whole house would get steamy hot. Even after she had an electric stove, I remember those summer days and the relief of going to the creek to swim afterwards.
 
canning stories

My grandmother and aunt did not use a pressure cooker to can...they did every thing in a hot water bath..and I mean every thing..and of course we never got sick. I think I've shared this before but my grand mother would can green beans in the over...she'd pack the jars then place them in the oven, turn it on to a certain temp then after so many minutes she' increace the temp..at some point she'd turn the oven off and put a chair in front of the oven door so no one would open it...from what she said if the "cold" air hit the hot jars they'd brust. When I got older and learned about bacteria and the runnings of a kitchen, I always thought it was a wonder we didn't all die from food poisioning..to this day I've never heard any one canning in the oven. However, she nor my aunt canned meat..it was smoked. In the mid 50's they got electrict and of course a upright freezer...but the current was subject to go on and off and she was always afraid they'd lose all their food. I remember shelling purple hull peas until my finger tips were raw..they'd be so stained up afterwards my grand mother would put purex in a small dish and we'd soak the purple off; also I'd eat so many tomatos my gums and toung would be blistered..not to mention my gut would be tore up for days on end. Don't know about you all, but I remember looking back on those days fondly..but I got to tell ya...it's really nice to go to the Kroger and pick up a bag of frozen peas and done with it...LOL!!
 
Some of the old farm houses had "Summer Kitchens" which was an out building away from the house where the canning was done. Our old farm house in Illinois had one, however, being over 100 years old it was far too unsafe to use as the cellar below was caving in. My step-dad stored some of his farm items in the summer kitchen, but other than that it wasn't used while we lived there.
 
Here is the main page to search all catagories

Mirro, Presto, All-American,

Mom always took her's to Ace Hardware. You may check with them to see if they can order for you if you can't find the part you are needing.
Like I said Mom hasn't canned since about 1984, but I did recently get a fuse for the 4qt model that we cook with.

P.S. don't let sister put lid in dishwasher.

http://www.pressurecooker-outlet.com/mirroparts.htm
 
Maid of Honor

I have an old Sears Maid of Honor pressure cooker. It is obviously a rebadged Presto. In fact I have a few Sears Maid of Honor things. Does anyone else like Maid of Honor besides me?
 
Snapping beans.....

I was reading Mark's post where he talked about his fingers being raw and stained from work and I had laugh. It brought back memories of when my aunt's garden would come in. She would be 101 if she was still living. I would be at her house and this started when I was about nine or ten through about age 18 when I left for college, but I would be sitting there and she would say: "You look bored!" And WOMP she would plop a big metal mixing bowl in my lap and say: "Snap some beans for me!" We would all be sitting around her breakfast room with bowls in our laps snapping away. Then she would give me money and call in an order of take out from a restaurant we used to have in Anderson and that started in Anderson called Po Folks. Then I would get there and have to wait in line to get our order. She would ask me what took so long. I would tell her honesly that there were several tour buses in the parking lot and that they were slammed with business. I don't think she ever believed that.
 

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