What Is the Difference Between a Pressure Cooker & a Pressure Canner?
Pressure cookers are used to cook foods quickly under pressure and are not equipped for monitoring the amount of pressure inside the cooker. They also cool down rapidly. Pressure canners are used for food preservation and come with weighted gauges for maintaining pressure and heat.
Function
Both pressure cookers and pressure canners use the same concept of building pressure within the pot in order to create a high, moist heat.
Identification
Although pressure cookers and pressure canners look somewhat alike, canners are typically larger and come with racks that sit inside the canner to hold jars during the process of preserving food. Canners are also designed to maintain heat and pressure, unlike pressure cookers.
Benefits
A pressure cooker enables one to cook a roast that would normally take three hours in as little as 30 minutes. A pressure canner allows preservation of home-grown food. While a pressure cooker is a time saver when preparing meals, both are economical for their given purpose.
History
In the 1670s a French lab assistant by the name of Denis Papin invented the first pressure cooker. The principle design is what eventually led to the invention of steam engines.
Warning
Pressure cookers and pressure canners have the ability to cause serious injury if proper caution is not taken during operation.
Fun Fact
Denis Papin called his first pressure cooker invention a "steam digester."
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