How to Seal a Canning Jar Safely

Transcript

0:01

Welcome to the Perfectly Preserved Podcast. I'm your host Jenny Gomes. And I'm Anna Cash. Here we come together to bring you a podcast all about preserving food safely, easily, and dare I say, perfectly. At home. We are master food preservers moms wives, and we love talking about canning. ready to can like a master preserver. Let's get into today's episode.

jenny_3_04-14-2025_091455: 0:24

Welcome back to the Perfectly Preserved podcast. This is Jenny, and I'm here with my co-host Anna, and we are so excited to be bringing to you a whole batch of fresh episodes for season three. First up, we wanna let you know that we are going to be talking about why you can't believe everything that you've heard online about how to seal your canning jars. you're gonna leave this episode knowing exactly how they get sealed in the first place. Thank you so much to everyone who's left us a review. If you haven't, go to that purple icon, wherever you listen to podcast, and leave us a review. It really helps new listeners find the show. This is our first season where we will be on YouTube. Anna is doing an amazing job of learning how to edit videos and you'll be able to find them on YouTube soon. Go to Instagram where Anna and I spend most of our time. I am at the domestic Wildflower and Anna is at Smart Home Canning. Definitely head to Amazon or your local bookstore and ask for the Pressure Canning Cookbook. And if you guys want Anna and I to speak at your event, please email perfectly preserved podcast@gmail.com and let us know. We are open to travel, open to speaking opportunities and we love teaching live classes. Anna, let's dive into today's episode.

anna-_3_04-14-2025_101455: 1:39

Okay. We are so excited to be with you for season three. Jenny said, I am working on. Editing this podcast and also putting it on YouTube. So if you are seeing us on YouTube for the first time, be gentle in your criticism because it is brand new. Okay so let's talk about how to properly seal a canning jar. But first I want to tell you about an experience I had. Two weeks ago when I was watching the new Meghan Markle documentary for her upcoming brand meghan Markle show is about domesticity and cooking and gardening and all of these lovely things. It's filmed really beautifully. of the things that I noticed though, is that. She is very she's very excited about these raspberry preserves that she makes, and she talks about jam and what specifically makes a jam and et cetera, et cetera. Of course my interest was peaked as a master food preserver. Jenny and I are both master food preservers and we wanna give you the best up to date,

jenny_3_04-14-2025_091455: 2:44

Okay.

anna-_3_04-14-2025_101455: 2:45

proven advice to make sure that you are not. Getting sick from your preserved food. So during this episode, she talks about how lovely it is with your warmed up jars to put your jam straight into the jar, wipe the top and put a lid on. And that's it. There's no preservation accompanying this crazy little segment and. For Jenny, tell us why I would be equally horrified and horrified some more.

jenny_3_04-14-2025_091455: 3:21

Yeah. Megan Anna and I have a lot of experience with seeing improper canning online, and we're gonna tell you exactly why Megan is the example of what not to do in a second. But we see a lot of bad examples, but I would say she's the bad example that has the most resources, the most financial, reach, she has access to people to have corrected that very simple easily avoided mistake. It just really shocks me. Honestly. I'm very shocking that a person with that much access to experts would just, hit publish, so to speak. On a TV show where she's showing people a very outdated method, which is called Open Kettle Canning, which is a name that doesn't really help you understand exactly what's happening, but what Meghan Markle does in, I think it's episode four, whatever I. She's doing a thing called Open Kettle Canning, and that is where you just put hot food into jars and put the lid on it. And because there's still that heat in the jam or whatever, they're open cuddling, it creates a little bit of a suction and then the jars seal. And I don't really love this phrase, but it's the best one I think to use the way she's getting away with open Kettle canning is because. Most commonly open kettle canned foods are high in acid, which would be all most of your fruits. And they are naturally high in acid. So they're naturally, they're just naturally going to have a little bit better preservation power inherently than a low acid food would. There's one thing, and she must be consuming these. Improperly preserve jams fairly quickly because open kettle canned food doesn't have a strong seal and it hasn't been heated. The inside of that jam hasn't been heated to force all the oxygen out of the jar, which is how you get your canning jars to be sealed, right? That hasn't been submerged and of boiling water bath and it hasn't been put in a atmospheric steam canner to force that air out of the jar. So there's just all that oxygen in there to feed. Any microbes that might be there, which I would say you should count on there being living organisms in that jam, in the air in your fingertips on your funnel, right? So just the absence of that processing is why this Meghan Markle example is such a great example of what not to do and why open kettle canning is such a bad idea.

