inmaken's Profile

Weck jars are very good for hot water bath canning but near to unusable for pressure canning. That doesn't come as a surprise, as pressure canning is unknown here (Europe, Belgium) and, if my memory serves me right, Weck even advices against pressure canning or has done so in the past.

Contrary to the situation in the US, large pressure cookers/canners aren't on the market here. The largest pressure cookers available here fore houdsehold use are some 5-8l. Those few people here interested in pressure canning have to buy a canner in the US.

I bought an All American Canner/Cooker #930 some months ago and I'm not impressed with the results so far, using Weck jars: I have faillure rates of some 20 - 40%, when using those. During pressure and temperature buildup the rings are forced more or less out between jar and lid, leaving a questionable seal or no seal at all after processing. This is the case in about everything I have canned so far: vegetables, meat, chicken, spaghetti sauce, soup... Ive used rings from Weck and some other brands but to no availl: regardless the make of the rings, faillure rate stays high. Compared to hot water bath canning using Weck jars (failure rate near to 0%) pressure canning isn't that much of a succes story so far, but I'm working on it, meanwhile looking for another deepfreezer to store all the food coming out of those unsealed jars :-).

As Mason jars are very difficult to find here, I'm thinking on buying a palette of those in the US.

Some first pictures of my "canning activities" @ http://picasaweb.google.com/inmaken .