Question for those who can

My wife has canned for over 50 years. She ran short of canning jars this year. She purchased 1 dozen new Ball Mason Jars with rings and lids.
She did the water bath method. 6 of the 12 jars did not seal. She has been seeing this more and more with Ball lids. Between qts and pint she cans about 350 jars a year. Has anyone having this problem?

Ball is not what they once were. The Golden Harvest lids and jars have been good for me.

Thanks for the reply!

My wife and I purchased 6 dozen new Ball jars with lids and rings. We have used 4 dozen of the new ones and probably 2+ dozen of our old ones. We have put up salsa, apple sauce, peaches, and tomatoes. We haven't had a single one fail to seal. I will say though, I am very critical of the integrity of the sealing surface of the jar. Any hint of a chip or scuffing of the surface they get relegated to craft stuff or the recycling bin.

Yes, I have also been having problems with Ball lids... also not so much as 50% of them. It's common for 1 or 2 of them to fail out of a dozen, for me.

Like Warrior, I prefer Golden Harvest brand, which can be found at Dollar General, and sometimes Walmart.

We have been canning green beans and tomatoes and it seems at least 1 of whatever it is in either the water bath or pressure canner does not seal. But not Ball.........these are from a sleeve of about 500 generic lids we found at an Amish store. The regulars seem ok. For some reason, the occasional wide mouth will develop an upwards facing pair of dents or pucker, opposite each other along the rim. Some of those seal, some don't.

Wasn't sure if it was my process, the lids or jars. When I get a quart failure, I clean the jar, then run it again using only tap water. If that seals OK, and most do, that tells me that jar and those lids are OK, so i chalk it up to something I did wrong in the process. I also save the jar of canned water. In theory, that is pure, safe, potable water. I can save the jar full of water as easy as I can an empty jar, and that leaves me with a source of short term drinking water if something happens to the normal supply. Only cost is a cheap lid.

I blanched and flash froze a bushel of green beans yesterday. I find I prefer the blanch and vacuum sealing our beans better. I still can some but we like the taste and texture of the longer beans better then the fully cooked beans. They are still some what crispy and firm. We got 47 bags done.

We have had some issues with all brands of canning lids over time. It just comes with the territory it seems. Ball, Kerr and other brands.

I have been canning 1-2 dozen jars of beans, maters, etc for the past 3 weeks or so. All are Ball brand regular mouth pint jars (these were also cases of jars with lids at purchase). No failures yet. I have 12 pints of spaghetti sauce going in the canner in about an hour. I have used both water bath and pressure processing.

my wife only trusts ball and i beleive golden harvest. every once in a while she has one that doesnt seal, but most do. she puts up a couple hundred qts a year

I have had 3 Ball lids fail this year out of 215 pints and quarts canned. That is about double what my Ball lids did (or number failed) in 2020. 2021 I used almost all Chinese or foreign lids and out of a couple hundred had maybe a dozen fail. Most of those 12 or so were tight enough it seemed when cooked but I could see failure during storage.

Bryce

Saw somewhere that someone was using the water bath method for ten minutes. A longer boil might kill the germs inside the jar and food. Botulism is not your friend.

We only pressure can now.

X2.

Have not had any issues with Ball, but the Pur brand lids are terrible!