anna-_3_04-14-2025_101455: 5:56

Yeah, it was really wild. I just couldn't believe what I was seeing. One of the other things that Jenny and I talk about is that for home canning, they really recommend that you use a two part lid system and not a lug. Called a lug lid, but basically it's like one that you turn sometimes they have a little button in the middle and sometimes they don't. And those are used more for commercial canning processes. I. That was number one where I was like, oh, she's using a lug lid, which people use all over the world. I don't want to, I don't want you to think that I'm unaware that people do this type of open kettle canning in other parts of the world. specifically where her husband Prince Harry is from that this is very popular there, but we know scientifically that it's more important to do. A water bath or a steam canning process for your jams and jellies, even your high acid foods that have a low risk of the cbot toxin A low risk of that developing. But still I was flabbergasted

jenny_3_04-14-2025_091455: 7:04

Yeah.

anna-_3_04-14-2025_101455: 7:04

just put the lid on and said, yeah, I put it on the shelf and just, I can hear those jars popping, the lids popping as they cool down and come to room temperature. And that's, you can pull a seal, it's called a false seal because it, it's not really shelf stable. But it just gives the illusion that is safe to, do and consume.

jenny_3_04-14-2025_091455: 7:28

And again. Okay. She isn't British. Okay. To be fair I don't even know that we can say that. It's

anna-_3_04-14-2025_101455: 7:35

I'm

jenny_3_04-14-2025_091455: 7:35

that's her excuse.

anna-_3_04-14-2025_101455: 7:36

like all the benefit of the doubt

jenny_3_04-14-2025_091455: 7:38

I don't really wanna give her any benefit because she has access to she has her own TV show. Someone surely it's fine if she thought that was fine, but the fact that they're going to, she's in such a position of expertise just by the fact that she's Meghan Markle, that's so

anna-_3_04-14-2025_101455: 7:55

Right,

jenny_3_04-14-2025_091455: 7:55

irresponsible for them to not fact check her. That's the problem. It's fine. It's fine if you think it, oh, this is the way my grandma did it, so this must be right. That's a thing that plenty of people think that's fine, but the issue is that she has so many resources available to her and nobody said, oh, wait a minute, Megan. As you're in a position of authority. You can't tell people how to do something that there's an easy, affordable. Accessible, much safer method. Water, bath canning is hardly costs anymore. That it's, we're not in a time where you have to chop fire wood to boil the water. Most of us don't. I know Megan doesn't. So it just was really,

anna-_3_04-14-2025_101455: 8:36

no.

jenny_3_04-14-2025_091455: 8:36

yeah. She's not required to do that. So it's an accessible, much safer solution. Water bath and or steam canning process is an accessible and much safer option. For preserving much longer if you don't wanna waste the food that you're preserving. We can, we're gonna talk a lot about in season three, about how to save money, canning, because we all know grocery prices are going up for all of us. By safely preserving them and getting your canning jars sealed properly, you will not waste your time, your money, your effort, your jars will be sealed and shelf stable indefinitely is. Truly how long they'll be. It could be a very long time if they're ca if they're stored Anna and I are both enduring and enjoying home renovation projects the last 12 months or so. And cleaning out my pantry, I found, oh yeah, this little jar jam I made like several years ago. And I've tried really hard to eat up all the little jars I found, or the stray one jar of this or that, and a properly canned. A properly preserved jar is still good, especially jam. Other foods deteriorate a little faster with sunlight and we can talk about that too. But Megan's not gonna have that experience. Be able to eat her jam in a couple years, five years from down the road, but won't be the case for for Megan. But Anna, let's talk more about how do people properly get their candy jars to seal?

