By Debra Maslowski
Canning water may sound silly but it may just save your life someday. Learning how to can water is simple and the process is pretty quick and painless.
Emergency Preparedness
I’m all for emergency preparedness. And with all the quarantines happening right now, we really need to look at what we need to survive if we can’t leave the house. I started thinking about water. Water is essential to life. But what if the city water that you rely on becomes contaminated? Or what if the well you’ve had on your property for ages suddenly goes bad? Or dries up? You need to be ready if this happens!
Tip: you may also be interested in canning fruit and canning tomato soup.
Canning Water
Wait! What? Canning water? It turns out that you can, and should, can water to use in the event of an emergency. The process is easy and could save your life someday.
Here’s what you’ll need:
- 6-8 half-gallon canning jars with new lids
- 3-4 gallons of pure water
- stainless steel ladle
- large canner pot or pressure canner
- another pot to boil water in
- jar lifter
- clean towels.
Instructions
- First, clean your jars, lids, and stainless steel ladle well. Sterilize them by running through your dishwasher or heating in boiling water. Keep in the hot water until you’re ready to can water.
- In another pot, boil the water you will be canning.
- Next, place your jars on a countertop and use the sterilized stainless steel ladle to transfer the water to the jars.
- Place the lids on the top and tighten.
- Using the jar lifter, place the jars (you may need to do more than one batch depending on how many jars you have) in the large canning pot.
- Add hot water until the lids are covered, bring to a boil, and boil for 10 minutes.
- Lastly, take the jars out of the water bath with the jar lifter, turn them upside down on a kitchen towel, and wait for them to seal.
Storing Your Canned Water
After the jars seal, turn them right side up and allow to cool the rest of the way. If you have any jars that don’t seal, use the water as you normally would within a few days. For the jars that do seal, place them on a shelf in a cool, dry place away from sunlight. Sunlight could cause algae to grow, possibly contaminating your water. Your canned water will stay good in the sealed jars for about a year or so.
When storing your water, be sure that your shelves are very sturdy. Water can weigh around 8 pounds per gallon, plus the weight of the jars.
Did I ever think I would be canning water? After going without clean water for nearly two weeks after Hurricane Charley in 2004, finding another way seemed a whole lot more important. I’ll be canning some water this weekend. You should too!
Have you ever tried canning water?
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