If you Google 'canning forum' it pulls up several. Unfortunately many of them are very inactive and a couple of them are downright poor when it comes to the quality and reliability of the information given. There is one on mrssurvival.com that is fairly active and is reliable as they are guidelines-oriented and keep their really far out canning info on a separate forum.

homesteadingtoday.com also has one that is very active. I used to do a lot of reading there. I can't recommend it for safe and accurate info tho. It is more of a "sure you can can anything you want to" flavor and has a strong anti-government, anti-guidelines lean to it so use it with care.

Dave

I have visited a number of canning forums but unfortunately, it's hard to think of any that offer consistently reliable information. The one that does come to mind is g**gle groups recdotfooddotpreserving. (In the past this group's owner has not permitted me to post a link to that site.)

Several of the regulars work for food processors or have Extension food preserving backgrounds. I'd say the philosophy is similar to Harvest. I quit visiting because the forum, sadly, was overtaken by spam, but a visit this morning showed it was much cleaner with only one spam, so that problem seems to have been resolved, though traffic is light.

However, regardless of current status, their archive of past threads is a treasure-trove of recipes and information. I routinely would search there in the days when I was canning intensively.

I remember a previous discussion on recdotfooddotpreserving. One of the regulars had left a yah** forum because his safety cautions had generated such hostility it wasn't worth it to him to stick around. Some groups don't like the facts to interfere with their opinions.

Another option is to check blogs of reliable sources or newspaper colums. Two names that come to mind are Linda Ziedrich and Jan Roberts-Dominguez. J R-D used to offer a preserving column in the Portland Oregonian and now writes a column for Everett, Washington (Tribune???). It's recipes with canning in the season. She formerly worked for Oregon State Extension and has a good background.

Carol

Mrs.Survival is good. I would steer away from the other one, because they do offer so many unsafe things. They are canning butter now. If you say anything against their unsafe methods, they get irate and the moderator basically says for you to shut up. Her philosophy is that no one has more or better knowledge than another. It is experience with no ill consequenses so far that matter. A trained Master Food Preserver is really not educated in her mind.... Sorry to be so negative, but that is how it is there.
Mrs.S. will not allow any unsafe things to be posted, other than if you want to on the other forum. That is then totally up to you and you are warned of the risks. If you stick with her Preserving the Harvest, you will find a lot of good help there.
Also, the RecipeLink is good. Just a question and answer place, not a place to chat in detail like here or Mrs.S.

In the vein of blogs, I like Tigress in a Pickle, http://tigressinapickle.blogspot.com. She has links to lots of other fun blogs on her site. I love the U-Pick web site, there's lots of good info there, good pics too, http://www.pickyourown.org

If you say anything against their unsafe methods, they get irate and the moderator basically says for you to shut up. Her philosophy is that no one has more or better knowledge than another.

Wow! Linda Lou you are right. I hadn't been there for a couple of months but the moderator appears to have gone on a real power trip. It has gotten downright nasty to anyone posting anything about safety concerns or even the guidelines! Censorship like that doesn't belong on a public forum.

Eric - forget I even mentioned it as a possibility.

Dave

Wow, I never read that particular forum before. Unpleasant.

With opinions comes responsibility for the consequences of those opinions, the old "don't shout fire in a crowded theater" idea. You are free to say what you want, but if something evil happens because of what you said, you are responsible. In this case, if you want to post that you can stupidly, you should be held liable for what happens when someone down the line takes your advice and they or their family are injured.

Folks who say "I've been doing it this way for years and no one has died" don't know what they're talking about. You don't have to die from botulism. You can just experience some neurological damage and not know that some "just like grandma used to make" canned food is what caused your dry mouth, blurred vision, and difficulty swallowing. And boiling your canned food to make sure there's no botulism? Boil away all the nutrition too. Just do it right in the first place.

What's really pathetic, though, is that it appears the real problem over there is simple resentment over some people having more education than others. IOW, sour grapes.