anna-_3_04-14-2025_101455: 10:00

Okay. This is a great segue into how do you do it properly. I love to use the USDA website that's called National Center for Home Food Preservation. They give you all the information and instructions on how to do things safely and properly along with. agencies that are throughout the country, you can access their information online. So first start with a tested recipe, and then it will no doubt tell you what your processing time is and how to adjust for altitude. then you take your. Your jars that you have just filled with your delicious preserves, and you're going to process them either in a water bath or an atmospheric steam canner. If you are new to steam canning or you've never heard of it go back to, I believe season one. Jenny talks all about her love of a steam canner, and I recently, finally got on board and last year became an. Avid user of my steam canner when I was creating 2000 jars of jam for an upcoming Christmas market, and I now sing the praises of a steam canner. It's just so great. Yeah, then you process your jars. Once you're processing time has completed, then you take them out and let them rest on the countertop. I like to use a dish towel. A drying rack, something like that can let your jars cool. Then you make sure they're sealed. I like to let them cool all the way and then take the ring off and store Way. But that's just a glazing overview of how to create properly sealed jars. Jenny, did I miss anything? What would you add to that?

jenny_3_04-14-2025_091455: 11:44

I think that's great. If you're a brand new listener you could head back to season one and I think the first 10 episodes are super clear, deep dives. I. On how the canning process works, the equipment that you need, what is water bath canning? What is steam canning? What's pressure canning? And it will give you a deep dive into all of the subjects. So if you're new, welcome and thank you for being here and head to season one, and then you can bop around. I would say after that you could bop around to any episode title that strikes your fancy. We try to be really focused on our topics and just if the title says that's what the episode will be about, that's what the episode's about. When you were, if you were to Google or if you came to this podcast episode asking yourself how to seal canning jars, what you're really asking is how to preserve the food inside the sealed jar. I think the assumption is a seal means that the food inside is safely preserved, and that simply isn't the case. I live really rurally and very often when you buy a flat of jars with the lids on, those lids are all sealed. It's a false seal. It's not a real seal because of the heat in a hot warehouse or the back room or inside a semi-truck or whatever those jars are. It's like a faux seal, I would say. And that can happen like Meghan Markle iss getting a, a false seal on her raspberry Jams and anyone else who does open Kettle canning is getting like it is just as a weak seal. I think of it like. Like a weak door, to your home. You want a really strong door. You want to have a strong seal to prevent any air from coming in, any penetration by rodents or bugs, or any other thing. You want that to be a strong seal. That's another reason why there's other outdated methods that aren't that strong of a seal or that strong of a door like the paraffin wax. I can't even believe they still sell paraffin wax. I wanted to complain at my store manager of our local grocery store, like, why are you selling this? It's not helpful. So that's another outdated method. Tell people how do they do the paraffin wax thing or what, how do people do that?

anna-_3_04-14-2025_101455: 13:51

From what I know you heat up the paraffin wax and then you drip it on top of or pour it on top of your preserves. I've never seen anyone do it. I guess I should look up a YouTube video of somebody doing it, but I. I have only heard horror stories of people using paraffin wax. But basically it just flat on top of your preserved foods, and then maybe you crack it and then pull it out when you're ready to use the food.

jenny_3_04-14-2025_091455: 14:20

I think that no matter.

anna-_3_04-14-2025_101455: 14:22

me I'm wrong in that assumption.

