I was recently out at Greensgrow, an urban farm in Philadelphia’s Kensington neighborhood and got a chance to take a peek at their canning cabinet. They have just about everything a home canner could want (and at competitive prices, too).

Greensgrow
2501 E. Cumberland Street
Philadelphia, PA 19125

If you have a local shop or market with a good selection of preserving tools and equipment, take a picture and send it over along with the store’s information and I’ll feature it here!

Related Posts:

• Canning 101: The Tools of the Trade
• Canning Equipment Basics
• Juice Jar Sources

Recently, I got an email from a reader, asking that I tell her what she needed in terms of tools in order to get canning. I realized that though I’ve been writing this site for more than a year and a half, I’d never managed to outline my favorite canning equipment.

What you’ll notice is nearly everything pictured here is dual purpose. Most of pots, pans and other tools I use for canning are simply the tools of my kitchen that just happened to get pressed into service on a regular basis for food preservation.

First thing you need is a nice, roomy stock pot. You want something that can hold at least 12 quarts and is tall enough to allow the jars to be fully submerged with some space left at the top for bubbling water. You also need a rack to elevate the jars just slightly off the bottom of the pot. I like this old cake cooling rack that once belonged to my grandmother, but any low profile, round rack will do.

One thing you learn quickly when you start to can is that you need to simmer your lids in a small pan of water prior to placing them on the jars. This ensures that you’ll get a good, solid seal. Any little pan will do.

Next you need a pot in which to cook your jams, chutneys, pickle-brines and more. I go back and forth between several sizes of enameled cast iron pots and…

This 8-quart All-Clad pot. Honestly, this is my favorite pot at the moment (as you can tell by the fact that it was actually in use when it came time to take this photo. If you’re curious, it’s holding an apple-pumpkin butter that I’ll be posting about soon). It’s nice and wide and can be vigorously scrubbed if you happen to burn something in it. My husband would like it to be known that he bought this lovely pot for me after much obsessing on my part.

It’s always nice to have a generous assortment of measuring cups, measuring spoons, sharp knives and a microplane grater.

These are really the only specialty canning tools I think are necessary. Wide mouth funnels are really helpful (and once you have them in your kitchen, you’ll start to use them for other things. At least I do). A jar lifter is nice to help prevent burns and a magnetic lid wand is quite handy.

A little mesh skimmer is nice when you’re making a super-foamy jam. I got that one three years ago at a giant Asian grocery store in South Philadelphia for less than two bucks. It has proven its price many times over. I’m also a big fan of these newer, coated silicone spatulas. There’s nowhere that mildew or mold can develop because the coating covers the entire thing. Next to it is a very thin scraper that is absolutely brilliant when it comes to removing air bubbles from pickles and preserved fruit.

Jars. But you probably knew that already. They don’t have to be brand new, although the lids should be.

A stack of clean towels and a couple of hot pads keep things clean, dry and burn-free. All good things.

Finally, you need your main ingredient. I’ve been playing with quince quite a lot lately and will have two (that’s right, two!) recipes that use them in the coming days.

Related Posts:

• Finding Equipment: Greensgrow Farms in Philadelphia
• Canning 101: A Field Guide to Jars
• Canning 101: Is It Safe to Can Products That Contain Some Oil?

One of the great things about canning is that you don’t need a whole lot of special equipment in order to do it. Yes, you can buy specialty pots, with lifting racks and the capacity for six or seven jars, but when you’re just getting started, you can get by with nothing more than a large pot, some standard kitchen tongs and your jars.

The pot you see above has been my go-to canning pot for the last few years. I bought it at a thrift store in college for $2. The lid was missing a handle so my dad made one for me with a scrap of wood he had in the garage. This pot easily holds five wide-mouth pint jars or six half pints, which is often as much as I make in a single batch of jam or pickles. The primary thing you need in your canning pot is depth, you want to be able to comfortably submerge your filled jars so that water comes within a half-inch of the top of the jar.

The next thing you need is a sturdy pair of tongs. You use these to move the sterilized jars out of the water, put the filled jars into the water bath and then remove them again after the hot water bath is finished. It’s important that your tongs are strong and dependable, as you’ll be moving hot stuff with them. If using tongs worries you (you do need to be intentional in your grip when you use tongs to move hot, filled jars), many stores also sell specialty jar lifters. I have one of these lifters, and while I appreciate the very sturdy hold it gives me, it’s a bulky, single-use tool. I find that I return to the tongs more than I do the lifter.

Beyond those two most basic tools, there are a few things you can have that make the filling of jars easier. The first is a wide-mouth funnel. This channels your jam, marmalade or tomato sauce into the jars and keeps it off your countertops. Then, depending on what I’m canning, I’ll either use a ladle (stainless steel is preferable, because it doesn’t retain flavors) or a two-cup Pyrex measuring cup to fill the jars.

The main message I want to communicate here is that to get started in home canning, you really don’t need a ton of fancy equipment. If you do a few batches of jam and determine that it’s something you really enjoy, by all means, buy the big canning pot with the rack (and if you plan on canning more than 6-8 quarts of tomatoes this summer, I would recommend it). However, you can do a lot with a deep stock or roasting pot, a pair of tongs and some jars (you can reuse the jars and rings over and over again, but you will need to buy new lids each time, they are the only single-use part of the process).

That’s it. Go forth and can!

Related Posts:

• Finding Equipment: Greensgrow Farms in Philadelphia
• Canning 101: The Tools of the Trade
• Juice Jar Sources

Quattro Stagioni bottle (left), Weck jars (right)

I was planning on making and writing about pickled asparagus tonight, but at my company’s first softball practice of the season, I got beamed on the forehead and so decided to pursue a less ambition post for the evening.

Sylvie from Rappahannock Cook & Kitchen Gardener left a comment a couple of days ago, asking about canning jars for juice. While I’ve never canning juice myself, given my obsession for canning jars, I can’t help but take note when I see jars that would work for juice.

The first is from an Italian company called Quattro Stagioni. They make a variety of different canning jars (and it’s their jars we’ll be using in my classes over the summer) that come in liter measures, including these handy one liter juice jars. They’re a little pricier than your standard Ball/Kerr jars, but they’re a nice shape and you can buy replacement lids for them. You can buy them individually at The Container Store or you can buy them in cases of six or twelve at Village Kitchen.

Another good option for juice canning are jars from the European company Weck. They make the most lovely looking jars, all graceful lines and elongated silhouettes. They use a system of rubber gaskets, glass lids and metal clips in order to seal, much like the bailing wire canning jars that were popular in days past (the USDA doesn’t recommend that style of canning jar these days, but you can still buy replacement gaskets for them if you want to give that canning method a try). Weck Jars are quite popular in Europe, but are hard to come by stateside. I have a few that I ordered through Lehman’s, but I use them with plastic snap-on lids for food storage, because of their wide mouths and fridge-friendly shapes. You can also order them through the U.S. Weck distributor, but they don’t offer online ordering, only via fax or phone.

Sylvie, I hope that was helpful! If anyone else has any canning jar sourcing questions, let me know and I’d be happy to offer what I know and dig up information on anything I don’t.

Related Posts:

• Finding Equipment: Greensgrow Farms in Philadelphia
• Canning 101: The Tools of the Trade
• Canning Equipment Basics