Why turn jars upside down?

If the pickles are soft, they are spoiled from the yeast fermentation. Don’t use them. Using too weak a salt brine or vinegar solution may cause soft or slippery pickles, as can using moldy garlic or storing the pickles at too warm a temperature. These pickles are spoiled and should be discarded.

Jars do not need to be sterilized before canning if they will be filled with food and processed in a boiling water bath canner for 10 minutes or more, or if they will be processed in a pressure canner.

The thinking behind the inverting is that the jam/jellybeing still at a temperature to destroy spoiler micro-organismswill sterilize the underside of the sealing disc, and the little amount of air trapped under the lid. A vacuum can form if the jars are hot and the contents are at least 165 F/74 C.

Ball recommends against it for seal quality reasons. They say, Do not invert, move or store jars while cooling, as this may cause seal failure. For any other type of canning (besides jams and jellies)vegetables, pickles, tomato sauces, fruit, etc.

Steam canning is a more environmentally friendly process than boiling water canning for the following reasons: 1) the steam canner uses much less water than a boiling water canner and 2) the steam canner reaches the required temperature for processing more quickly and thus uses less energy than the boiling water canner

The only time you need to be concerned about the presence of tiny bubbles in your product is when they are active, start moving or fizzy up to the top of the jar when you open it. If that occurs, your product may be fermenting or contaminated. But if the bubbles are inactive, they are totally benign.

Are Steam Canners Safe? Yes! Recently, the University of Wisconsin extension system conducted research that determined steam canners are safe for use on specific high-acid recipes. Use your steam canner to process food for no longer than 45 minutes.

Place the jars on the Steam Canner careful to avoid the holes or into a hot water bath. Process quarts for 20 minutes + any altitude time adjustments. Start the processing time when you can see steam coming out of the hole in the lid or in a hot water bath when the water starts to boil.

False seals occur when the products are not canned correctly, when jar rims are not wiped clean before processing, or if jars are not filled correctly. One of the most common occasions for a false seal occurs when hot food is poured into jars, lids are applied and the jars of product are not heat processed.

Place lids on jars, screw on rings and lower jars back into the pot of boiling water. The water should cover the jars; if not, add more. Boil jars for 10 minutes. Transfer jars to a folded towel and allow to cool for 12 hours; you should hear them making a pinging sound as they seal.

Pressure canning is very similar to water bath canning, though a bit more intense of a process. Instead of boiling the jars and contents, you are putting them under pressure. The increased pressure brings the overall temperature up higher than boiling water and processing times are longer than when water bath canning.

Preparing jars for steam canning works just the same as boiling water bath canning (click here to read my instructions on how to process jars in a boiling water bath canner). You can even use your steam canner to heat the jars prior to filling.

Lids must be simmered for 10 minutes to “activate” the sealing compound that helps achieve a vacuum seal. Keep lids in simmering water until read to use. (Do not boil: simmering the lids in water hotter than 180 may interfere with proper sealing.)

BUT, the short answer to the question is still yes, you really should remove the rings. The rings are really only designed to keep the lid on during the processing and cooling part of canning. After that, they only provide a false sense of food safety, by giving the illusion of a good seal.

The canner must have a rack and a tight-fitting lid. The rack keeps jars from touching the bottom of the canner and allows for water to circulate under jars. If it has dividers, jars will not touch each other or bump against sides of the canner during processing.