My conversation with...

my father in law.

I was getting my second canning lesson.
I asked him what kind of salt he was using.
He says..any kind I have on hand.
I go... your supposed to use canning/pickling salt.
He goes..but Im not pickling.

I asked him about the rusty caps and rings.
he goes nah..I have used them before and it was ok.

I was in the garden getting some more veggies and I mentioned stopping by to get myself some more jars. He goes I have plenty. So I agree to take a few. He starts pulling out old olive/pickle jars lol. I go..uh..your not supposed to use those. He goes phew...and pulls out some dirty quart jars lol. We got out 7 of them that didnt look chipped. Then he gets out a bag of old rusty lids and rings asking if I want some. I said Ill pass lol.
He told me there were some pint jars in the cabinet if I wanted them and I go uh..yeah there mine. Remember when I brought you cherry sauce? He gets them out and none of my new jars have their lids because he has been using them for his quart jars lol. So Im gonna have to get myself some caps and rings for them anyway. Oh well..Id prefer he used them instead of those old rusty ones
I dont know if he is getting forgetful or what.
Im sorry but canning is not a place you should be cutting corners.
He asked whose been telling you all this stuff and I go well for one its in my Ball Canning book and for two I was lucky enough to make friends with some very experienced cooks online who have filled me in on anything I ask.

I am so glad you don't can the way he does. Sounds like he should be related to the woman next door to me!

And no one will eat her canning and she keeps it till it's gone - regardless of what it looks like!

Never cut corners - new lids and rings are not that expensive.

I have reused some lids on my canning jars - BUT NOT FOR CANNING. For refrigerator use I've done it. But I would never re-use the caps! I always buy boxes of extras.

So far he has been lucky - or else he is immune to it all. But I wouldn't eat any of his canning!

Maybe he should visit a few sites - beginning with BallBlueBook!

(did you ever think of buying him his own blue book????)

but then again - he may be too hard-headed and stubborn to read it.

but at least you would have made the effort

Unfortunately, lots of old-timers engage in those activities. They never understood the science behind canning. All they want is to put foods by; and use whatever means seems to work.

We have friends who still open-kettle green beans, for instance.

You cannot, in most case, retrain these people. All your arguments fall on deaf ears cuz "I been doing it that way for 50 years, and ain't killed nobody yet."

I even have a book in which the author not only suggests reusing things like mayonnaise jars, she says to reuse the one-piece lids from those jars. And no, it is not an antique. It was printed in 1991.

Obviously, I treat anything she says with suspician.

I will say this about recycling jars: The problem is one of care. Commercial food jars are thinner than home-canning jars, and there is more danger of them breaking. That's why they are recommended against. And more and more you'll find that rings and lids don't fit on them anyway.

Otherwise savvy canners often recommend used recycled jars for water baths but not for pressure canning. Mebbe so. But anyone who reuses lids is playing with bacterial fire.

BTW, Janie, rings only rust if they've been left on the jars in storage. And that's neither necessary nor recommended.

"I have reused some lids on my canning jars - BUT NOT FOR CANNING. For refrigerator use "

I grew up doing that too, Mama. But when they introduced the reusable plastic caps I switched to those. And I always include one when I give canned goods as gifts.

The plastic lids may seem expensive. But, like canning jars, they're a one-time expense.

The first time we canned he goes in the other room and gets the jars from a box. He says he washed them and sterlized them but then he stuck them back in a dusty box til he was ready to can. Second time he sterilized the jars right before but used rusty caps and lids and both times he used..rock salt it looked like to me. The whole time he was talking about making something to outside can them next year like his Mom always did. Oh yeah..his basket for his pressure canner is gone so he puts a dish rag in the bottom and sits the jars on it. 7 quarts just fit in it and they are touching. Lasy year he froze all of his green beans. That was a heck of a lot safer than the way he is doing them now. Everytime I say anything I get the same thing about thats the way they have always done it. My canning lessons are done so Im gonna keep my mouth shut. Ill do things my way and he is gonna do it his regardless.
Im drying some green beans. I have made tons of pickles. I want to make some marinara. Going to make some spicey tomato jam, caramel apple jam, hot sauce and I want to make some kraut stuffed banana peppers. Im going to pickle some jalapenos and more banana peppers.
Jons sister in law and their two kids have been taking the stuff from the garden Jons Dad grew down there to the farmers market to sell. It helps buy school clothes and pay their tuition to their school.
Im going to see about ordering some of those plastic caps. I let him keep my book down their for weeks when it came in and he just flipped through the recipes. I offered to order him one but he didnt want it.

When I'm making pickled eggs, or pickles that do not require processing, or BBQ sauces, etc. that will be in the fridge for a day or two - that is when I re-use the caps. Never would I give anyone anything in a jar with a cap that had been used before - I use new ones for that - even if it was a non-processed food. But for a quick salad dressing to shake, crumb toppings for pies and desserts, etc. it works fine for me.

A nice use for used canning lids (the flats) is when using my FoodSaver and mason jars for storing dried goods or foods temporarily in the refrigerator.

Janie, in that litany of things he does wrong there is actually one thing he does right.

There is nothing wrong with putting a dis***oth on the bottom of the canner if you have no rack. The idea is to keep the jars from touching the bottom directly. Anthing that does that is better than having them sit directly on it.

A cloth can get awkward, because as the water boils it lifts the cloth, which then swirls and clumps around itself and the jars.

This is more a problem with a boiling water bath than a pressure canner, ironically.

A down & dirty rack can be made from those old rings, btw. Just wire them together so they fit inside, and, presto, a stable rack.

Only downside is its height, which might interfere with some canning procedures. If that's the case, get some hardware cloth and cut a disc of it that just fits inside the canner.

There is a diagram inside my book that shows how to use old rings to make a rack.

OK, can anybody even guess why the machine blipped out the *** from the middle of dis***oth?

What a crazy system.

lol I just noticed that.

I reuse rings until they look like they are corroding, but would never use the same lid twice. To me, that is just crazy. For the $.79 cents he saves for 10 lids, he could find himself paying a couple thousand a night in a hospital room.

Honestly, someone should talk that man into buying a freezer and then steal his canning equipment.

Jafo232 said:

Honestly, someone should talk that man into buying a freezer and then steal his canning equipment.

Click to expand...

That's too funny Jafo, I can imagine Janie just doing that like I can imagine Mother Theresa robbing the Pope!

I know..usually when we have the holiday dinners he does the green beans from what he has frozen or canned. I think Ill skip those this year lol.