Echoing the “follow the recipe” sentiments. Feel free to fiddle with the amount of spices, but when it comes to the chemical/acid/salt components, you want to leave that alone.

I’ve just gotten back on the canning wagon after a long time, and I’m with you on the reluctance to poison anyone. But really, if something goes bad, it’s probably not going to go a little bad, it’s going to be explosively stinking-up-the-neighborhood hazmat bad. Okay, maybe not hazmat, but you’re going to open the jar and quickly seal it and throw out the whole jar.

You don’t need a pressure canner unless you’re canning low-acid items like meat. Otherwise you just need a pot that can hold the jars and enough water to cover the jars when you boil them. Then follow the instructions for how long to boil and how to handle them. If you’re at high altitude, you need to boil longer, and there are charts for that.

If you’ve got a recent canning book, it will tell you what foods need to be pressure canned. Other foods, you might need to add a bit of acid (ascorbic acid, vinegar, whatever) to reach the proper level.

My mother used to do some canning when I was a kid, and believe me, she violated every rule. She re-used the flat lids, she didn’t do the boiling water bath, and when she made jellies, she simply poured hot paraffin on top — no lid at all. I’m not advocating her methods, but let’s just say that when something didn’t work, we knew it. Even before opening the jars, sometimes. Trust me, if those lids start bulging, you don’t want to know what’s inside.

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