terrible quality canning jars

[JRinPA]

walmart jars....I bought...4 doz pints. Took me 3 visits to do so. They are $2 cheaper than the ball. I see now that these are made in India....lids from China.

Of course I had a reason to look at the fine print after I tried to use them.

They been making glass in India for like 5000-10000 years...what can go wrong?

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Bottom stamps 29 and 30

I am getting tired of that store wasting my time.

[GoDawgs]

Still got your receipts? I'd take 'em all back.

Pickles (the main canner here) says we have a few WMT jars from the case she bought a good while ago just to try. But after reading here and there about problems with them breaking in a pressure cooker she just uses them for waterbath canning. We've never seen any warped ones like that!

[worth1]

That's crazy.

[BlackKrim]

They been making glass in India for like 5000-10000 years...what can go wrong?

Forgive me for laughing at your woe, but you are funny!

Here in some parts of Canada we still have thousands of the wonderful old 78mm quart-, pint- & 2qt- Gem jars. There was quite a flap when the mfr decided 20 yr ago to stop making the 78mm accessories, ie, lids, screws & rubber rings. They would not relent in spite of being begged, so ultimately the 78mm parts became available again after a former employee setup his own company to make GEM lids (that's free enterprise/capitalism and I love it - for now).

All was well for years - and now the mfr, Bernardin (in Canada, Ball in Ohio) said 2 yr. ago that they would once again stop making these necessary parts for us 78mm canners & picklers - even though there is still demand for these accessories. They want to force us to buy dozens of 70mm or 85mm jars when we have perfectly good 78mm jars. However, apparently there are still some hanging around in the stores.

Thanks for listening.

[Tormato]

I just bought my first canning jars ever, WM Mainstays. They are currently for storing dry beans, and for whatever a hyper-gardening yooper sends me in bulk, for the swap. Once again, I'm not naming names. So, I'm not worried about canning quality for now.

Next year, I hope to get into canning. I will likely buy Ball, and compare the two. On a canning site at reddit, some say the WM lids can bend during pressure canning, others say no problems, a few say Ball lid quality has gone downhill. The biggest issue appears to be that WM lids use less sealing material, with a rare lid here or there, having gaps in the sealing material.

[worth1]

Ball is still hard to find at the HEB grocery store here.
They have another brand I've never heard of before.
Pur is the brand.

[Tormato]

Ball is still hard to find at the HEB grocery store here.
They have another brand I've never heard of before.
Pur is the brand.

Is it the cat's meow of canning jars?

[worth1]

Ball is still hard to find at the HEB grocery store here.
They have another brand I've never heard of before.
Pur is the brand.

Is it the cat's meow of canning jars?

Maybe.
They aren't store brand they are made in China though.
Can't we get anything not made in China?

[Tormato]

My city has about 10% Ukrainian immigrants, heavy into canning and sewing. New families are constantly arriving, with 2 to 5 very young children each. I'm thinking that the schools will be crowded in about two years.

I've seen them loading up an entire shopping cart with jumbo bags of sugar. Last year, the local WalMart never bothered stocking the shelves with the cardboard boxes of jars. Two to three roughly 4 X 5 x 5 pallets, in the center aisles, would be emptied about every ten days to two weeks. The lids would either be on the shelves or mostly not be in stock.

[JRinPA]

I had to go in three times to get 4 boxes of the jars. They had one set. Talked to a stockboy he checked and more would be in tonight and unloaded in for tomorrow. Came back next evening, there are two on the shelf, one of which is ripped open. I bought the one. Called back next day or so and was told they have 15. Went in, same ripped one on the shelf. So then I went to customer service. Talked to a woman that is reasonable, she sent a girl for them. Girl comes back eventually...with half pints. Goes out again, this time comes back with one set of pints. So I got the ripped one as well for the 4 dozen I needed.
Customer service lady says, "you should bring us some pear butter, Madison took a lot of time finding those jars!" I was like...what!? I know her, she was half kidding, but now I'm thinking I should Ieave some pear butter in that great jar for a few days, then take it with and offer it to her...she'll probably think I "overcooked it".

