Lid Test Results

I just finished checking the jars of meat that I canned yesterday to make sure they had properly sealed.  I used equal numbers of the regular lids and Tattler lids.  The results are:

Regular lids = 2 failures
Tattler lids = zero failures

Meat is the easiest product to can as far as prep work goes.  Just cut into pieces, fill the jars, add lids and rings and process.  Meat is also the one product that gives me the most problems with seal failure.  I think that may be because during the canning process, the jars will vent out any air that is in them, and along with the air comes a bit of grease from the fat within the meat.  Some of the grease gets trapped between the lid and the rim of the jar, causing the lid to fail to seal.

I will check the jars in a week or so to make sure they stayed sealed.  For now, I will be buying three or four boxes of the Tattler lids each time I go to the store, until I can save enough money to order a case or two.  Eventually, I would like to have enough of these lids for most of my jars.  And, boy howdy, that's a lot of jars!  When I ran out of shelf space last summer, my youngest son picked up two heavy duty shelving units for me.  Each is 6 ft. high, 4 ft. long and 2 ft. deep.  And now those puppies are both nearly full.

I know that this sounds like an awful lot of canned food for just one person.  But home canned food will stay good in the jars for a very long time - years.  And I use it almost daily, rotating it out.  I figure that whatever I buy this year to can up is going to cost more next year.  And then there are the times when my kids will go shopping in Mom's canned goods section!  They know that they need to bring the empty jars back to be refilled.  And they are pretty good about doing that.

The Tattler lids lived up to my expectations.  I love it when a plan comes together!