How To Accidently Clean Your Pressure Canner

I don't know about your pressure canner, but mine turned dark inside the first time I used it due to the hard water here.  About a month later I read to boil milk in it before using it and that would not happen.  I'm not sure if that really works since I was past that point by then.  Then I read after lo these many years to add vinegar to the water when you can.  That helped the jars to not have the white fogging from the minerals but didn't do a thing for the canner.

Then something fortuitous happened, one of the jars of peaches I was canning broke.  Yes, I lost a pint of peaches but a happy accident occurred.  You can see the dark ring in the photo above and the pretty and bright bottom part below that ring.

Wow what a difference!

The other piece that goes inside used to be totally black, it looked like it had been through a fire.  

Not any more!

Here's what happened:  I added a couple glugs of vinegar to the water in the canner before adding the jars.  The peaches had been sliced into a bowl with sugar and 'fruit fresh' sprinkled over each layer and they had been in the fridge overnight so they could make their own juice.  After warming the peaches and adding a bit of water I canned as usual.  

On opening the canner I could see the jar in the center had broken so ignored it and took the others out.  It was late and the canner was hot, so I went to bed and left the broken jar and stuff in the canner.  

I had to work the next day and didn't feel well so it sat another night.  After work the next day I pulled the broken glass out and scooped out the peaches to throw out.  When I dumped out the water/peach juice I was amazed to find the canner looked like this. 

So, was it the combination of vinegar with the citric acid in the fruit fresh?  Did the enzymes in the peach juice have something to do with it also?  If anyone knows, please tell me, I don't want to waste a pint of peaches to clean the rest!

Linking up to Frugally Sustainable.