Books About Food Preservation: A Practical Guide
The most useful books on food preservation split by method. For canning, the USDA Complete Guide to Home Canning (free at nchfp.uga.edu) and Ball Blue Book Guide to Preserving cover laboratory-tested processing times that actual safety depends on. Fermentation belongs to Sandor Ellix Katz’s “The Art of Fermentation” (Chelsea Green, 2012). Dehydrating is served adequately by the NCHFP’s free drying guides and the dehydrating chapters in current Ball editions.
The right shelf depends on what you plan to preserve. A canning setup and a fermentation crock operate under different food-safety logic, and a book built for one does not transfer cleanly to the other. Before buying anything, identify which methods you will use regularly.
Which books about food preservation actually cover canning safety?
Two titles set the standard: the USDA Complete Guide to Home Canning and Ball Blue Book Guide to Preserving. Both root their processing times in heat-penetration studies, where researchers instrument actual jars with thermocouples and measure how long the coldest point in the jar holds below the temperature needed to destroy Clostridium botulinum spores. Nothing else on the market is more authoritative for home canning.
The USDA Complete Guide is a seven-section set covering fruits, vegetables, tomatoes, meats, pickled products, and jams. Every recipe specifies jar size, headspace, processing time, and pressure settings where applicable. It is available as free PDFs through the National Center for Home Food Preservation at nchfp.uga.edu, making it the most cost-effective starting point for any new canner.
Ball Blue Book Guide to Preserving has been published since 1909 and is now in its 37th edition. It covers similar tested territory with more consumer-friendly organization, building around beginner projects like strawberry jam, dill pickles, and tomato sauce before moving to more complex categories.
One point both books share that most general food sites miss: changing the jar size in a tested recipe is not a harmless substitution. The processing time was measured at the geometric center of the tested jar. Moving to a larger jar moves that cold spot farther from the heated water, and the published time no longer guarantees the center reaches the required temperature. Use the recipe as written, including the jar size.
“So Easy to Preserve,” published by the University of Georgia Cooperative Extension in coordination with the NCHFP, is a third solid canning reference. It uses the same tested recipes as the USDA guides but adds more detailed equipment guidance and troubleshooting sections. It is sold as a print book rather than offered free online.
What are the standard references for home fermentation?
Sandor Ellix Katz’s “The Art of Fermentation” (Chelsea Green, 2012) is the single most comprehensive reference for lacto-fermented vegetables, miso, tempeh, vinegars, and cultured dairy. The book runs past 500 pages and covers both the practical steps and the underlying microbiology. Its main strength is breadth: Katz documents fermentation traditions from dozens of food cultures and explains enough of the science that readers can adapt recipes rather than following them by rote.
Fermentation safety differs from canning safety in a way that matters when evaluating books. Canning relies on heat to destroy pathogens before sealing. Fermentation relies on beneficial microorganisms lowering the pH to a level where pathogens cannot survive. A properly fermented vegetable with adequate salt concentration and sufficient acid development does not require heat-tested processing times the way a canned low-acid vegetable does. This means the range of fermentation books that are safe to follow is wider than the range of safe canning books.
Katz’s earlier “Wild Fermentation” (Chelsea Green, 2003) is shorter and more accessible for people just starting. It covers the most common home ferments: sauerkraut, kimchi, cucumber pickles, kefir, and kombucha. Most practitioners start with “Wild Fermentation” and move to “The Art of Fermentation” when they want deeper coverage of cultured grains, legumes, or dairy.
Are there books that cover dehydrating and long-term storage well?
The NCHFP’s free dehydrating guides at nchfp.uga.edu cover fruits, vegetables, herbs, and meat jerky with enough specificity to act on. The meat guidance carries one safety point that most dehydrating chapters in general books understate: jerky must reach an internal temperature of 160°F (165°F for poultry) either during drying or immediately afterward, because drying at typical dehydrator temperatures of 130-165°F does not reliably destroy pathogens without reaching that threshold first. The USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service confirms this standard and it is the basis for NCHFP’s jerky guidance (USDA FSIS jerky guidance).
Ball’s “Complete Book of Home Preserving” (Jarden Home Brands, 2006) and later Ball editions include dehydrating chapters alongside their canning content. These work for someone who wants one reference rather than separate books per method, with the trade-off that dehydrating coverage is less detailed than the NCHFP’s standalone guides.
“Putting Food By” by Janet Greene, Ruth Hertzberg, and Beatrice Vaughan (now in its 5th edition, Plume Books, 2010) covers freezing, canning, curing, smoking, and drying in one volume and is useful for the non-canning chapters. Cross-check its canning processing times against the current NCHFP site before following them, since the book predates the NCHFP’s consolidation of heat-penetration research.
How do older food preservation books compare to current USDA standards?
Any canning book published before 2000 requires caution. Before the National Center for Home Food Preservation consolidated USDA guidance starting around 2000, several practices appeared in print as acceptable that subsequent heat-penetration research does not support.
