Canning Season Pt 1

Produce is flowing in so it’s canning season! As I gather up my favorite canning supplies to kick off the preserving, I thought I’d take you through canning necessities and indulgences. In pt 1 today, we’ll go through the necessities.

The first thing you need is …. jars! Now canning veterans definitely have their favorite canning jars, and they vary. Personally I am not a fan of the updated Ball lids. Since the switch over I have higher incidence of sealing failure. My favorite type to pick up is Pur; I like their shapes and they seem to have good sealing success. However, they are not available easily online (I pick them up locally) so honestly, I say with go with whatever you can find, whether it be used or new. If you can’t find them locally, Kerr seems to be the most reasonably priced online (see here) but it varies widely. I’ll also note that if you are only going to be water-bath canning, you can re-use some jars from the store. I will get more into what to look for on that front in a later post. For pressure canning, you always want canning jars, which are designed to withstand pressure and thermal shock, and fresh lids.

Next we need to fill our jars with something to can. Some popular first canning recipes are jams, preserves, or pickles. In order to protect the rim of the jar during filling, I consider a funnel a necessity. I use this one because it can fit on both regular and wide mouth jars, and it gives headspace markings! While judging headspace isn’t difficult from looking at the top of the jar, most funnels obstruct that view, so this funnel is extremely helpful. I also use their canning ladle, but while it’s super convenient, I don’t think a canning ladle is a necessity, so we will get into that in the next post.

Now we need our canning apparatus. For water bath canning, you can use a large stock pot and just get going. There are a few reasons to actually have a water bath canner though. For one, stock pots are often built taller than wider; for canning, you want high capacity- but for jars, not straight volume. So canners are built wider so they can fit more jars on each layer. They also come with a divider so you can have two layers; when you can multi layers, they can’t sit directly on each other. If you stack in a stock pot, you will have to find something to divide the layers. However, if you don’t have a lot of kitchen storage, using your stock pot may be the way to go until you can store more.

If you only can a few times a year, but have storage for supplies, I recommend a stainless steel canner. They are more expensive up front, but when I used the basic enamel canners, I had to replace them regularly because they like to rust at the drop of a pin. It’s just not worth it at today’s prices. At the time of writing, the Ball steel canner is about double the graniteware canner. That means if you ever have to replace the graniteware, you could have just got the Ball. For me that’s a worthy tradeoff. You can find it here. As a side note, there are cheaper stainless canners available, but being an odd size, the lid must be durable or you will be out a useful canner. I have not seen a cheap steel canner with a decent lid, so I can’t recommend them. If you don’t have a lot to spend, opt for the graniteware over cheap steel with glass lids that can break easily.

Now to pressure canning. If you are going for low cost, I recommend the Presto. It is widely available, and the least expensive pressure canner I’ve seen regularly. But if you have a little more budget, the All American is the top of the line when it comes to pressure canners. With its gasket-free sealing, and many options for size, it takes the cake. This was my first one, and it covers most needs for a home canner.

But …

I have a little admission - until a couple years ago, I hated pressure canning. I have a whole journal entry on this, but bottom line, the hanging around and watching the pressure canning process meant with everything I had to do during the day, I rarely had the bandwith to devote to a canning day. Enter the Instant Pot Max. With it, I can load it up, set it, and go do other stuff. Considering most of what I pressure can takes at least 90 mins at pressure, that is at least 3 hours of my life I can devote to other things. If you have been avoiding pressure canning because either the time or process seems intimidating, I can’t recommend the Max enough. You can read my whole journal entry on IP Max canning here. And if you are sold on trying one out (hey, if you don’t like to can with it, you still have an Instant Pot you can cook with!) you can find it here.

Ok so you’ve processed some yummy food for a rainy day and you need to get it out of the canner! Surprise (or not) - It’s EXTREMELY HOT. The last item I would consider a necessity for canning are canning tongs. While any will work, I recommend finding a spring loaded one like these so you can pull them out one handed. Believe it or not, pulling slippery boiling jars out of boiling water is not the easiest thing to do in the world, and springs help a lot.

So there you have it! When you lay it out, there isn’t a lot required to start canning. Jars, Funnel, Canner, Tongs, and you are good to go!

In Part 2 we will dive into some upgrades that really make the process streamlined.