jenny_3_04-14-2025_091455: 14:25

No. I think that is what people did. And my grandmother is 93 years old and she has been a lifelong canner and I often bounce things off of her to get a sense, just a glimmer of what was the thinking like of housewives of your, and she said, oh we never did that paraffin wax, because mice love that wax. And remember, we're thinking about a strong door. You don't want to attract for heaven's sake. You don't wanna attract a rodent. That's the opposite of what you want, right? So she said, oh, we never did the wax. That's terrible. Mice loved it and it didn't work well. And she also shared, this is a little bit off topic, but She also shared how eager. People like her and other, everyone's grandma, right? Was when there was a new cookbook that was released by a cooperative extension or by a trusted source because they were eager for new tested recipes, new stuff they knew that wouldn't spoil. Back when things were more frugally minded, I would say. She was really interested in how to preserve things so that they wouldn't spoil on the shelf. So in her mind, she would not have done the open kettle or the paraffin because it's not gonna last very long. And to her po whole point of canning was to get things to last a long time. Even if today Meghan Markle is doing it it's not an effective method of. The food in the jars for any length of time.

anna-_3_04-14-2025_101455: 15:56

That's right. And on her website, I was talking with Jenny about this before the episode, but on her website, she is selling. Raspberry preserves in like a gift box and

jenny_3_04-14-2025_091455: 16:07

Cute.

anna-_3_04-14-2025_101455: 16:07

out within I don't even know, like an hour or two hours.

jenny_3_04-14-2025_091455: 16:10

Oh.

anna-_3_04-14-2025_101455: 16:11

It was with a lug lid and I just had to. Talk with Jenny about it because as an artisan jam producer, I have a cottage food license. I'm not allowed to use a lug lid. I have to use a two part canning lid. You can use a lug lid though if you are doing a commercial process and that's what she's doing. And. And she's probably using what's called a co-packer, which means that you can either send them your recipe and they will create it for you and you can sell it on your website or in your shop or store or farm stand or whatever. It's interesting. That's all I'm saying is that like this episode is touted as, something that the everyday person can do, but it's really not recommended in the way that she is. In the way that she's portraying it, right? We always want to do better when we know better. So here is your sign to do better

jenny_3_04-14-2025_091455: 17:05

and I get the feeling that she doesn't know better, but in my mind, she's surrounded by people who are producing this show for her. Someone should have known better. And we do have an episode, a couple, I can't remember if it was season one or two, but we had an episode where we talked about. Missteps with other significant influencers online. Nobody is well known as Meghan Markle, but well-known people have got on the internet and shared some really dicey advice. And every time I'm like, dang, nobody checked that. Nobody said Hey, wait a minute. Let's check a free and easily available. Yeah.

anna-_3_04-14-2025_101455: 17:42

yeah.

jenny_3_04-14-2025_091455: 17:42

Why are they not checking that?

anna-_3_04-14-2025_101455: 17:43

and it's so hard because it's made beautifully.

jenny_3_04-14-2025_091455: 17:47

Yeah.

anna-_3_04-14-2025_101455: 17:48

It sounds right. But if nobody's talking about pH, if nobody's Processing time or That's when the alarm bells go off in my head. And it should be in our listeners' ear as well. That's an easy way to determine if what someone's giving you advice about. Is legit in canning. And that goes for YouTube. Just anything, Facebook,

jenny_3_04-14-2025_091455: 18:13

Right

anna-_3_04-14-2025_101455: 18:14

Pinterest.

