Thursday, March 31, 2011

Canning jars

Work has been slow this morning, which leaves me time to get into trouble.

I got to thinking about canning jars, and how I want more of them. :) I posted an appeal on Facebook for them and immediately got some offers. I picked up a dozen here in town and washed them up. Then I started wondering how many I actually have for the season and if I have enough Tattler reusable canning lids. Which led to over an hour spent gathering and counting and reboxing and re-storing canning jars.

Current tally of empties: **

17 large mouth quarts, 73 standard quarts
10 large mouth pints, 54 small mouth pints
5 miscellaneous (half pint or weird sized)
Totals: 26 large mouth jars, 131 standard

Now to count Tattler lids. I know I will need more standard at least.

By the way, I had always stored my rings separately, in a bag. It finally dawned on me that I never would use a jar without a ring, so I might as well put rings on all of them now, to save time when I need to use them. Duh.

No rings for the jars that have food in them, otherwise you might not notice if the seal failed. Just for the empties.

** edited because I found another box of jars

4 comments:

Becky said...

i'd love to start canning. no idea where to start! uhg!

Maria Stahl said...

Aha, Becky, another Scarf Sister! :)

Canning is not hard. Get hold of the Ball Blue Book or Putting Food By, catch a sale on some fruit or veggie and try it out. It's kind of addictive.

Carol Reese said...

I've done a lot of canning through the years. Applesauce and apple butter, cherries, peaches, tomatoes, green beans, elk, beef, several kinds of jam and jelly, corn, other stuff. I've also dehydrated a lot of stuff. I never did get a water bath canner, just used pressure cookers for even jam and jelly. There is one time to leave/put rings on the jars - when you use a vacuum sealing system to seal jars of dry things. That doesn't seal quite at well, but leaving the rings on keeps them closed up well. Usually, they stay, but sometimes when I open them, that's when they unseal. Of course, that's an entirely situation than canning wet foods! It's all fun, though.

Becky said...

will have to give it whirl in week or two...