Bulbs & Fittings Ideas

Did my first test drive with this today. Because of the learning curve, it took me a bit more time and effort to work through the steps properly as expected. First, i read thru the manual and highlighted items i had questions on and I made a few phone calls to the helpline yesterday Then I needed to make one more call today before canning, and the woman there called me back with a clarification I needed and that she didn't even know herself. This is so new we're all learning together. I believe that those who write 'user manuals' should not be let loose sometimes; bc if you leave certain tidbits out, it creates questions...that being said, here goes: The advantage to this unit over their autocanner is that it holds large capacity of jars (12) 8 oz jars, (8) pint jars and (7) quart jars. I have the Ball autocanner too, love that, but that unit holds 6, 4, and 3 jars respectively. You are more limited in recipes with the autocanner, altho' I have figured out to make almost anything in it, but I digress. In this watercanner, you can preserve anything at all, without question--home recipes or from whatever canning book you have. You turn it on and set a timer as usual. You let it rest 5 mins in the pot as usual. This also can be used on countertop to free up your rangetop to make potsful of what you're going to fill up the watercanner with. It should be near a sink so you are not lugging it too far to empty it out with the spigot. This unit is a multicooker, it steams and you can cook foods/soups in it, etc... This would make a good pot for lobsters or seafood boils. If you do not care to make larger quantities of preserves, you probably don't need this. I for one didn't NEED this either, but I don't play tennis or golf. This is MY hobby so I look at it that way. If you want to do just 3 or 4 jelly jars, or 2 or 3 pint jars in this, you certainly can do fewer jars and not just the entire full capacity.

In using this unit for canning, you only use the part of the dial where the green is and ignore anything else. You basically dial it all the way to the right, point the dial to "canning" to preheat jars (one piece of info the manual left out) and to preserve. You can also use 4 oz jars and 12 oz jars (the manual didn't mention that either)...so any size jar that fits with space around each one for heat circulation and a 1 to 2 inch water level above it, just like stovetop preserving, is good....you do NOT have to preheat lids or rims (also not mentioned in manual). I made 6 pints of carrots today, 3 jars with spears, made spicy, and 3 jars of carrot 'coins' with dill seasoning. Each jar sealed and popped almost immediately upon removing them from the pot. You can use your own jar rack in this, but they say it must be set on top of the one included though. I will do that as mine has circular 'grooves' to hold the bottom of jars more securely in place than the one included. So basically, today I made 2 small batches, 3 pints each, of 2 different carrot recipes. I deliberately made the batches small so I could practice twice with it. You can reuse the water with each new round of canning you do, one after the other; so no need to dump water out and waste it.

This sells for 0, but I bought this on sale at Cooking.com at about 15% off, no shipping; so you might want to wait for their sale or for Amazon's price to come down a bit.

I will write more as I experiment more.

I do a LOT of canning, all through the year. Some small batch, some large batch. My problems? I have a glass-top stove with only 4 burners of various size. By the time I get my huge pot on the stove for my quart-jar canning, my small pan with my lids, and whatever pot I am using to make whatever I am canning, my stove space is beyond maxed out and I worry about my glass-top stove. So when I saw that Ball was releasing this, I saved and saved and saved so I could jump on it as soon as it was released. And I am *so* glad I did!

I pretty much paid little attention to the instruction manual, other than a quick glance. It is fairly self-explanatory, except for the large metal disc with holes in it. It goes together easily, and is marked clearly for water limits inside the canner. I put it together, and immediately set about making some taco sauce from the Ball canning book.

The electric canner is a dream to use. It heats well, though it will not get to a full rolling boil unless you have it at the canning setting. It got to a full rolling boil in a little less time than what my pot would be on the stove (I tested it the night before, out of curiosity.). I put my jars inside the canner to the high setting and let it heat up while I made the taco sauce. This way, the jars were kept hot while I waited. Then I bumped it up to the canning setting about 10 minutes before I was ready to jar the sauce. From there, it was a simple matter to pull the jars, fill them as usual, and stick them back in the canner. As for the large metal disc? That is to help conduct heat within the pot during canning and to help diffuse the boiling water. You simply set it on the tops of the jars when they are loaded, and pull it out by the handle when they are done! I also noticed that this prevented the jars from rattling around within the canner, which I appreciate.

I loved having the pot by my sink, as that makes it so much easier to fill (and empty). My stove was less cluttered and more efficient, and the canner holds several more jars than my old pot. At this point, I don't have any cons - but it's a new piece of equipment, so I will be curious to see how well it holds up to lots of canning during the busy summer season.

In short - while I have not gotten any of the other FreshTech equipment, as I couldn't justify the price for the limited usage, this will truly be in fairly constant use in my house. If you are looking at any of their pieces, this would be the one I would recommend over any of the others. Throw in the steaming capacity and the ability to use it for drinks (summer parties!), and it really is an excellent piece of equipment for a good price.

This is fabulous! I now have my stovetop back. The water canner I had took up most of my usable stovetop space. This electric water bath canner is great!