How to install the Seal on a Presto 21-B Pressure Canner

Having trouble with that flat seal on your vintage canner?

Presto 21-B pressure canner seal installation with video.

The flat seals on the National Number 7 canner clones, such as the Presto 21-B are sometimes a royal pain to insert properly. They fit into a groove in the canner lids and if you are not careful, they will not get seated properly. Sometimes they can stretch and be even more difficult to fit.

After you’ve done it a few times, it doesn’t seem to be so bad, but the first time – you almost always think you have the wrong seal!

You push the seal into the groove from the inside out, working in small sections, constantly making sure that the seal doesn’t pop back out as you move on. Sometimes you have to start over. Sometimes you have to work your way around the lid a couple times. And, sometimes, the seal is just too old and stretched to fit any longer. When that happens you need to [easyazon-link asin=”B000LL9NY2″ locale=”us”]order a new seal[/easyazon-link].

The [easyazon-link asin=”B000LL9NY2″ locale=”us”]Presto part number is 09907[/easyazon-link].

Here is a brief video showing how I do it.

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[easyazon-cta align=”none” asin=”B000LL9NY2″ height=”28″ key=”amazon-us-small-orange” locale=”us” width=”120″]

Small-Batch Dough in Bottom-Mount Bosch Universal Bowl

Big bowl, small batch!

Continuing my small-batch dough series, I’ve thrown together a challah loaf in my bottom-mount stainless bowl on my Bosch Universal mixer. This dough has 338 grams of flour and is about 60% hydration.

I’ll let you decide how the bottom-mount bowl handles a small batch, but will say the dough turned out smooth, elastic and gorgeous.

Note: always keep your lid on your bowl. I removed it for the video, but notice that it would be very easy for the dough to be slung out onto the floor without it!

Small Dough Batches in the Assistent Mixer

Can the Assistent mixer handle small dough batches? You decide with this video!

People always ask if the huge 8 quart Assistent mixer can handle small dough batches. I took some quick video of my DLX Assistent kneading a pizza dough with only 294 grams of flour (about 2 cups). This is about a 55% hydration dough.

The beginning of the video shows a very inconsistent dough ball, but during kneading, it will smooth out nicely and become nice and elastic, as it should.

Bosch Universal Mixer Small Batch Dough Divider

Does the Bosch Universal handle small batches of dough? Do you have to have the dough divider?

People always ask how the Bosch Universal mixer handles small batches of dough and whether the dough divider (also called the small-batch attachment) is necessary.

My opinion is that the mixer and small batches get along just fine and that the divider is unneeded. You can make up your own mind by watching my Universal knead a batch of challah dough that uses only 338 grams of flour:

Bosch Universal Mini Dough Hook for the Slicer-Shredder Bowl


L’Equip has released a new dough hook for Bosch’s Slicer-Shredder Bowl. You can already mix light batters in the slicer-shredder bowl using the [easyazon-link keywords=”bosch ts5 whisk” locale=”us”]mini whisk[/easyazon-link] assembly; now dough has moved to the small bowl.

I decided to take it for a test drive on some pizza dough. The recipe is a variation on Alton Brown’s pizza dough:

3/4 cup water
2 cups bread flour
2 T sugar
2 t salt
1 T yeast
2 T olive oil

I throw everything into the bowl and after it comes together, set the timer for 12 minutes and walk away.

If you want to watch the full-length, shot-from-above video from start to finish you can see it here.

Motion-Blur for fun:
Bosch Universal Mini Slicer Shredder Dough Hook

Pizza dough finished kneading:
Bosch Universal Mini Slicer Shredder Dough Hook - Pizza Dough

The finished dough ball:
Bosch Universal Mini Slicer Shredder Dough Hook - Dough Ball