# Don't heat lids when canning?? Who says?



## JayJay (Nov 23, 2010)

Major Change in Canning Procedure!

Published September 1, 2014 | By Justin

There has been a major change in the procedure for canning in Mason jars. I've been pondering hard on why I'm having too many jars not seal when canning lately. I'm very careful with my process, so I've been very upset to have jars not seal. As it turns out, there was a change in process that wasn't widely publicized.

I've always trusted my grandmother as the expert on all things canning. I've followed her recipes and advice to the letter. The same thing goes for my mom. These ladies have me on experience by decades. I'd be a fool not to listen. This new change has taken us all by surprise. I guess we learn to adapt and overcome!

This change involves the lids we use on our jars. For 100 years, the process has included simmering the lids in a saucepan of hot water on the stove. We do this to sterilize the lids, and until recently, to soften the rubber so the lid would seal. This is now WRONG! 100 years of tradition is gone now. If you simmer new lids, there is a decent chance they will not seal. I've experienced this a lot lately. I've had a ton of jars not seal while following the process I grew up with.

After all the failures, and researching online to get the new information, we've just been washing the lids with warm water and putting them on jars. We've processed a couple dozen jars this weekend and have had no seal failures. This is a big change, since we've had a lot of failures to seal this summer. I was really getting concerned about my abilities to can. I'm happy to report, it wasn't anything I was doing wrong, just a change I wasn't aware of.

I wish the lid manufacturers would have made a better attempt to inform us of the change, but at least I know now and can pass the information along. If you are having issues with lids not sealing, stop simmering. We have, and it has made all the difference.

It is rare that I post two articles in the same day, but I thought this was worth sharing immediately. If I can spare one of my readers the hassle I've been experiencing with canning and having failures, then I will feel a lot better.

Here are a couple of links explaining the change.

http://www.freshpreserving.com/tools/waterbath-canning

http://livinghomegrown.com/2014/08/changes-in-canning-lid-procedures.html


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## aknodak (Feb 25, 2014)

Thank you for the information, as well as the links. I am fairly new to canning (less than a year), but I have had problems with jars breaking (usually one or even 2(!!!)) during processing. I am using a rack, have the 1" clearance, and use a knife to get out the air bubbles. It is a moment of trepidation when opening the canner the next morning!


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## Grimm (Sep 5, 2012)

aknodak said:


> Thank you for the information, as well as the links. I am fairly new to canning (less than a year), but I have had problems with jars breaking (usually one or even 2(!!!)) during processing. I am using a rack, have the 1" clearance, and use a knife to get out the air bubbles. It is a moment of trepidation when opening the canner the next morning!


You'll grow to recognize the sound of a jar cracking during the canning process as you gain experience.


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## Caribou (Aug 18, 2012)

aknodak said:


> Thank you for the information, as well as the links. I am fairly new to canning (less than a year), but I have had problems with jars breaking (usually one or even 2(!!!)) during processing. I am using a rack, have the 1" clearance, and use a knife to get out the air bubbles. It is a moment of trepidation when opening the canner the next morning!


I take my jars out of the canner while it is still hot. I let the pressure come down to zero, I open the pressure release valve, then when I am sure that the pressure is equalized I open the canner and remove the hot jars.


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## Dakine (Sep 4, 2012)

aknodak said:


> Thank you for the information, as well as the links. I am fairly new to canning (less than a year), but I have had problems with jars breaking (usually one or even 2(!!!)) during processing. I am using a rack, have the 1" clearance, and use a knife to get out the air bubbles. It is a moment of trepidation when opening the canner the next morning!


I've had this happen on a couple jars, once I think it was because I was putting cold jars into hot water. I had run out of time the evening before and put the chicken in the fridge and then picked it backup the next morning. The jars were still pretty cold from the fridge and I think that temp change killed them

The next time it happened I think I had over tightened the bands. Now I start with cooler water, I used to let it get up to a nice rolling boil while I was doing prep work but not anymore and I'm much more cautious about how much I tighten the band.


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## Caribou (Aug 18, 2012)

You say you use a rack. I am unclear as to whether you mean just on the bottom or between each layer as well. If you don't use a rack between layers you can cause a vacuum on the bottom of the upper jar and cause it to crack. I use round cake cooling racks between layers.

I also use larger rectangular cooling racks to let my hot jars cool on.


