Saturday, June 16, 2012

Lesson Learned - How many lids in the pot?

Today I had a pressure canning class and had something happen that has never occurred before and probably will never come up again.



I think that I figured it out! One of the new people to canning at the class was taking the hot lids out of the pot to place on the jar. Using the magic wand or lid lifter, she picked up wide mouth lid and stuck to the bottom by using the magnet on the end of the lifter accidently grabbed a smaller regular lid as well. Not noticing that the other lid was underneath she placed it on the jar and when she pulled the magnet away from the wide mouth lid and the smaller lid dropped into the jar. Once the ring was added the second lid wasn't visible.

As we finished prepping the last jars for the canner I counted the lids still in the hot water and we were short one regular lid. I thought I miss counted and added another regular mouth lid to heat in the hot water.


After the pressure canner was opened the lid was displaced after being in the canner for the duration of processing time and it was visible. Tina noticed it and thought it was possibly a crack in the jar but as soon as I saw it I knew what it was.

I just opened the jar a few minutes ago and saw the smaller lid in the jar. I tossed the jar contents since it had processed fine, wide mouth lid sealed perfectly, but I wasn't sure about the rubber and metal cooking in the jar and didn't really want to serve that to my family, but it was a great lesson learned! Keep track of your lids!

7 comments:

Mary Ann said...

What a great reminder... thanks!

Susan said...

I actually did this myself many years ago in a jar of tomatoes. I just fished the lid out and reprocessed the jar....it was fine. I never considered throwing it out. It probably would have messed up the jar had it set on the shelf for any length of time. Lesson learned, I always count my lids carefully!

CTMOM said...

Why throw out the improperly processed jar of food? Reheat the food, if necessary, add the proper lid and reprocess it. If you can't be bothered as it's only one jar, eat the contents within the next few days!

Canning Homemade! said...

CTMOM - It was properly processed, lid sealed but the second lid was inside the food during the pressure canning. I am not really fond of eating the rubber on the lid in my food. I also think since it was metal that the sauce might taste "tinny". It was one jar and I feel better not serving it to my family. My preference.

CTMOM said...

Gotch ya! I hadn't thought of that. So in that case, I would have tossed the food as well. You did keep the jar, didn't you?

Canning Homemade! said...

CTMOM - Of course! Washed and ready to be sterilized for my next project!!

mrsd said...

How funny! Never had that happen. So frustrating to throw stuff out, but " better safe than sorry".