Which Brand of Canning Jars Do You Recommend and Why?

It is nice to know a food processing plant does things right. Like every other industry, there are good companies/facilities and bad, but we almost always only hear about the bad.

Score! i just bought 3 ball jars and an atlas e-z seal, the old wire jars for 99¢ each at the salvation army! :) there was more, but i'm broke till friday. :( i can't wait to put my pop corn, and salt and beans in them. love em.

Laurel,

I've been away from the boards, and just found this thread. What you've been saying is interesting, but I have a question. My mother always told me that when canning recipes with multiple ingredients, process for the one that took the longest. For example, if you have carrots and tomatoes, process for the carrots. This rule of thumb has been okay so far..

Any thoughts?

Hetep

Hetep, the recipes I've seen seem to take that tack. Still, I wouldn't generalize. It leaves us back at the same place...your tolerance for risk, whether you are a naysayer on the topic of modern food science or your stand is, "If it was good enough for Mom and Granny it's good enough for me and the family".

I'm still adjusting to the new Ball Blue book. I read the recipes over and over to see how I can tweak them, while staying within the parameters of safe canning. Though disappointed that I could not throw my secret recipes into jars for another day I am satisfied to have good home-canned starter products from our garden. My primary canning objective is to process the large volume of food from our garden (more than will fit several freezers) and store it for another day. It's a secondary option to fresh food. The notion of cooking up batches of soups and sauces, then canning for later convenience, is not my goal. The exception is beans. We eat fresh and dried beans but don't care for store bought ones in metal cans and I don't want any seasonings except what I add. It's great to pop a can of home cooked beans but I've had lots of challenges canning them. A large percentage don't seal reliably.
Laurel

Good thing i didn't splurge on the $10 water bath; got one at a garage sale for $2!!!! Now i can spend the big $ on a pressure canner. ;-)

Good shopping, Outlaw. Now take some medication before you price pressure canners.

Lol I'm not sure what that's supposed to mean? I'm thinking I'll be in for some sticker shock?

Oh, yeah... expect sticker shock! My All-American canner price new 30 years ago was enough of a shock.

Yup, I was wondering how many cans of beans it would take to cover the $65 canner I got and I didn't even get the double stacker!

Eek....i think I'll stick to tomatoes, dry beans, pickles and jelly for this year then. Between the cost of jars to start, plus i still need a lifter, etc. I doubt ill see any savings this year, i mean we really don't break the grocery budget on pickles. Lol.

If you are new to canning I highly recommend becoming experienced and comfortable with hot water bath processing before moving on to more complicated pressure canning. I remember thinking I needed eight arms when I first started canning. When I tried pressure canning for the first time everything sat on the shelves for about six months. I was terrified to try it. Made my SO go first. He'll eat anything. lol

Outlaw, if you don't have one, you will also need a canning funnel which has a wide base and keeps tomato sauces, jams and hot liquids from splattering. Don't wait to buy these items. Most stores stock canning supplies in Spring and don't reorder.

The commonsense rationale for this is that if you don't base processing time for a jar containing mixed ingredients on the ingredient that takes the longest, then all of the ingredients that take longer to process than the time the jar is processed for will not be processed and will spoil, thus spoiling the whole jar.