Three trips + 1/2hr standing at customer service. To save $8+. End up buying imported junk. It does say it, ON THE BOTTOM so you have to hold it overhead to read it. Unless you trust the very, very flimsy plastic. And even then it is black on dark brown cardboard and fine print.

I have plenty, plenty of jars, but these are for ones I won't get back and will likely get tossed.

[pondgardener]

I have good luck with the company linked below, at least with lids. Shipping could be pricey unless you live close to Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

https://www.fillmorecontainer.com

[worth1]

I just went to the ll American canner site.
The prices are over the top.

[Shule]

Huh. I thought I had purchased (Ball brand) canning jars at Walmart.com before, but I don't see any in my shopping history. Someone must have picked them up for me instead me ordering them.

I highly recommend getting either Ball or Kerr brand canning jars. They're both about the same and they seem to work well. The old glass quart mayonnaise jars from the 1980s and/or 1990s work almost as well, too.

[Shule]

LOL: I went to an online auction to see if the old mayonnaise jars were still circulating, and I found someone selling a pint one for $4.75 ($6.16 shipping) that still had the mayonnaise in it, unopened. I don't know if it's the same kind that was fit for canning offhand, but vintage mayonnaise. Wow.

[Shule]

For people who aren't canning, but just want a jar with a lid they can put stuff in (like powdered peppers or whatever), you might try using those plastic applesauce jars. They seem to work pretty well. Not for canning, though, of course.

[worth1]

There's a ton of jars to keep spices in.
I save the fancy good ones spices come in.
Word of advice on canners for newbies.
When they say they will hold a certain amount of pint jars it the regular mouth not the wide mouth jars.

It shouldn't matter with the quarts but it does with the pints.

[JRinPA]

I have canned probably 2000 jars. These are horrible.
I just went to unscrew the lids and clean up the jars. Canned them last night. These NEW jars NEW lids.
Turning the ring...rotates the lid... they are built so poorly that the rings are biting into the lid that hard after cooling off. And/or, the rubber seal is so poorly done.

Three rotated. One popped the seal. The next one rotated a bit, then I started squeezing/tapping at various spots on the ring and then the ring came off. The lid is still sealed and under pressure. Repeated that on a third. Nine jars in that load, three with problems.

Thousands of jars I have canned and never seen such problems.

I was not super impressed with Ball jars from NIB either, the last few years. And lids, the lids had many errors where there was not enough rubber seal in spots.

But I have never seen rings that lock down on the seal and actually spin the lid on the jar...

[JRinPA]

At the least, if already bought, I would opt to can them with old ball rings. Then put these junk rings on after they are canned.
There should be a lawsuit for this junk. If you are going to copy it, copy it right.
These junk walmart rings have a very deep ridge running along the innermost edge of the ring. This looks like it engages the jar lid very strongly. These jars are designed to accept force directly over the glass rim. Well, this faulty design applies the force 1/4" inward of the glass rim.

The contact point is at the chamferred section of the lid, instead of the flat opposing the rim.

[bower]

This is awful @JRinPA . It's bad enough the price of jars has gone sky high.
Seriously, a year ago if you paid $12 for a case of 12 jars here, that was overpriced. On a good day and a good deal, you'd get the dozen pints or two-pint jars for $6-7. Now the price for a dozen pint jars is $20.
Just checking my boxes, the two brands we're getting regularly are Bernardin (box says it belongs to Rubbermaid) and those are the most expensive. The better deals are on Golden Harvest brand and the box says those are made in Georgia USA. Go Georgia!
They still have some GH two-pint jars for $15 a case, but that is still nearly triple what I would've paid a few years ago.

We always have shortages of jars around canning season. It's just typical to find empty shelves, so if you need them, I guess you're going to grab it anyway at $20 a pop!

[GoDawgs]

We were at Sam's three days ago and they had cases of Ball pint jars stacked. There were the usual 12 jar cases and then they had some 20 jar cases. I've never seen those before. They were $20 for the case so $1 a jar. There are plenty of jars here so I didn't get any more. Didn't catch the price on the 12 count cases.