NEVER Run Out of Canning Lids Again -- My New Secret!

so this shortage of

canning

lids

is no joke and it's almost impossible to find

canning

lids

, the shelves were empty last year and I don't think it's going to be much better in 2021. I've gotten a lot of emails from people who can't find lids I ordered a jumbo pack last May and they are still backordered however I think I may have found a solution so every now and then you will hear someone say oh just use your metal lids more than once, but actually this is not a great idea because this compound that is around the edges of the ring is really only good for one use and it weakens, so as tempting as it may be, don't use this type more than once, but there are reusable can lids that are made of different materials that are specifically designed to be used more than once, so I experimented with some of these reusable can lids a long time ago, eight or nine years ago, used them once or twice and then I forgot I had them and kept using the same ones as always. tapas because you know we are creatures of habit so I decided to try them

again

and that's what's in this box.

I have my nice safety scissors, that's all I can find, so as you can see, they look very different than yours. typical lid they have two parts they have this flat plastic part and then a rubber gasket these are a brand called Harvest Guard I think the ones I used a million years ago were a different brand but from my research they are very similar I got a a set of normal mouths and a set of wide mouths, let's try it, if these little guys work, it will be a game changer if they don't do well.

I guess we're back to square one, so I don't remember how to do it. Use them so we can be on this adventure together, my friend and I will use the handy instructions that come in the box. Alright, number one, wash and clean the lids and rings before using them. Never clean with bleach or Strong acids are not a problem, I hate bleach anyway, always follow proper canning practices recommended by the USDA. I always used a standard metal band for glass jars, so we'll still use our regular rings, don't tighten them too much, it's okay, I think I can do this, I admit it.

There's not much to can right now, so I was scratching my head wondering what I could use for this lid experiment and then I remembered something I've been putting off in the freezer sometimes if I end up overloaded with tomatoes. of the season I will freeze some in ziplocks, store them in the freezer and then process them later. I mainly grow paste tomatoes, these are Amish paste or San Marzanos and when I put them in ziplocks, what I will do is I wash them, cut the end off and then I unceremoniously squeeze out the seeds and I only get most of the juice, but I don't I worry about every last bit, I simply close the counts.

It looks good, you can see it's cooking. A little bit of skin is kind of floating to the top, we're just going to let it continue to do its thing and in a minute I'll get out the blender. I think even the most discerning person will have a hard time finding any skin there. Pretty well disguised, I want to soak the rubber rings, it says, in simmering water immediately before using them to soften the rubber and adding a small amount of vinegar to the water can be helpful, especially if you have hard water, which we totally do. now that the sauce is getting closer.

I'm going to move it to the other burner because this is my favorite burner. You all have a favorite burner too. I like to sterilize and heat my jars in the canning pot while the water heats up. I'm going to get it going just by referring to my instructions, don't tighten the metal band as hard as you would with the traditional metal cap, so it's very important with these guys, we don't seem to tighten too much, so we'll see how I do it with This fishing is out of here so I'm burning my fingers okay I like how the lid has this edge so the gasket fits perfectly there don't worry if it slides and then put them in the middle so if the caps are all done, I think I did it right, we'll see, only time will tell the cap is centered, the gasket is on, I didn't tighten them too much, in fact maybe I tightened them even a little less than I normally would with a normal lid, so I crossed my fingers.

The most important thing is that when I take the jars out of the canner I will have to squeeze them, something you would

never

do with a normal lid, so that's a pretty big difference that you won't want to forget. Okay now they're out and the good thing is I don't see any bulging on the caps because the instructions said that's not good it means you tightened the rings too much so I think we're good there's no bulging and I'm going to put a towel on top and press once more. I could definitely feel some movement when I went in there the first time, but they're all pretty tight now, so I'll leave them alone and wait for it to cool completely to room temperature before trying to remove the rings and see how my seals are doing.

