terrible quality canning jars

[worth1]

13 to 15 dollars at our HEB.
Tractor supply has them too.

[BlackKrim]

Don't know about over there in the US, but here I can find good older canning jars in the charity stores both the small independent ones + large ones such as Value Village or Salvation Army. The aging population is cleaning out their homes including their canning supplies and thankfully don't throw their jars out.

By the way, I have put jelly & jam into used, store-bought jam jars with the one-piece lid - and guess what, they sealed perfectly. So I stored them at room temperature and all was well. You don't know til you try!

[worth1]

@BlackKrim
I use the jelly and pickle jars and such too.
Some actually take regular canning lids.

[JRinPA]

Golden Harvest!...that's the non-ball brand we got the other year. I knew they were US made, not ball, and were bought at walmart. I was thinking that it must have been these WM jars, as there were no other options I could find.

I thought I was buying US made, just couldn't see a label about it on any side.

Golden Harvest, good.

Walmart/Mainstay/Great Value whatever they are called. Bad QC jars made in India. Bad ring design made in China. Stay away from them.

[JRinPA]

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.

Ok. "WM lids bend during pressure" - I would not be surprised, due to this ring design. The normal force is being applied at the wrong place. With steam canning it is causing the ring to lock into the lid. At 10 or 15 psi, imagine what will happen.

"ball lid quality has gone downhill" - this is true for sure, in my opinion. Lids used to have a distinctive, loud ping. When the push for BPA free came, they changed the lid shape. There does not appear to be as much flex - as much movement of the material. The sound is always quieter, but trails to barely audible pop. How does that affect the actual holding force on the seal? Who knows/who cares-as long as it can say BPA FREE!.
And yes, I have gone through many dozens of packs of lids from the 70s 80s 90s...I collected multiple canning setups jars/lids/rings. The QC was much higher and everything was uniform. There was likely more pride from the employees and a much lower ceiling for rejects back then. Maybe not everything off the line was perfect, but the lids that made it in the box seemingly were.

"uses less sealing material" where is/was the BPA? I think that was part of the seal, no? The seals might be a different material all together. People were boiling the new lids like they always did in the past. And the sealing material was failing. So now TPTB, after years of saying to boil the lid for cleanliness, are now saying that they should not be boiled.

"gaps in the sealing material" this is certainly true. I came across a few boxes with errors/vacancies in the rubber, or big smears with high and low spots. At least three boxes one year had some blank spots. Did Mom ever follow up on it and call Ball to complain...she said she would but I can't say for sure. Had that happened in the 80s, probably the next day she would have called and accepted an apology and a coupon book in the mail. This was the 2010s though. I don't remember calling about it, myself.

We had a few Ball Jars with errors in the rim...that was the last 5 years. I posted about it here. Omega something was line stamp. They are not perfect, but seeing that melted rim on the WM jar is freaking scary and had me using a straight edge on the rest. Not a nice feeling.

[worth1]

I've never boiled a lid in my life.
I have put them in hot water but not boiling.
I normally just wash with bleach water if I feel the need.

[svalli]

I love my made in USA mason jars, which I brought with me to Finland and now I have found a local source of the lids, so I can keep using he jars. I had bought quite many jars during the years in Wisconsin and I got also couple of boxes of jars from a colleague, who was going through his aunt's estate. Based on the logos couple of Ball jars are from 1930's and some are from 1950's and all are still in really good shape.

I do also can to recycled produce jars. I recently found an place where I can buy new lids with pretty prints. I like to use them if giving canned preserves as gifts. Only close family gets stuff in the mason jars, because they know that they need to return the empty jar and ring to me.

Last night I canned my season's third batch of salsa.

Salsa.jpg

[BlackKrim]

I've never boiled a lid in my life.
I have put them in hot water but not boiling.
I normally just wash with bleach water if I feel the need.

Me neither. Also, I cannot see the point of "processing" jams and jellies in boiling water or pressure canner, which is now being promoted by...well, I guess it's the people who manufacture these expensive devices, and all the home economists, pectin mfrs, etc. have jumped on the bandwagon.

Jam and jelly contains so much acid and/or sugar that they act as preservatives. Nothing bad is going to grow in there. I use Pomona's pectin and they have good recipes which tell you which fruit require the addition of lemon juice to bring the acidity up. I first started using Pomona's ages ago, and their instrs never said anything about "processing". Now, they do. The only things my mother processed in boiling water was meat, fish & vegetables. Never jam or jelly.