jenny_3_04-14-2025_091455: 18:15

everywhere. We really hope that one thing that you get from listening to the Perfectly Preserved podcast is that you get a pretty good spidey sense or get a, get an idea of what to be asking if you are reviewing a recipe or watching or consuming content that is canning focused because. Unfortunately, there are a ton of significantly sized influencers, at least on social media, who they might have great goat herding advice and they make amazing homemade soap and they like, they do other cool things that are great and, of course the, half a million followers they have can attest to that. Anna and I send these things back and forth to each other all the time. Dang, this smart girl. Why did she, why is she canning like this? Or why is she recommending this process? There's plenty of'em that have good advice too, and maybe that'll be something we, we can do. We could do like a roundup, like of our favorite people who do share good canning advice besides Anna and I. But yeah, we just want you to be keeping an eye out for safe tanning practice. We wanna be sharing good tips with you guys. But that is how you get your canning jars of seal, guys. It's you need a process time where those jars are submerged. Either in a boiling water bath or in a steam canner. I always like to say that a steam canner is like a sauna. If a boiling water bath is like a hot tub, like they both achieve a similar result. That's just a very loose metaphor. It's not actually food science, but it's the same idea, right? That high heat surrounding the jar, the high heat surrounding the jar, helps achieve that safe food preservation that we're looking for. And a trusted recipe will give you a time, and that time isn't arbitrary. The time of processing is based on the temperature probes that are attached to the testing lids. They kinda look like little jellyfish dingle dangling down into the jar of applesauce or jam or whatever. And when those temperature probes get hot enough to kill spoilers, that is what that time is based on. So that's why when you see recipes, like some recipes are a 10 minute process and some are 25. That is based on the size of the jar, the density of the food, the water activity they're in. It's like it's a lot of food science and that is why. That's how you can tell is this a trusted recipe? It'll have a time.

anna-_3_04-14-2025_101455: 20:37

Yeah. And jenny and I were talking earlier too about when we first started canning and talking about food preservation and doing this podcast, Jenny was like, I really want this recipe. Why don't they have more updated recipes and things like that. And we were just being grouchy about it a

jenny_3_04-14-2025_091455: 20:56

Sure.

anna-_3_04-14-2025_101455: 20:56

But then once we went to the Master Food Preserver course and realized the amount of time and energy and funding it All of the testing for a recipe, then we were like, oh, okay. Fine.

jenny_3_04-14-2025_091455: 21:08

I wanna make sure our listeners know Anna is never grumpy about a single thing. It's always me. That's the grumpy one. I definitely was very grumpy about. Like for example, there's no tested recipes that include like nut milks and not that I'm a big fan of nut milk. As a food category, but it's just like that's not new. Oat milk is not a new thing or cashew, that's not new. Why is there no tested recipes that include that? And that it was something I verbalized pretty often when Anna and I first got to be friends. And it does. It takes a ton of time and that's why, when you get a tested recipe, this thing was tested to. To be sure to be safe in a variety of kitchens with different pots and pans, different pH values of tomatoes grown in different places, different hybrids. It takes a lot of testing to make sure a recipe is safe. Yes. You don't have to understand a single thing that we talk about here, food science wise or know any of it. If you just know to follow a tested recipe, you don't have to understand any of it. You just follow steps one through five. It's easy peasy.

anna-_3_04-14-2025_101455: 22:10

Yeah. And when we say a safe tested What we really mean is a food. science tested

jenny_3_04-14-2025_091455: 22:16

Yes. Yes.

anna-_3_04-14-2025_101455: 22:18

could test something in their home over and they're like, my grandma did it. I did it and it's But we're talking about in an actual food science

jenny_3_04-14-2025_091455: 22:26

Great. Yeah, just because you've done it over and over, that's called survivorship buyers. I could drive every day without a seatbelt and not have a car accident. That doesn't mean that's a good idea. What I met an English teacher in my quote unquote real job. And I often use the fallacies that people use about canning to illustrate logical fallacies to my class because the canning world, unfortunately, is full of them other. Genres are full of fallacies too. It's not just the canning world, but just because it has worked for me in the past does not mean that is actually, a safe idea. So anyway, I'm sure that we've IM impressed upon you all the importance of using a tested recipe. And you can find, tell our listeners again, where do they find good tested recipes?

anna-_3_04-14-2025_101455: 23:08

Yeah the easiest one since everybody, most everybody has a phone in their back pocket is the USDA website. It's called National Center for Home Food Preservation. They have a book there on the website that's called So Easy to Preserve. It's a giant thick. Amazing book with all kinds of recipes information about all kinds of food preservation. I recommend getting the book through that website. It's the least expensive way to do it unless you have a local extension office that has access to those books and they order in bulk. The second one is also the USDA website. They have a PDF file that is free and that is called, why is that escaping my brain?

