There are a whole bunch of food preservation tools available. Some are expensive and sophisticated, some are very cool. But often you don’t need a huge amount of equipment, especially when you are getting started.
We have used loads of equipment over the years so can give honest advice about which are great and which to avoid. The pictures here show the food preservation tools we have used over many years.
General Equipment
In terms of general preparation of food – chopping things up, seiving or cooking – you will likely have most equipment in your kitchen already. Bowls, knives, chopping boards are all basic items used for cooking. A big saucepan, casserole or jam pan on a hob are useful for heating ingredients . Always use a larger pan than the quantity of food available. If you are making jam you need to get a good boil and don’t want any overflow!
Sometimes you may need to drain liquids or pour them into other containers so sieves, funnels and cloths to pass/filter foods are useful items. Muslin cloth is great to have around as it has a very fine weave and is a brilliant filter. You can wash it and reuse it as well.
Food Preservation Tools
Fermentation Equipment
There are all sorts of fermentation tools available. Because fermentation involves using good bacteria to eat the sugars in the food, such as fruit and vegetables, and turn them into CO2, whilst preserving, pressure will build up in the jar.
You could use an ordinary jar with a lid but if you do you will need to ‘burp’ the jar at least daily, more frequently if the weather is warm. Otherwise the CO2 that the bacteria produce will build up and you could have an explosion on your hands – the glass could shatter. It’s a bit tricky because you need to let the CO2 out without letting any air (which could spoil the food) in.
We recommend kilner jars which have a seal around the rim and these ‘self-burp’. This means that they let the CO2 out but don’t let oxygen in.
They have a clip top and a rubber seal. The seals can deteriorate a little after several uses but you can easily replace them – it’s possible to buy only the seals.
There are other fermentation jars. These have a screw top lid and a valve to let air out.
They work okay but we have had problems with mould in the past. The lid is a screw-top, which isn’t great for a perfect seal and the valve must be pressed down, otherwise air can get in. We find these jars more useful when we are making vinegar – when we want the air to get in.
This vessel is Korean and is deeply cool. This is one of our favourite fermentation vessels and we use it to make kimchi and a plethora of other ferments. It’s a little pricey but it will last for years and we’ve never had a failure with food preservation from it. We use it over and over again – in fact, it’s pretty much in constant use in our household. It’s a plastic bucket which has a very tight sealing lid which can press down on the food – it keeps the air out and also lets the CO2 out via a mini valve. We use this for making kimchi and all other types of ferment. If you are serious about fermenting food we can highly recommend this.
You will also want something to keep your ferment under the brine. When fermenting you want to avoid ‘floaters’ – bits of vegetable that have floated to the surface of the brine and could be exposed to air and hence be vulnerable to mould. You can buy lovely glass weights, or you could recycle an old glass dessert container. You could even use a clean plastic bag, such as a freezer bag, filled with water.
Pickling Equipment
You can use standard kitchen equipment for pickling. A saucepan to warm up the pickling liquid and a funnel to pour it into a jar are useful. And of course you need a container for your pickles – a very clean jar will be fine. We never buy jars, we recycle old jars. But if you want, you can buy mason jars for storage.
Sugaring Equipment
Depending on whether you are making jams (jelly in the US) or jellies (clear fruit jelly without the actual fruit in the finished product) you might need some additional kit.
The process of sugaring raises the temperature of jams and jellies to over 100C so making your jam in a big pot is important. That way, if you get a good rolling boil going you can be sure that it won’t boil over the edge of the pan and make a sticky mess of your cooker.
A jam preserving pan is large and deep. The handle is useful for carrying but also for resting a thermometer against. Be careful though – these are often aluminium which means that they won’t work with certain types of hob, for example induction hobs.
It’s also useful to have a thermometer so that you can check that the jam has reached the correct setting temperature, although you can use the cold saucer method to see whether you will get a good set.
And if you are making jellies, a jelly strainer is useful. But you could use a muslin bag inside s sieve and just let the juice drip into a bowl.
Dehydrating Equipment
Now, if you’re getting serious, a dehydrator is an investment but it’s well worth it. You can control the temperature at which foods dry and it has multiple layers so you can dry a lot of food at the same time.
This is perfect for drying fruit and herbs. You can also make biltong (dried meat, popular in southern Africa) and fruit leathers.
You can also dry food naturally but you do need to have the right ambient temperature. This is easy in some countries, less so in others. If the air temperature is too hot, you’ll risk the food getting a little too dry and crispy. That’s not the end of the world. But if the temperature is too low and there’s a lot of moisture in the air, the food may go mouldy.
You can also dry some foods in the oven – set to a low temperature for a few hours. Or if you live in a hot country, it may be possible to preserve foods naturally dried in the sun. (We’re from the UK where it is often cold, grey and wet, so it’s very difficult for us to dry anything in the sun, even when it does appear in the sky!)
Canning Equipment
You will need jars that have a good seal on them as they will be immersed in hot water. They need to be watertight. You can get clip-top jars or ‘lid and screwband’ jars. If you are using bottles they need to be able to be sealed properly.
Storing Your Delicious Preserves
When you’ve created your culinary masterpiece you will want to store it. This is where you can make big savings. You don’t need to buy expensive jars. Just use the ones that you have in the house. If we use a jar of jam or pickles you can pretty much guarantee that we’ll add it to the Box of Many Jars, so that we can reuse it to store our preserves in. The jars will all need a really good wash and will usually need to be sterilised when you store your preserve.
If you are freezing food, there are all sorts of plastic containers you can recycle. We recycle takeaway food containers and yogurt pots to store our frozen food in.
