Our Camper Canning Kitchen Setup
A Different Kind of Canning Kitchen
It is garden harvest time on most homesteads around our country! This means lots of mason jars, apples galore, and plenty of green beans and peppers showing up all around the kitchen. For those homesteaders who choose to can, this is a busy time of the year On our homestead, it is no different, except for the location and size of our canning kitchen.
Because our family is still in construction, we have set up our canning kitchen in our camper, my husband and I are living temporarily. Our kitchen is small, and we have to make some accommodations to make canning possible.
One compromise we have come up with is extending our kitchen to just outside of our camper. We have a built on room addition, and beyond that we have set up a double burner propane stove. This year is the first year we have tried this, and I will say that it has worked wonderfully!
See Our Setup
You can see what our canning kitchen actually looks like inside and out by watching a couple of YouTube videos that I made.
Camper Canning Kitchen, Part 1. Outside
AdCamper Canning Kitchen, Part 2. Inside
Using Harvest Guard Reusable Canning Lids
Those videos will get you started.
💥 Don’t forget to SUBSCRIBE over there are YouTube! 💥
We are growing our channel, and every subscriber helps us a great deal!
😊
Inside the Camper Canning Kitchen
In our regular camper kitchen, my stove is small. I have also been reduced to two burners, out of the three on my stove top. This makes canning a real challenge because of all the cooking involved.
Locating our Camp Chef propane stove just outside the door gives me more space inside the kitchen, it allows for me to use our kitchen space more effectively, and takes some of the heat out of our camper canning kitchen. This has actually been a game changer for us.
Inside our camper, I can dedicate two of the burners to cooking my fruits or vegetables, use the sink to its full potential, and make do with the wee little bit of countertop space that I have left. Believe me, there isn’t much!
Besides the regular kitchen appliances, we have a few items that come out every year during canning season.
For Apples:
When I’m canning apples, whether that be applesauce, sliced apples, apple butter, or cinnamon-apple syrup, I bring out the super big stock pot.
(Tramontia 16 Quart Triple layer stainless Stock pot –Walmart)
https://www.walmart.com/ip/19581121
I actually got this large pot last year at Walmart when I was canning a massive amount of salsa. It holds a lot of ingredients, and I used it this year for cooking down apples. It’s heavy duty stainless steel, so the apples didn’t stick too much. Currently it looks like the price is better at Walmart, but I always like to compare.
Tramontoa stainless steel stock pot 16 quart
Straining the Applesauce
When you use this sauce maker in your canning kitchen, it makes applesauce a lot faster. You don’t have to core or peel the apples, you just chunk them into uniform chunks, cook them down until soft, and then run them through the food mill.
oops!
I did not use ours very much this year because of the reasons that I detail in the video. Basically, Adam had fitted the crank handle with a separate nut, which he attached to our Kobalt drill. Using the drill instead of the crank handle  made it way faster and easier, but this year I could not loosen the nut. I ended up stripping the nut and making it so I couldn’t use this until someone stronger than me can loosen it.
Apparently they actually make one with a motor so you don’t have to use the drill.
A-Peeling We Will Go!
I use this cranking tool that spiralize the Apples, removes the core, and removes the peelings. It works really well, especially on Apples. When you have soft apples, like I did, you end up getting frustrated many times, but it still worked pretty well.
I actually used the peelings and cooked them down to make a cinnamon- apples syrup like they did in Appalachian areas during olden times. This was a trick I learned on YouTube from another homestead Vlogger and I’m really glad to have learned that new idea.
😊
My Big Strainer
This has been one of the best purchases that I have made, especially since we are still in the camper. This strainer expands to fit over any size sink, but for my little sink, it completely fills it, so I can just dump fruits and vegetables straight in and strain them.
More Useful Canning Tips
You can see more of the canning items that I use regularly at my post A Trip to Yoder’s Country Market and at these two posts dedicated solely to canning supplies.
Super Practical Canning Supplies
Outside Canning Kitchen
In our little area outside of the camper, we have set up the stove which has a table top attached. I can easily step out to keep an eye on the pressure canner, and the water bath canner.
Camp Chef Explorer 2 Propane Two burner stove
We ordered ours on Amazon last year, but we didn’t get to use it until this summer.
The two burners on the propane stove are super powerful, so they heat up our water bath canner and our pressure canner very rapidly. It really helps with the processing time for our jars. Last year, we were not able to put the stove into use, because every time I tried, we experienced high winds.
Pressure Canner
For all of my low acid foods, I use the big 23 quart pressure canner. If I’m in a really busy season, I also have a 16 quart pressure canner that I sometimes pull out. This year, things sort of trickled in from the garden, so I could do with just the pressure canner and the water bath canner.
Presto 22 quart pressure canner
I got my pressure canner many many years ago, before I even got married. It has served me well over all these years and gotten much use. My mom always had a big pressure canner, and so that is what I got when I got mine.
The 23 quart pressure canner is a dial gauged pressure canner. There is a little bit of a learning curve and you have to be careful with a dial gauge pressure canner so that the pressure does not go too high. But really, any part of the pressure canning process, requires you to be paying close attention.
I also have a smaller, 16 quart pressure canner that I use for overflow canning. It is a Mirro weighted gauge canner. It works well, and takes less time to heat up than the 23-quart one.
For Water Bath Canning
Granite Ware Water Bath Canner
This is a basic, run-of-the-mill, no frills, water, bath canner. It is the type that most people start out with, as I did. It works well it’s not fancy, but it does the job. That’s all I need it to do!
Whew!
That’s enough to get the idea of our canning kitchen items and a bit of the process for making camper canning work. It is certainly more challenging, and I won’t say that I’d recommend it for long-term, but it can be done in a pinch, and that’s good to know.
I’m sure our ancestors had many more challenges when it came to preserving and canning. They had to perfect the process in less than ideal conditions. Remembering that keeps it all in perspective for me.
So now I’m curious…
Where’s the strangest place you’ve ever been when during canning season? Did you make it work or say forget it?
Let me know in the comments!
Thanks for visiting!
Blessings,
Laurie
Very interesting, Laurie. I don’t can much, only once to tell the truth. I’m thinking of getting a pressure canner. I enjoy preserving food so your post is very helpful. I love my Mehu-Liisa steamer/juicer.
I have not tried that but it sounds like the Victoria strainer maybe?
Just begin small with what you can do, then build up to more difficult things.
Laurie, wow! That’s a lot of work! However, doing all that work gives you food made only of the ingredients you want, plus the vibration is completely different than industrially processed foods. I so admire what you are doing! All the best as you go along!
I do like knowing exactly what goes into our food.
Appreciate you pointing that out.
I will be using our outdoor propane stove for canning also, we are about ready to move into our 38ft 5thwheel tiny house. While we are not off grid, I can’t wait to get back to more cooking! Melynda@ScratchMadeFood!
Sounds fun! 😜