jenny_3_04-14-2025_091455: 23:54

I dunno. It's a big PDF and

anna-_3_04-14-2025_101455: 23:57

guide to home canning.

jenny_3_04-14-2025_091455: 23:58

Yes. Yes.

anna-_3_04-14-2025_101455: 24:01

Yeah, it's called The Complete Guide to Home Canning. It's A PDF. I love it because it has altitude adjustments and Live in northern Utah, we have to make altitude adjustments all the time because we're at 4,300 feet in elevation. And then the last one that I recommend is the Ball Blue Book Guide to Preserving. That is a tested name Preservation world for a reason. They've been around a really long time. And the recipes, usually I haven't found one that's terrible. I actually really love all of the recipes

jenny_3_04-14-2025_091455: 24:33

Yeah.

anna-_3_04-14-2025_101455: 24:33

ball canning book.

jenny_3_04-14-2025_091455: 24:34

Same.

anna-_3_04-14-2025_101455: 24:35

So those are my top three. What about you, Jenny? What are your favorite go-to Recipes?

jenny_3_04-14-2025_091455: 24:41

Anna brought this tip up in one of our episodes that, especially for regional flora and fauna, it's a super great idea to Google your local, let's say your state. You could start with your state cooperative extension, so California State Cooperative Extension, and then type in the type of res recipe you want, let's say choke cherry jam. Okay? That's a thing that grows where I live and it may not grow in other places. That's a regional thing that you don't typically buy in the supermarket. We've had a lot of fun looking at other states cooperative extension offices like the Fairbanks. They have a, not only is their website excellent, they have so many cool recipes for things that you wouldn't necessarily get from the California extension, right? I think just Googling cooperative extension and then the name of the recipe you want, and then maybe including your state will give you something that is not only accurate and tested, but also could be something really cool that you're not gonna get at the grocery store. That might be something you get at a farmer's market or forage for free on the highway or whatever you're doing. But those are also, that's my, one of my favorite go-to tips and. It's fun to explore what other recipes there are out there that aren't the standard. Apple sauce and Raspberry Jam.

anna-_3_04-14-2025_101455: 25:57

Yeah. love that. Thank you for bringing that up. And for our new listeners on YouTube or on the podcast I did grow up in Alaska, so when

jenny_3_04-14-2025_091455: 26:07

Yeah.

anna-_3_04-14-2025_101455: 26:07

University of Alaska Fairbanks, I was like, people are canning walrus. There are tested

jenny_3_04-14-2025_091455: 26:13

Yes. Amazing.

anna-_3_04-14-2025_101455: 26:16

a lot of Alaska natives that eat walrus. And to be able to preserve that long term, make it shelf stable is really important. I thought that was just crazy and cool.

jenny_3_04-14-2025_091455: 26:26

That's so amazing. And that wasn't, that's not the only cool recipe that website has. They have a lot of really great jam recipes. Lot of cool things to check out and I'm sure that others it's have similarly really neat things and that is Als Also side note, that is how you would get let's say, your grandma canned crab apple or quince or some other fruit that's less common in grocery stores and you wanna get a tested recipe for that. That's also how you would be sure to get a tested recipe. Also does fit with what your grandma used to do, or great grandma or whatever. That's a good way to do that, I think.

anna-_3_04-14-2025_101455: 27:04

Yeah, no, it's a great idea. I think it's fantastic and it does make a difference if there's. A regional tested recipe for you.

27:13

That's our show. We don't want you to miss an episode, so please be sure to subscribe. If you found this episode helpful and informative, please give our show a rating and review. It only takes a few seconds and it really helps our show grow. Follow us on social media at Smart Home Canning and at the domestic wildflower. Email your preserving questions to Perfectly Preserved podcast@gmail.com and we will do our best to answer your questions on the show. Thanks so much for listening. Stay tuned for our next episode released every week.