T-fal Aluminum Pressure Cooker, 16-qt

Used it for canning fish and it works great and easy to use. Instruction book needs to better describe the sound of the weight when it is pressurized.

Selon le manuel d'instruction, les sources de chaleur recommandées pour ce produit sont les serpentins et au gaz. Toutes autres sources de chaleur électrique sont déconseillées. Le dessous de la cuve n'est pas plat. Le produit semble robuste, mais est inutilisable pour mon four en vitrocéramique.

To be honest, I bought this because it was readily available and the price is good. Overall it's a well made, solid, simple to operate canner. There's a bit of confusion created by the fact that this canner is sometimes labelled T-fal, sometimes labelled Mirro, sometimes both. Another thing that causes a lot of confusion is that the older Mirro canners had a different weight mechanism (a single round flat disc with all the different weight options on it), that jiggled when it was at the desired pressure. The current design has 3 separate weight that seem to only hiss steam and spin when at the desired pressure. The instructions that come with this aren't clear about that behaviour, and if you look around on the internet there a lot of people confused about that - especially from folks with the older design telling the folks with the new design that they're wrong. One master canning group offered this alternative to the jiggling advice, which I have since followed: "When control starts hissing vigorously, reduce heat so that it only hisses once every 45-60 seconds or so."

I tried pressure canning and my jar lids didnt seal the first few times, there isnt any videos on how to pressure can with this particular product, but I researched and figured it out. You want to steam it out on max for 10 min as per directions then throw your 15 weight on let it build pressure on max. wait for the first steam spin then turn it right down from max to 3.5 or 3 depending on your stove, you just want the weight to gently rock not spin as that release draws out the liquid from the jars. The less the weight spins the better, then once your time is up just turn the burner off and leave it alone until the safety mechanisms unlock. I am successfully canning every time I use it now. I can fit in 9 qt jars. As for cooking meat it's excellent, ham is so tender it's awesome!

My second season with this little pressure canner. It has done well with salmon and now the left over moose from last year. Only regret, I should have purchased the 22 qrt model. Takes a whole day to do up 16 500mm jars of meat in this little one.