Greetings!
I'm sure this questions has been asked several times, but I couldn't find a direct answer. I am looking at purchasing a All American Sterilizer for mushroom cultivation, but was also hoping to use it as a dual purpose canner for food preservation.
I have seen questions posed of the opposite "can I use a food canner as a sterilizer", and found this wonderful answer from RR:
"As a canner cools to zero pressure, air begins to seep in to the unit as the contents cool. This is important if you're canning, because as the jars of jam cool, a vacuum is pulled in the jar, sucking the lid down tight. If there was a vacuum in the PC, the jars would never seal.
In a sterilizer, the unit is completely air tight, therefore as it cools to below 212F/100C, no air is admitted, thus a vacuum is pulled in the vessel. This vacuum holds until you lift the toggle to release it. I do this in front of a laminar flow hood, thus only sterile air is admitted to the sterilizer. If you use a sterilizer for agar, it will boil over as a vacuum is pulled, so you'd want a canner, OR you'd have to babysit the sterilizer to lift the toggle exactly as zero psi is reached."
Thank you RR! But I'm still a little confused. I understand that that air needs to be let in as the cans cool to create a vacuum inside the can, so my question is can you manually lift the toggle at the proper time to create a vacuum in the can instead of the sterilizing unit, therefore mimicking the air intake of that of a pressure canner?
Im very new to the mechanics of how these tools operate so pardon me if I am missing something obvious. Thanks so much for the the help!
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