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Thread: Canned meals
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Old 02-25-2012, 11:04 AM   #3
Clay Davenport
Use caution Dennis. Personally I wouldn't attempt it using her method. She also has some misinformation about bacteria.
She's not actually canning butter there, she's storing butter in canning jars. That solar oven will not reach adequate temperature to be considered canning.
Also, any sort of dry heat for canning, in an oven for instance, is unreliable. Heat distribution within the jar is uneven.

Her claim that since butter isn't grown in soil it's exempt from the risk of botulism is also inaccurate. Botulism spores are present on virtually all food surfaces, which means in all likelihood there's botulism spores present in your kitchen right now, along with a whole host of other potentially harmful bacteria. Being a processed food does not preclude it from botulism contamination.
As for botulism specifically, there's no health risk when the spores are present on fresh food. Botulism itself isn't toxic, it's the toxins produced by the bacteria which are deadly. The spores can exist harmlessly for years, but they only activate and produce vegetative cells in the absence of oxygen, such as inside a sealed jar.

If I canned butter, I'd only do so using a pressure canner myself. Anything less is taking an unnecessary risk.
I also disagree with her shaking the jar every so often. It's similar to the way many of our grandmothers used to turn freshly canned jars upside down to cool. You shouldn't do anything that might compromise the sealing process, and shaking the jars has the real possibility of getting a slight film of fat underneath the lid and preventing a proper seal.
In order to use the canned butter, I'd open the can then melt the butter completely in a sauce pan of water, stir it well and refrigerate, shaking then if necessary, and recombine the separated parts that way.