Open-kettle canning, where hot food is poured into hot jars and the jar’s own retained heat creates the seal without any processing in a boiling water bath or pressure canner, appeared in older texts without adequate safety documentation. The NCHFP reviewed the evidence and concluded open-kettle canning cannot be reliably verified as safe at home scale. A jar that seals through this method has not been processed at a verified temperature for a verified time. Books that still recommend it are drawing on pre-testing-era assumptions.
The added-acid requirement for tomatoes is a second point where older books often diverge from current practice. Modern tomato varieties tend toward higher pH than older heirlooms, and some measure above the 4.6 threshold that separates high-acid foods (safe for water-bath canning) from low-acid foods (requiring pressure canning). Current NCHFP guidance requires 1 tablespoon of bottled lemon juice or 1/4 teaspoon of citric acid per pint jar of tomatoes, with double those amounts for quart jars. Bottled lemon juice is specified because fresh lemon juice has variable acidity that cannot be verified in a home kitchen. Books published before roughly 2000 often omit this step.
For content that is not canning, older books hold up better. Chapters on root cellaring, salt curing, smoking, and freezing carry fewer food-safety landmines than old canning guidance does.
Which food preservation books work best for beginners?
The USDA Complete Guide to Home Canning is the most reliable starting point and costs nothing. Its limitation is format: it reads as a government technical document, not a teaching text, and first-time canners sometimes find the organization hard to navigate. Ball Blue Book addresses this by building around common beginner projects and walking through equipment checks, headspace measurement, and lid seal verification in more accessible language.
For someone starting with fermentation rather than canning, “Wild Fermentation” by Sandor Katz is a better entry point than “The Art of Fermentation.” It covers a practical handful of accessible ferments in enough detail to build foundational skills, and its shorter length makes it possible to read through before starting a first batch.
The practical pattern for beginners: pick one method, get one reliable book for that method, and complete a few batches before expanding. Most early confusion in home food preservation comes from trying to learn canning, fermentation, and dehydrating simultaneously from a single generalist book that covers each method at a surface level.
Books about food preservation at a glance
| Title | Method focus | Skill level | Key strength | Watch for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| USDA Complete Guide to Home Canning | Canning | All levels | Free; USDA-tested processing times | Dense government formatting |
| Ball Blue Book Guide to Preserving | Canning and preserves | Beginner | Accessible layout; tested recipes | Use 37th edition or later |
| So Easy to Preserve (UGA Extension) | Canning and preserving | All levels | NCHFP-tested; strong troubleshooting | Print only; not free |
| The Art of Fermentation (Katz) | Fermentation | Intermediate | Comprehensive; explains the microbiology | Long; not a quick-start guide |
| Wild Fermentation (Katz) | Fermentation | Beginner | Short and practical; accessible projects | Narrower scope |
| Putting Food By (Greene et al.) | Multi-method | All levels | Broad coverage including curing and drying | Canning times need cross-check against NCHFP |
Frequently asked questions
What is the best beginner book about food preservation?
Ball Blue Book Guide to Preserving works well for most beginners because it organizes content around familiar projects and walks through equipment setup clearly. The USDA Complete Guide to Home Canning covers the same tested territory for free but reads more like a technical reference. Either way, start with one method and one book before trying to cover all methods at once.
Is the USDA Complete Guide to Home Canning actually free?
Yes. All seven sections of the USDA Complete Guide to Home Canning are available as free PDF downloads through the National Center for Home Food Preservation at nchfp.uga.edu. The NCHFP also offers a printed spiral-bound version through the University of Georgia Press at a modest cost.
Can I use canning recipes from my grandmother’s old cookbooks?
For freezing, drying, curing, or root cellar guidance, usually yes. For canning recipes, compare the recipe against the current NCHFP website before using it. Books published before 2000 sometimes recommend practices, including open-kettle canning and processing times not derived from instrumented heat-penetration tests, that current research does not support as reliably safe.
Do I need a separate book for each preservation method?
Not necessarily, but books that cover all methods tend to cover each one at a surface level. If you plan serious canning work, a dedicated canning reference gives you more tested recipes and more detailed troubleshooting than a generalist volume does. Since the USDA Complete Guide is free, the argument for having a dedicated canning reference alongside a multi-method book is straightforward.
Bottom line
Download the USDA Complete Guide to Home Canning free from nchfp.uga.edu before buying anything. It covers the safety foundation for all home canning. If you prefer a physical book with clearer step-by-step formatting, Ball Blue Book Guide to Preserving covers the same tested recipes in a more navigable layout. For fermentation, start with “Wild Fermentation” by Sandor Katz and add “The Art of Fermentation” when you want deeper coverage. Older books work for most non-canning chapters but need cross-checking against current NCHFP standards for any recipe you plan to process in a jar.