Canning

[Ultimate_Waffle]

A late-game preservation method. It would require a glass jar, the lid would likely be a tin-plated steel (I don't know if other materials are viable, I just know tin-plated steel lids are used commonly in real life), and you would have to boil it in water. Once steam becomes a thing in the future, perhaps you could make a sort of steam canner as well.

[Fredrik Blomquist]

Perhaps. Feel this method is pretty advanced. You wouldn't need tin plated cans though, you can use the same method in glass jars. The first use of canned food was by Napoleons army and that was with glass jars, tin plated cans where introduced in England shortly after.

But, does the game need them? Are there not lots of other stuff that are more relevant to the technology what's in the game? If we ad tin plate, it would feel pretty useless if you only can use it for tin cans. And besides, tin cans are related to the development of metal rolling machinery for cheap production of metal plates. Not that i would mind having it the game, but i can think of a thousand other things i would want more. 

 

[Ultimate_Waffle]

Right, it is a glass jar I am suggesting. Not at all metal cans. It is the "lid" that goes on that glass jar I am suggesting be tin plated steel. Only because today's lids for such purposes are typically tin plated steel, but I don't know enough about glass-jar canning to say lids "have" to be tin-plated steel. If other simpler metals are acceptable by real-life standards, then by all means have the lids be copper or bronze. I suppose cheaper metals would make it stop being the late-game mechanic I am meaning it to be, defeating the whole point of it.

 

As for the question on whether it's needed or not... Perhaps not. It feels like it's just a nice-to-have thing in the late-game so you don't need to use up animal fat or other somewhat inconvenient to obtain materials for preservation.

[Fredrik Blomquist]

Traditional glass jars have glass lids with rubber sealing (modern have tin lids with plastic sealing). I'm not sure if that was used in the beginning, but a little it feels like the vax or fat sealings thats already in the game. IRL you would't be able to create a air tight sealing of an unglazed jar of ceramics, but it might do some good and i'm not sure how much they can add to the game. Glazed pottery is something i would like to see, perhaps you then could make some of the patterns of ceramic only traders sell.

Adding vulcanization of latex from rubber trees and sulphur could be interesting, or just regular latex for some uses. 

 

[Hal13]

On 9/23/2021 at 8:07 PM, Ultimate_Waffle said:

Only because today's lids for such purposes are typically tin plated steel, but I don't know enough about glass-jar canning to say lids "have" to be tin-plated steel. If other simpler metals are acceptable by real-life standards, then by all means have the lids be copper or bronze. I suppose cheaper metals would make it stop being the late-game mechanic I am meaning it to be, defeating the whole point of it.

as @Fredrik Blomquistmore or less stated already, the tin plated steel is completely irrelevant for the lid (we use tin plated steel because it's dirt cheap less than an US-dollar/Euro per kilogram [that should be around 50? screw cap lids for jars] and it's durable. bronze wouldn't work because it's too stiff to be pressed into a screw-cap for example, gold on the other side couldn't handle the pressure or would have to be thicker and it's kinda precious stuff you don't want to use for that...), our metal lids all have a rubber seal to make them airtight (which is the only thing that matters) which is why relatively often glass lids are used too.

unglazed ceramic is porous and therefore never 100% airtight (as long as you only seal the gap between jar and lid that means, you could more or less coat the ceramic jar in wax though).

On 9/23/2021 at 5:56 PM, Fredrik Blomquist said:

But, does the game need them? Are there not lots of other stuff that are more relevant to the technology what's in the game? If we ad tin plate, it would feel pretty useless if you only can use it for tin cans. And besides, tin cans are related to the development of metal rolling machinery for cheap production of metal plates. Not that i would mind having it the game, but i can think of a thousand other things i would want more.

i mean we have lead plates already, that aren't used for anything, tin plates that would have a use (and could be recycled afterwards of course) wouldn't be too bad... and metall rolling machinery could be another interesting machine to add, maybe it would be kinda costly but would make use of these 3 metal voxels left when smithing plates out of 2 ingots and doesn't need the metal to be glowing hot, saving fuel for the big steam engine we'll hopefully get at some point...

[VaelophisNyx]

resurrecting this one to +1 it, but also to recommend full metal cans made from primarily tin (or aluminum if tech advances to where we can process that?)

[Malnaur]

 Crocks sealed with beeswax ARE cans. The contents are often good for years in a cellar. This is a very ancient preservation tool IRL.

[VaelophisNyx]

On 1/8/2024 at 7:48 PM, Malnaur said:

 Crocks sealed with beeswax ARE cans. The contents are often good for years in a cellar. This is a very ancient preservation tool IRL.

yes but metal canning can theoretically preserve food for decades, and is indifferent to non-extreme temperatures while crocks are not. Canning is a process that does involve boiling the sealed vessel of glass or metal for a long time, killing any contaminant pathogens or fungi, while also causing a strong pressure seal. Beeswax sealed crocks are good for a while, but are very vulnerable to temperature and in reality much worse for safe food preservation than a can or jar; though we don't have to deal with food-borne illness here (yet*)

additionally metal cans tend to be easier to stack, realistically.

glass jars would also be pretty cool for seeing your food inside them, making visual ID a lot easier

[Dra6o0n]

Wax paper/fabric is one form of trying to preserve something tightly, but not as effective as canning.

There's potentially a history since wax fabric/cloth was a thing for middle ages.

 

The closest thing to food storage is glass or porcelain jars with a cloth covered lid, probably soaked in oil or wax of sorts.

Dried food is a common resource for food preservation in bulk, not simply smoked food, but dried and stored in basement or cellars or even buried in the ground.

But for sure Salt is a very valuable resource for trading in the dark ages, as it's used to Dry and Pickle foodstuff.

Edited January 16 by Dra6o0n