It is ok, not ideal, but ok. I have done it when I didn't have a rack that would fit that particular pot. But if I had a rack that fit it would have been better so I'd hang on to the rack.

Only real issue I find is that you can't fit in as many jars when using a towel and if the pot only as a couple of jars they are more likely to tip over on a towel.

Dave

I keep a cake cooling rack, that I can also use to cool cakes on for the rack. I also have the bottom rack from an old pressure cooker for the really small pans. I'm trying to find pans that will nest to take up less space. I keep the trivet rack in the pans that they fit.

Thanks, folks!

Yes, I would love to find flat racks that fit a couple of my big pots. I found ones with sides at the goodwill, but they are less easy to store.

I built the house small on purpose, so I would not accumulate too much stuff ;).

Nila, I understand, we just finished (or almost) our house and it's only 24x32 outside dimensions. I do have an attic which is where I'm going to store my canners during off-season in closed bags.

My flat cake coolers, i found at my farm store, I picked up 4-5 of them. I'm going to store the other canning equipment in 5 gal buckets with lids on them and on nails in the rafters of attic.

I store all my canning stuff in boxes in the basement. An old PC rack fits the stockpot I use as a BWB just fine. Of course if I get that new Presto I'll get rid of the stockpot (and the old AA PC I've never used) and just have that to store. I've used a towel and wasn't happy with it floating around but it worked better than the tied-together canning rings. And the first round cake cooling rack rusted.

Of course it seems the BWB lives on my stovetop all summer and early fall :-)

My cake racks were cheap, less than $2, and I don't keep in the water except when in use. I use my stockpot for almost anything LARGE. I have given up several of them tho. I used to have 5-7 of assorted sizes, now if they don't nest, they will be gone.

I spent years canning with a towel in the bottom of a soup pot. It works, although the towel invariably floats up.

Someone here made a rack for their stockpot by wiring together some canning rings. Now that, I thought, was ingenious.

Annie