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## JayJay (Nov 23, 2010)

I had one jar crack in over 40 years--I am quite sure the jar had a hairline crack not visible to my eye. :dunno:


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## hashbrown (Sep 2, 2013)

We heat our lids and will continue to do so. Put up at least 300 quarts a year and I can't recollect the last jar not to seal.


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## Dakine (Sep 4, 2012)

besides the couple broken jars mentioned above, I think I've only had 1 that didnt seal, that was chili jar and that lid kind of folded or bent a little bit... I chalked that up to manufacturing defect and ate that pint of chili after taking the jars out of the canner. 

I've never boiled the lids only simmered them, so I don't think I'll change what I'm doing, it seems to work pretty good.


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## readytogo (Apr 6, 2013)

*Lids issues?*


Never had any problems with my lids and I have always sanitize them in hot water right before use, now boiling them is another issue, the super hot water probably damage the rubber seal on the lids.


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## Tirediron (Jul 12, 2010)

we also boil (gently) the lids, and have had no failures, we also wipe the rim of the jar before lidding it, never broke a jar but had some "slobber from rushing the depressuring (we are at 4200FT) 

Last year we reused a lot of lids, these were opened carefully, none of the reused lids leaked either (an experiment during normal times)


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## hashbrown (Sep 2, 2013)

Tirediron said:


> we also boil (gently) the lids, and have had no failures, we also wipe the rim of the jar before lidding it, never broke a jar but had some "slobber from rushing the depressuring (we are at 4200FT)
> 
> Last year we reused a lot of lids, these were opened carefully, none of the reused lids leaked either (an experiment during normal times)


I have always wanted to try reusing a lid, my woman will have none of it. Says I'm a cheap bastard, I knew it would work!


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## RevWC (Mar 28, 2011)

hashbrown said:


> I have always wanted to try reusing a lid, my woman will have none of it. Says I'm a cheap bastard, I knew it would work!


Aye, she's right!


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## Tirediron (Jul 12, 2010)

the ones we reused are bernardin, and we are super careful when opening them ,using the back of a table knife against the jar threads, 

try it, the worse that can happen is you have to put a new lid on and reprocess, but really inspect the seal first, same as re using jars really look at the lip, never stick a knife between the lip of the jar and the lid to open, you wreck the lid seal and can damage the jar lip, that would suck now, but be catastrophic if there were no replacements.


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## hashbrown (Sep 2, 2013)

Tirediron said:


> the ones we reused are bernardin, and we are super careful when opening them ,using the back of a table knife against the jar threads,
> 
> try it, the worse that can happen is you have to put a new lid on and reprocess, but really inspect the seal first, same as re using jars really look at the lip, never stick a knife between the lip of the jar and the lid to open, you wreck the lid seal and can damage the jar lip, that would suck now, but be catastrophic if there were no replacements.


I'll give it a try


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## mosquitomountainman (Jan 25, 2010)

We re-use lids but normally it's done on things we'll be eating in the next few weeks. The problem we've had is long term sealing. Used lids tend to loose their seal under those conditions. We also reuse lids for dehydrated things stored in jars. We often use jars that are not regular canning jars for dehydrated foods.


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## goshengirl (Dec 18, 2010)

And here I thought I was cheating. 
I don't boil or even simmer my lids. I wipe down the rim with a warm, damp paper towel and use the same on wiping the lid, and that's it. (I'd read sterilizing wasn't necessary for pressure canning, due to the high heat in the process, and that makes sense to me.) I can only recall one failure to seal - maybe there was more, but still not many, and I can a lot.


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## cowboyhermit (Nov 10, 2012)

We have reused lids, typically for high acid foods, and they worked fine. We freeze in jars a ton and sometimes the lids get wrecked so old ones work fine for that.

At one point in the past we boiled them, it was nice to not have to do that anymore. If it turns out simmering isn't beneficial that will be a nice changeartydance: sounds less messy.

The "softening the seal" never made much sense to me. The seal cannot form until the jar and lid have been boiling anyways, it should be a tad warm by then I should think.


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## Tirediron (Jul 12, 2010)

we boiled them to sterilize, but now that it has been mentioned they do get boiled for at least 10 minutes in the canner :brickwall:


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## Caribou (Aug 18, 2012)

A friend of mine reuses jars from grocery store products i.e. salsa jars. He has been doing this all his life. I'd guess that he learned this trick from his father. I know he grew up in a large family with little money. They made it by gleaning fields and putting up as much as they could.


