I don't feel like a wealth of information at all but thank you Tory! We are in a very similar climate so we can understand the issues each other has with gardening and can plant grow lots of the same things
Plus it was really awesome meeting in person!
I wish we lived closer!
So using the Presto canner was not much different. It really didn't seem like it heated up much faster than mine and seemed to take about the same time to reach pressure once the weight was put on. Cooling off was a little faster but didn't seem much faster. It took a good while for hers to cool off to the point the lock went down and it could be opened. The Presto has a lock that pops up when pressurized, then the weight jiggles while under pressure and processing. Once it got up to pressure, it didn't take much adjusting to get the burner setting tweaked. Hers was an electric stove and the dial was on 4 during processing.
The AA has a different style weight that doesn't jiggle but it does hiss and you can easily hear that it is pressurized. It has a gauge so you can see the pressure but the book says the purpose of the gauge is so you can see when pressure back down to zero so you can open the top. Once it gets up to pressure, I know where to set the burner dial, can listen for the hiss, and it usually doesn't have to be adjusted during canning.
So, I would be happy using either.
I really love my AA and wouldn't trade it, but I wouldn't mind using the Presto either. My friend inherited hers from her MIL so it is from the 70's but still worked perfectly!
As for the weight of the canner, the 921 weighs about 20 pounds, plus the weight of the water you put in for pressure canning - about 1.5 gallon in mine - so maybe a little over 30 pounds? I set it on the burner, then add the water. After canning, I do carry it to the sink to clean but that is the only moving of it I do with it not empty. Maybe that gives you a weight to decide if you can manage. You could always use a cup to dip out the water then take to the sink to clean.