Weck Canning Jars & others

Thought I would start a new thread on this, since this came up in a thread having nothing to do with canning. Weck jars have glass lids and 100% rubber gaskets and so don't have a BPA issue.

I got the Weck jars I ordered and canned some giardinera yesterday. I didn't have any problems with seal failure, as one person reported. There were a couple of weird things. Because the jars are bigger than a pint, I had one less jar to can than the recipe described. Also, the design I chose, the Deco, bulges towards the bottom. This looks beautiful but takes up a LOT of room in the canner, kind of like those squashed pint jars that are so nifty. I had to make two layers in the kettle and was almost at the top of it. I probably would not buy that shape again for that reason. The brochure the company sent with the jars was very helpful. They recommended a practice run, but I just went ahead and canned and had no problems. I didn't find it difficult to remove the jars from the canner with my regular jar lifter, as one person posted elsewhere.

Re the rubber gaskets, I could not tell whether they recommended using a new one each time or not. Seems like they deliberately left that vague. Some places that use rubber gaskets say yes. Then I ran across people posting about using jars with gaskets who just examine them each time, like the gasket in a pressure canner. One person had been using the same gaskets for years and did not get failures. I figure I will just check them each time and see how it goes. The replacement gaskets are cheap, though.

I bought the jars from GlasHaus in Chicago, which runs the weckcanning.com site and which sells a lot of Weck products, like glass blocks used in building. The jars I got were problematic in that they looked like seconds. About half the jar lids were defective, including "tears" in the glass to the point where there were internal cracks. I also found that 2 out of 24 jars were defective with hairline cracks and groups of internal air bubbles. These are, IMO, definitely quality control issues in canning jars. I read somewhere that Weck jars were recently featured in a Martha Stewart magazine. I am thinking they had such a demand that they ended up selling jars they would normally reject. I am going to ask for replacements of the defective lids and jars. For the amount of money I paid, working out to about $4.xx/jar including shipping, I expect totally perfect jars.

I looked around to see what else was out there and found that there are people who are using old bail-type jars for high-acid (jams and pickles) processed in a boiling water bath:

http://smallmeadowfarm.blogspot.com/2007/01/canning_5269.html

http://www.foodinjars.com/2009/06/08/canning-in-vintage-jars/

I did not realize that with the bailed jars, you do in fact test them to be sure they are sealed by trying to lift the lid with the bail off. I bought Ball Ideal pint and quart jars to try. Lehman's sells the rubber gaskets for these jars, so obviously a number of people are still using them. Using such jars is of course not approved by the USDA. BPA IS approved by the USDA, however. That said, I would never use these to can low-acid foods. But then, I just plain wouldn't can low-acid foods at all.

I have two British preserving books, and they both describe using plastisol-lined jar lids for jams with an invert-and-seal method. I am not sure about using plastisol in this manner. It contains PVC. But with just inverting them, maybe that would not be a problem. Haven't decided yet. The little Leifheits and lots of ordinary inexpensive jam and jelly jars you can buy from glass supply places online have lids lined with plastisol.