The last few years I've seen people post here that they can't find canning lids for sale.

It's been especially worse the last 2 years because of, well just what the hell is going on.

Right now there seems to be decent stock in the stores, but I bet more stock will be problematic.

So, for you who will be needing it, buy it now, including other canning supplies, spare gasket, etc.

I got an email from Lehman's LINK showing they have good bulk stock available.

A google search of "bulk canning lids" and an internet search of wallymart, the hardware stores, etc shows stock available.

You can buy online and have it shipped to you, or you can go to wallymart dot com and order it for curbside pickup, instead of traipsing through wally mart and fighting the parking and inside crowd struggles.

Buy now and stack it deep. Personally I'm getting a couple years worth now.

Don't wait, don't be late, don't mediate, don't hesitate, get it now.
.

Good advice. I stopped gardening a couple years ago. Tired of battling
the rabbits and squirells. We used to have a lot of red tailed hawks around
Haven't seen them in a couple years and the squirrel population has exploded.
Maybe I'll try again. I suprised squirrels would take every single tomatoe.

This is a smart move. I hadn't thought about it till you brought it up. Last year we had to really scramble to get what we needed. I can see this year being worse for sure.

Jim

Seems like this has been a pretty regular issue, even well before COVID. Probably because everyone decides to can all at the same time of the year, so every year there's a huge run on canning supplies around the same time. But there's basically no demand the rest of the year, so retailers don't want huge amounts of canning supply stock sitting around collecting dust for 10 months out of the year.

“Buy now and stack it deep” isn’t something I would have considered to canning. Because it makes about as much sense as the politician that claimed that you had to throw away magazines after you shot the bullets in them.

I grew up in a family where the women would can for weeks on end. Hell, we made our own kraut and canned it. And we never had to “buy it cheap and stack it deep” to maintain the level of canning that the family did. Because we reused everything. We had hogs and would slaughter the and butcher them ourselves. Same went for deer. Between when I started eating solid food and about my 12th birthday, I’m not sure that I ate any beef. It was all deer. We are a lot of fresh fish. Duck and goose as well.

We weren’t survivalists, we weren’t living that way because of “what all was going on”, we lived that way because we were poor. And we rarely if ever purchased new canning stuff.

To this day I can still remember very distinctly the smell in the kitchen that the pressure cooker would make when they were canning tomato juice.

Canning seems to be a bit outdated these days for everything I’ve seen that home freeze drying can do.

The good news for me I guess is that I remember where I came from and can go back there if necessary.

The knowledge base of growing up that way (and ammo) is far more important to me than stacking canning supplies deep.

My ability to survive has never worried me. All from the gift of growing up poor. It’s all the ones that didn’t grow up that way that bother me. They will become desperate at some point.

It is the desperate people with no skills who I worry about the most Jones. Too many of them and not enough of us.

Thanks for mentioning Lehman's as a source of canning supplies. A recent youtube video mentioned those lids were good quality, but I wanted to check a few other sources before ordering. Looks like a good time to go ahead.

I remember back in the early 70s my mother who lived in western NY could not find them anywhere. We were living near Boston and of all places, found them on Salem St. In the north end.

Canning lids can be re-used as well.

^
Why ,is the Question,damn things are a couple bucks.

Where are you ordering canning lids? I've been hearing avoid E-bay and Amazon so you don't end up with counterfeit lids.

Lehman's has 360 regular lids for $84.99 plus $21.99 shipping, so with Iowa's 7% tax that's 29 cents per lid.

Walmart.com has Ball regular lids for $2.97 per box of 12, so that's 26 cents per lid with tax and free shipping. However, Walmart only lets you buy 6 boxes at a time and then you need to add stuff to your order to reach $35 for free shipping.

^^^ I have used the Golden Harvest brand before and had good results, no issues. I have some on hand for use. Golden Harvest is owned by Newell Corp, who also owns Ball, Kerr & Bernardin brand, so I feel fine with them.

$2.47 on wallymart dot com, I just clicked it and the max is 38 boxes, for store curbside pickup tomorrow. I don't need that many, but it's there.

LINK

Berlin Packaging is another good option.


I'm more or less retired now, so I have time get out of the house and cruise 2 miles over to wallymart and do a curbside pickup every day or 2, which is free on orders over $35.00. What the heck, I always need detergent and soap, trash bags, or whatever, to easily make a $35 minimum.

quote:

Originally posted by OKCGene:
^^^ I have used the Golden Harvest brand before and had good results, no issues. I have some on hand for use. Golden Harvest is owned by Newell Corp, who also owns Ball, Kerr & Bernardin brand, so I feel fine with them.

That's good to know, thank you. I've not had good luck with the store brand ones from walmart.

quote:

Originally posted by old rugged cross:
Canning lids can be re-used as well.

It is decidedly NOT recommended...unless you're partial to botulism, or a big mess in your pantry.

I would add that if you order from Amazon you have a better than average chance of getting counterfeit lids. Several years back I ordered a thousand wide mouth Ball lids. They were delivered promptly and even came in Ball packaging, but were not Ball lids. Had to send them back.

I have a supply of Tattler reusable canning lids and rings.

would like to buy from Lehman's but $22
to ship some lids seems excessive.

Update: found some and was able to order from a local retailer. Ball with rings (wide mouth). Don't need rigs but no shipping and fair price. Ordered 120. We'll see if they come. They accepted the order. Fingers crossed.

Thanks OKCGene for the thread.

Could not find any around here last year so I ordered enough from amazon to last a couple of years. I do my own canning but the county has a public cannery where you can go and prepare your jars and they process them for so much per pint or quart. I believe they are the only county in North Georgia still doing that.

Lids were a real problem for us two years ago. We typically do 120 to 160 quarts of tomatoes, both whole and juice per year. Add the 40 or so odd quarts of pickles and we use roughly 200. I ended up with half Ball brand and half of some chi-com garbage that ACE hardware had.

Never Again! I've been hoarding lids for two years now. Everytime I see them, I buy a few dozen. During peak craziness, I saw Ball lids for over $2 each!

There has been a high failure rate of the new lids.

LOTS of people re-use. Use common sense, sanitize them.

The store branded, Chinese made lids are garbage. The food I put in jars is too costly to risk bad lids.

I use new lids for meats, and reuse for pickled/fermented foods and jams that don't really need a seal. We also save all our pickle/jam jars and re-use them for pickling.

There used to be a facebook group, canning rebels, most sane members have moved to mewe and other platforms. All the "don't reuse your lids" nazis get weeded out, and old-time traditions and methods are shared.

I went to Wallymart this afternoon, needed kitty litter and food. Lil monster gets grouchy if I don't take real good care of him.

I found the canning good section, they had a LOT of lids on the shelf. There was NO limit on what you could buy. I bought a Bakers Dozen (that's 13) packs of lids, and 1 box of jars.

Price was very reasonable, I believe, considering the price everybody else is selling them for. The Ball brand is what I mostly bought. I did buy some of the Golden Harvest lids to use for jars I store flour, dehydrated potato, grains, beans, etc in. I use my Food Saver with the attachment to vacuum seal lids for those sort of things. If you don't have one, get one.
.