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## Dakine (Sep 4, 2012)

I may try a full cannery of chicken just for experimentation with dry lids. if any fail to seal, I'll consume that immediately. 

I'll know if there was any fail to seals
If there are, I've lost nothing and will keep doing what I've always done, warm the lids
if there aren't, I've lost nothing (and since heating lids costs practically nothing) I'll probably still change nothing I'm doing, but I'll have at least one test of it completed.

meanwhile, that it's some earthshattering news, meh... what did it cost me? 3 extra cents on that power bill to heat those lids? and I know it works every time when I do? 

I guess after 100 years of saving up those 3 cents per month, I'd eventually have enough money to buy a bottle of soda if inflation/depreciation keeps going the way it is. I guess I'll skip the soda and do what I know works!


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## Dakine (Sep 4, 2012)

Caribou said:


> A friend of mine reuses jars from grocery store products i.e. salsa jars. He has been doing this all his life. I'd guess that he learned this trick from his father. I know he grew up in a large family with little money. They made it by gleaning fields and putting up as much as they could.


I've done that, as tests for stuff like sugar... I've had great results and it's super easy to do, I have a foodsaver model that has the accessory hose and I use that for both normal and wide mouth canning lids, and you can put other jars in their dry goods large containers and then vacuum seal those.


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## *Andi (Nov 8, 2009)

hashbrown said:


> We heat our lids and will continue to do so. Put up at least 300 quarts a year and I can't recollect the last jar not to seal.


:ditto:

.................


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## Toffee (Mar 13, 2012)

My failure to seals have pretty much always been easily attributable to overfilling or reusing lids. I just bought done tattlers though, so I'm excited to try those out


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## Caribou (Aug 18, 2012)

Dakine said:


> I've done that, as tests for stuff like sugar... I've had great results and it's super easy to do, I have a foodsaver model that has the accessory hose and I use that for both normal and wide mouth canning lids, and you can put other jars in their dry goods large containers and then vacuum seal those.


Not exactly. This guy puts up meat, beans, and anything else that you pressure can. He reuses the one part lids with seals. He reuses the jars till the seal no longer works, about two or three times.

When the seal does not hold he either eats it in the next few days or puts it in a different jar and recooks it.


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## talob (Sep 16, 2009)

I just told wife about this thread and she well yeah! She hasent been heating lids when she canns (thats how much I've been paying attention) UNLESS it's something like butter or bread pretty much anything that dosent get pressure canned and dosent get hot enough.


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## lazydaisy67 (Nov 24, 2011)

I have stopped boiling the lids as well. Seem to have better results. Also, I keep the rings out of water as much as possible and ONLY heat up the lids. I figure since I use the rings over and over why expose them to anything that can make them wear out and rust any quicker than they already do. Haven't tried reusing the lids yet. I think I've had one or two jars break in the canner and both were due to a crack or break in the glass that I didn't see.


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## Viking (Mar 16, 2009)

It's been many years since we have done any serious canning and so it's likely that some lid makers have changed the seal compound. I do know this, over the years that we did canning my wife would only use Ball lids as the rubber seal compound didn't break down like the Kerr lid seals often did. She reused Ball lids many times. The Kerr lids seemed to melt down even without preheating, seen some that the seal had moved away from the contact area with the jar, Ball lids never did that. All this being said, time changes everything, what was the best at one time may be junk now.:gaah:


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## myrtle55 (Apr 1, 2014)

I thought ball and Kerr are now the same company?


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## JayJay (Nov 23, 2010)

myrtle55 said:


> I thought ball and Kerr are now the same company?


they are now.


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## Tirediron (Jul 12, 2010)

I was informed that we don't boil new lids anymore either, I haven't been involved with any canning yet this year.


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## Caribou (Aug 18, 2012)

myrtle55 said:


> I thought ball and Kerr are now the same company?


They are but the seal material is different on the two brands. The Kerr brand can leave a grey goo on the jar that is a pain to clean off before the next use.


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## Viking (Mar 16, 2009)

Caribou said:


> They are but the seal material is different on the two brands. The Kerr brand can leave a grey goo on the jar that is a pain to clean off before the next use.


Yep, that's what it does.


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