Mom never used a pressure canner, in truth I still prefer waterbath canning myself but when it comes to safely making soups that hubby takes a pint to work and heats up barely, the pressure canner is the only safe way to go
She had never seen me do a batch of 18 pints, first thing did was add a tsp of pearl barley to each jar, then I made blend of carrot, onion and celery, half a cup per jar, in a heavy steel pot, I cooked our home raised beef with a couple cloves of diced garlic till brown, 1/4th cup on top, jar filled to 1 inch below rim with hot beef broth, rim checked, lids on and into the pressure canner for 75 min at ten pounds (per my sea level)
So hot still they are floating and jar boiling, it lowers as it cooled, where they will be washed and have the rings removed but hubby will put a ring on while traveling to work.
The cost on these are worth talking about, some things are only reasonable because I had thing, grew things and got on sale. The jars are eight years old, so .10 cents per for this year, the lids were got on a huge sale and I bought a case of them, so .20 per jar, .66 cents for the meat, veggie, barley and broth per jar. So not including power, it was 99 cents per jar.
high end soup in our local store will run you 2.19 per can and its not anywhere as healthy as what I can make
Just another Day on the Farm 
I never have done it that way. Makes so much more sense. This way the barley and veggies are not all mushy. Next time i will try it that way. Thanks for that.
The key is to use very hot broth and to only put hot water into the canner and then heat it up, so its a cold pack(well warm pack) instead of a hot pack into a already preheated water and then can.. I like it because it means that each jar is the same.. which is great..
Questions!…for the 18 pints, how MUCH meat ( was that hamburger or diced roast?) and How much celery, onion and carrot??
Sorry its taken me a while to get back to you, typically I put 1/8th pound of hamburger approx per pint jar and the blend of the celery/onion/carrot is one third, one third, one third.. you could use diced roast I have never done so, I use diced stew meat for stew, and I use hamburger for soups, as this is a soup it was hamburger.
The meat is precooked, not because it needs to be, but so that it does not form a meat lump in the jar, because its precooked it will stay in small bits in the jar after
Have you ever had any issues with the barley? I’ve always heard you’re not supposed to can grains but man alive that would be convenient! Isaac loves beef barley soup.
Never, its all about having enough liquid and space for it in the jar.. I have been doing it for years and no issues at all..
I know lots of peaple who have made it over the years following this and no issues for them either reported back to me.
Ooooh so that’s how you do it! Thanks! I will be doing this too!
What a wonderful idea! Thanks for sharing the ingredient quantities and instructions.
Glad you liked it, I could do a few more of my recipes like this and share if you think it would be of interest to the readers
Yes, please share more. I’d like to think there’d be more than just me interested.
Thanks for sharing! I can’t wait to try this! I wish you had a Pinterest share button.
Thanks for letting me know you enjoyed it, I will see if I can add that button..
Hi Buffy, if you look at the bottom of the post, you will see links for sharing, I wanted to double check that I was still there and that it worked 🙂 There is a pineinterest share button on each post, it only shows if you click on the blog post and read it as a single post, if you read them just from home in a line.. hope that helps.. I can also see if I can take the min or two it would take each day to put the photos up on my pineinterest just another day board for you all.
Ok, if I changed it right, it will now show on the front page and the home setting as well 🙂
Nice job FarmGal! It makes so much more sense to (pretty much; ) cook them right in the jar! Vegetable, beef & barley was always one of my faves as a kid and it never, ever “came on sale” (plus that was the add-a-can-of-water, concentrated kind) but you’re talking about straight-out-of-the-can Hungry Guy type at a buck per serving? Wow, now that is an amazing savings, for sure!!
Thanks Deb, I was pleased with it as well, given that it would count as pretty much organic grass-fed beef and veggies, and I expect that if you had to add that in the cost, it would go up a far bit.. Plus its just so tasty 🙂 Nice to hear you from.. hope you are well and pick up the phone and give me a call soon..
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I just canned 6 qts of my own version of Veg Beef Barley Soup today! I used what I have on hand so do not have a set recipe for it; just chop and add your favorites. I precooked the barley and hamburger, used some dehydrated veggies, onion soup mix, cubed potatoes, and frozen veggies along with my own pureed tomatoes and other seasonings.
Sounds delightful Michelle.. and I am sure in the coming months, you will enjoy being able to grab those jars and heating up some amazing soup! I know I love my soup in winter always.. I never pre-cook my barley, as the soup is at pressure long enough to fully cook it, I would be interested if you find it holds its shape fully or if it softens and breaks a bit when reheated.. both ways would be yummy..
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Hi, If I want to can this in quart jars, how much barley should I add? The barley is new to me. Thanks!
Morning, given that its new to you, I would start with a smaller portion to make sure you like it, so would go with one heaping TBSP per jar and see how it goes, if you like it, then you can move it up to 1/4th of a cup per quart jar.. hope this helps
Thanks, I never canned soup before but My Grandmother’s was delicious .
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Is the barley uncooked when you put it in the jar?
Sorry it took me this long to get back to you, yes its uncooked
Thanks so much for sharing this!! Using the raw cut veggies worked like a charm. I just did 30 pints (perfect serving size for lunches). 1 didn’t seal so I ate it and it was perfect!! I put in 2 tsp of barley and found it to be just right for my taste. It was just so easy!!
Thats wonderful, I am so glad you found it worked well for you
Most website say that you can’t pressure can barley in your soup because it’s considered a thickener. I’m kinda confused. I’m brand new and trying pressure canning for the first time. I always make Turkey barley vegetable soup, but usually freeze it. I wanted to try pressure canning. Any tips would be great, so much information out there, it sometimes conflicting and confusing.
While you can not pressure can just barley as it will indeed thicken, this is a approved safe from my Canadian sourced pressure canning book and I believe its because its only got that smaller amount in it , which means it freely boils in the jar itself and if it clumps a touch on the bottom, once its cool, give the jar a shake and it all moves, if you make it you will see what I mean.. there is lots of liquid in this recipe/jar for proper heating