That's so cool! A whole separate kitchen for canning would be awesome! This is my first year of canning, although my Mom did can tomatoes. I was just at Meijer's yesterday & bought a new canning kettle so I can do quarts next year. I only did pints this year. I saw their 1 1/2 pint jars & thought that was a great size. I can't remember what the price was in the store, but they are having a buy 2 get 1 case free sale on their jars. I think I may pick up a few for next year. Just wondering about processing time. I figured if you processed for the same amount of time as a quart, then you'd be good.

If you go to Walmart.com the Mainstay lids are described as being manufactured by Jarden and appear to be a copy of the Golden Harvest lid. With the price rise of Ball lids to $2.12 vs $1.32 per dozen for the Mainstay I think I will use the less expensive lid. I always have liked Golden Harvest lids in the past. With regard to Empire lids the 2 dozen I had in stock sealed fine but I have seen failure of the plasticsol lining and corrosion on youtube. It appears Menards stopped carrying the Empire lids for 2017 but they still sell Ball lids at last year's pricing at $1.76 and often carry the 11% in store purchase credit rebate.

Hi everyone....just thought you might want to know that Ball Canning and Recipes has a Facebook page and people are posting "bring back the pint and a half jar"....if you are a member on Facebook please post your request. So far I've counted about 35 people that have posted. After you sign into Facebook just do a search on "ball canning and recipes". It is also a great source for ideas. Spread the word, and I'm hoping that we can keep this post going....thanks! Here is a link that might be useful: Ball Canning and Recipes Facebook Page

Any idea how old these actually are, and whether the sealing material might have degraded in this time? Many years old and yes it may well have degraded. I'd pitch them rather than waste my time. Now, after reading about heat transfer in Putting Food By, I wonder whether I should be processing these (BWB) according to the pint times instead of pint times due to the width of the jars. Any insight? Now this part I don't understand. Pint times vs. pint times? I can only assume you mean pint times vs. HALF-pint times, right? A half-pint jar is a half-pint jar regardless of shape - wide mouth or regular mouth - both the same. Processing times don't vary based on the shape of the jar. Wide-mouth and regular mouth jars can be used interchangeably with no problems. If your recipe calls for X mins. processing for half-pint jars then that is what you do. If it calls for using pint jars but you are using half-pints then you don't change the processing time. You process them for the time given for pints even though they are smaller. This is because while it is safe to use smaller jars, you have no way of knowing how long to decrease the processing time. So you don't "guess", you use the time given even tho the jars are smaller. But you don't go to BIGGER jars than called for in the recipe. In other words, if it calls for pints you can't safely use quarts and if it calls for half-pints don't use pints. OK? For future reference, Putting Food By is a very outdated book and generally no longer recommended as it is not current. So it should be used with great care. Hope this helps. Dave