Thanks for this. I was blown away by the prices of a BWB canner this spring (as I am a newbie to "putting up"). I ended up borrowing an old enamel one and have gotten by so far but only because I live in an apartment with an old electric element stove. If I had my way, I would have a glass top induction. Now I am very glad I postponed purchase of a canner this year. Now i know that this IS what I need and worth the price. Will the rack hold little jam jars ok? The rack I have borrowed lets them plop right through.

Yes, it does!

I think somebody out there was actually listening to our constant complaining about that :-)

That's a beautiful WB canner. :) I wish you much luck with it and many happy hours of canning.

That's the one I'll get when my two ancient enamel ones finally bite the dust.

Have you seen the rectangle canner at Wisemen Trading?

Here is a link that might be useful: Stainless Steel Canner

So wonderful! Thanks for sharing!!!

The new Ball ones are nice. I have seen them.
The blue speckled with ridged bottoms are not to be used on an electric stove, only gas or propane. They don't make good enough contact with an electric stove.
Also, the rectangular ones we don't recommend because the center over 2 burners will not get the same heat as it boils in the center differently. Not as hot in the center.

Very, very nice BWB canner. My old ones still have plenty of life left in them (unfortunately) so I'll have to wait a while before I can get one of those beauties. Hope you do lots and lots of happy canning with it.

That IS a very nice canner!

Last week I found my enamel canner was about to spring a leak too. The bottom had a dent sticking up inside and when I turned it over there was a spot there that looked like someone had been welding. Fortunately I had just come home with a new Presto 16qt PC so I was able to use it for BWB instead.

Funny thing though, when I turned the burner up to high to bring the new canner up to boiling, the burner blew out! I wonder now if the burner had been going bad all along and is what ruined my old BWB canner?

Anyway, nice new toy! Have you taken it for a spin yet?

Medcave,
Are you using a coil electric stove without the special canning element ? You need one, if that is the case. Chances are you will keep doing that, if so. How do I know ? I learned that lesson after killing 2 stoves before I ever knew that.
Also, the blue ridged speckled enamel canner on the coil stove will do that, too. You need a flat bottom canner, not ridged on a coil stove.

Linda, I thought about that when I went to replace this one but I have 6 coil GE burners with screw-on ends and haven't found a HD replacement in that configuration. The one I did find was a newer design that seems better built. Plus the new reflector that goes with it is further from the coil so I'm hoping it won't overheat as easily. Besides, the original one had served me well for over 20 years, so I'm hoping for the best anyway. :)

But I will keep looking for something better in the meantime. Thanks for the suggestion.

PS The old BWB canner did have a flat bottom.

I found that my 20qt. flat bottomed sauce pot fits the rack from my PC canner. It's such a good fit, you would have thought they came together in a set. It makes a perfect BWB. That sure is a beautiful canner in the photo.
Donna

Ok, Malna, I blame YOU! I just ordered this new canner online! My old one isn't quite dead, but there are spots on the bottom that are looking a little thin, there is a lot of mineral build-up that won't come off no matter what I use on it, and the rack is so rusty, it's about to disintegrate! I'm certain I could get another season out of it, but I bought it circa 1996, have used it extensively on both electric (coil) and gas ranges, and I think replacing it after 13 years of faithful service is justified! I shudder at the price, but I was recently considering buying a stainless steel rack (which is 20 bucks by itself), and the regular enamel canners are $50 or 60, so the stainless steel model at $80 with shipping is only 10 bucks more at most. And surely it will last me ANOTHER 15-20 years, right? (Justify and rationalize!)

--Gina
http://lindseysluscious.blogspot.com

P.S. I will add a link to the site where I made my purchase. It's currently $68.99 plus shipping.

Here is a link that might be useful: Ball-Jarden Stainless Steel Canner at The Housewares Store

That looks really interesting. Would you mind posting the dimensions of the pot? (Diameter and height.)

Hi, Melly,

The canner is 12-5/8" in diameter and 9-3/8" tall (inside measurements excluding the lip where the lid sits). Capacity is 21 qts. (of water, not jars!)

You folks are going to think I'm making this up, but I'm truly not. I busted out my old canner today to make a couple of batches of something I'm experimenting with--a Black Velvet Apricot Cranberry Pepper Jelly. I had the jelly cooking, and the canner almost up to a boil, when I heard a funny sound, like a hissing, and I smelled propane. I bent down to look at the heating elements and realized that the depressions were filling up with water and the flame had been drowned out. My old canner had finally sprung a leak! Was it divine providence that I just ordered the Elite Cadillac of canners, or WHAT?? Someone up there must have been looking out for me...or maybe it was Malna up there at the top of the thread! Tee hee.

Here is a link that might be useful: Lindsey's Luscious (my food blog)

Can the rectangular canner be used on a glass top stove? My stove has a bridge element so I can provide even heat to the entire canner. Doing 15 quarts at a time would be a huge time saver when I am canning tomatoes. Right now, I am just using a very large pot and I can only fit 4 quarts at a time.

Gina,
I just KNEW that was going to happen (but I thought it would happen to ME, not you! :-)

CCaggiano,
I had thought about getting one of those, but I realized that:
The canner itself weighs 15 pounds.
The water to fill it (say six inches deep) is roughly 55 pounds.
15 jars of tomatoes weigh about 45 pounds.

Do you think your stove top can support that much weight? I don't have a glass top stove, so I have no idea. Just food for thought...

That is good timing with getting the pretty new canner ordered ! I saw those Ball canners. Very nice.

I also would be afraid of all that weight on a glass top stove. I know you are also not supposed to use any pot more than 1 inch in diameter all the way around your element area. My friends new glass top stove is like that, with that element that goes across. She hasn't used it yet.

That IS good timing.

I'm still using Grandma's old blue enamel canner, if I put 7 filled quart jars in it I can just barely get a couple of inches of water over the top. I figured when it went to canner heaven I'd get a new, bigger one, maybe one of those fancy shiny ones. (grin)

Instead, I married Elery and he's also got a canner. Bigger and newer than mine, but still an old blue enameled one. So, I'll go from one used canner to another used canner, LOL.

Ah, that's pretty though....

Annie

I realized that there are two mistakes in my posts above--one has a bad link attached (spelled something wrong!) and then I said I was making cranberry-aprium pepper jelly, but I made aprium-POMEGRANATE pepper jelly (I have cranberries on the brain because I unearthed a ton of cranberries in the freezer this past weekend, and I'm going to try my hand at cranberry salsa soon).

Anyway, the link below is correct, and it leads to the canner miracle story, some pics of my pepper jelly, and the recipe if anyone would like to try it.

Here is a link that might be useful: Lindsey's Luscious Aprium-Pomegranate Pepper Jelly