Thanks for reading!

[Uncle_Feist]

I'm still using Mama's old vinegar jars.

[JRinPA]

I have a bunch of mayonnaise jars. They were from a friend of my mom that she used for canning. I just used a ball jar today that is an older wide mouth pint. That has a small defect in the rim. It's like a little half circle out of the exterior rim. So thesealing width at that point is only half the rim thickness. I have used that a few times and it always seals and holds.

[pondgardener]

I've been saving these spaghetti sauce jars, mainly for freezing homemade green chile. The jars are labeled Atlas Mason and canning lids fit perfectly. The label comes off easily by soaking in hot soapy water with a little scrubbing. I have pressure canned various tomato based items with good results.

Jars.jpg

[worth1]

I've seen people use glass mayonnaise jars for pressure canning and some busted.
That was years ago.
I'm figuring they weren't built strong because mayonnaise isn't possessed at all.
It it was it would ruin the product.
The Classico jars are good jars as well as a few others.
They just need to use regular canning rings lids.
I've used the original lids for some things.

Does anyone remember the old number 63 canning rings and lids?
Web restaurant store sells a hundred of the one piece for 27 dollars.
Many products still use this size.
I'm pretty sure the mina harissa sauce uses these lids.
And the Mina harissa jars are solid.

[worth1]

I stand corrected.
The Mina jars are lug jars meaning multi start thread not continuous thread jars.
But you can still get the lids.

[JRinPA]

The classico were kind of know as being reusable for canning.

I have lost some jars over the years but mostly to boiling water bath. Some though to raw pack cold jars dropped into hot water before pressure canning. When I raw pack now I take precautions to start the water at the same temp as the product jars. And put on heat slowly.

[JayneR13]

I’m deeply grateful to have plenty of Ball and Kerr jars purchased years before the pandemic! I did have to buy quart jars last year and found a generic brand called Country Comfort that seems to be ok. I’ve never seen jars that do what JR describes! That’s crazy. As much as I hate the costs of things these days, I find that cheap is often worth what I paid for it. Sometimes I can find good jars at rummage sales. I hate to buy horrible not-food just for the jars, but it may yet come to that. Ugh.

Yeah, we have too much stuff made in China. That name is synonymous with cheap junk, sadly.

[Uncle_Feist]

I’m deeply grateful to have plenty of Ball and Kerr jars purchased years before the pandemic! I did have to buy quart jars last year and found a generic brand called Country Comfort that seems to be ok. I’ve never seen jars that do what JR describes! That’s crazy. As much as I hate the costs of things these days, I find that cheap is often worth what I paid for it. Sometimes I can find good jars at rummage sales. I hate to buy horrible not-food just for the jars, but it may yet come to that. Ugh.

Yeah, we have too much stuff made in China. That name is synonymous with cheap junk, sadly.

I love my old Kerr's even better than my old Ball's.

[Tormato]

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

It's a generational investment.

[Tormato]

I'm still using Mama's old vinegar jars.

Narrow lids make sense to me, less rim area for something to go wrong.

The newer wide mouth jars can be cleaned easier, and pack dilly beans easier, though.

It's good to have choices, including whether to go with just one producer, or not.

[Tormato]

I've never boiled a lid in my life.
I have put them in hot water but not boiling.
I normally just wash with bleach water if I feel the need.

Me neither. Also, I cannot see the point of "processing" jams and jellies in boiling water or pressure canner, which is now being promoted by...well, I guess it's the people who manufacture these expensive devices, and all the home economists, pectin mfrs, etc. have jumped on the bandwagon.

Jam and jelly contains so much acid and/or sugar that they act as preservatives. Nothing bad is going to grow in there. I use Pomona's pectin and they have good recipes which tell you which fruit require the addition of lemon juice to bring the acidity up. I first started using Pomona's ages ago, and their instrs never said anything about "processing". Now, they do. The only things my mother processed in boiling water was meat, fish & vegetables. Never jam or jelly.

Thanks for reading!

Likely not promoted, rather their insurance company "requests" that it be in the instructions, or the policy "might" be dropped.

[Tormato]

I'm still using Mama's old vinegar jars.

I now see why you have a large extended family of Rusty Griswolds.