It's the next day. I decided to let them sit overnight to cool completely before doing my little test, so here we go okay sweet one two no. That one didn't seal, damn, okay, I'm going to put that one aside to see why, okay, that one's good, damn, okay, another one didn't seal, that's two, okay, we'll see if we can make a Bit of detective work in a second, how about this guy? Okay, one is okay, so two of the seven weren't sealed, which isn't horrible. I mean, isn't it fantastic. I'm guessing some of this may have been user error, and honestly, sometimes with metal lids, that's still the case.

I get one or two jars in a batch, not on the roof, for various reasons, so let's see if we can figure out why this happened. The first thing I want to see is if there is anything wrong with the lid or gasket as far as I can see. normal, I'm going to see if there's any kind of imperfection here on the glass, oh oh, there it is, there's a little cut, well you can see it, there's like a chip in the glass right there and I should have checked it before I started and it didn't I did it so well, that would be the reason why that one didn't seal, so this wide mouth really feels good.

I don't see any nicks or imperfections, so the lack of sealing could be due to user error on my part. I potentially didn't center things correctly, maybe I tightened it incorrectly, so I'm going to go ahead and reprocess it to see if I can seal just out of my own curiosity, you know, I just realized something I don't like about these . The lids don't make the popping sound they're not supposed to make and I miss it, so a few hours later I processed the jars

again

, let them cool and I'm going to see how we still didn't.

We've made some progress since the first canning issue for my third attempt at those two problematic jars. I used completely new gaskets and also reduced the amount of sauce in the jars a little so there was a little more head. space and lo and behold, I processed them again and they sealed perfectly, so I'm doing another experiment. I'm going to bottle a batch of water and try a bunch of different tightenings on the lids as well as the two gaskets that originally gave me some. problem, I see if I can figure this out, so for my experiment I have two jars that I am using as a control, two jars that will have the gaskets that caused me problems in previous batches, one jar whose lid will be very loose, one jar where the lid it's going to be too tight and a jar that I passed all the recommended headspace requirements and filled that baby completely with water, oh my gosh, this has

never

happened, okay, so which one is the loose one, yeah, Did the one that is loose explode completely? the cap on it now was obviously not the fault of the protective crop caps.

I thought I screwed the ring in enough to give the threads a couple of bites, but I'm wondering if the pot rattle loosened up even more, so obviously you. We're not going to do that in a real life scenario, but it's interesting to see what happened, look at this, look at the tight guy in the shirt, I tightened it too much, you can see it's domed, that's not a good sign. I don't want to have that massive dome, that means you exaggerated the tension that we already knew, but that's just one more test, just give these one last adjustment.

I'm not going to tighten the one that was already too tight. Let's leave it. he just, okay, these have cooled to room temperature and now comes the moment of truth, did our tests work? Well, start with our control bottles to see if they are going to work harder to do this with one hand, yeah, okay, good news, both control bottles are sealed. Alright, next is the full jar that I overfilled with zero headspace just for fun. I have a feeling this one probably won't work because these caps need a lot of headroom. It still worked, that could be because it's water. and it's not a food, I still wouldn't fill it too much with food, but it's interesting that it runs on water, okay mister airtight jar, this one I assume isn't sealed because overtightening the lids is a definite cause of failure, oh wow , it's sealed, guys.

I really didn't expect that last but not least we would have our two jars that have the gaskets that gave us trouble on those tomato sauce runs. These would be gaskets that have been used several times and have failed several times and that one is still no good. One is a good time to stop playing mad scientists and make separate preparations, but overall I'm very impressed with the tapas. I mean, I still don't know why that lid doesn't seal, but honestly, there are lemons even in boxes. of metal lids so I'm not too worried about that and I'm really impressed because I tried to sabotage the rest of the lids in that batch of water and they still worked the way these are the potatoes I showed you last fall.

I've been living in the basement, it still looks pretty good, just a few sprouts, but I'm a fan anyway. I can avoid the price gouging that is happening with the few suppliers that have lids in stock and I don't have to throw the lids away. after one use, making it a little greener and a lot more cost effective. Oh guess what I talked to the owner of Harvest Guard and he agreed to give you a coupon code if you use the code Homestead when you check it out. He'll save 10 on your entire canning lids order and shipping is always free.

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