Canning lids

[Joan.of.the.Arch]

What price do you pay for canning lids? I just paid $1.63 for twelve. Seems to me last time I bought them they were only $0.74, yet today's price was supposedly a sale. The brand name was Kerr. This adds 14 cents to the price of every jar canned.

Do you have a good source for lids? What brand is your preferred? I like one with a thick band of the sealing rubber, but those don't seem to exist anymore and I think jars don't seal as reliably because of it.

[JBinKC]

Ouch! Last week it was rice now it looks like we have to hoard this also.

The best price I have found for the regular mouth lids (Golden Harvest) is 99 cents for a box of 12 at Big Lots last year. Knock on wood they are still the same price.

Get them in June because they usually sell out fast.

The wide mouth lids cost an arm and a leg and I never see them at Big Lots and the price for them are around $2.50 for 12 at Wal-Mart


Sometimes you might get lucky on a closeout deal but I haven't seen one in a very long time (5 years) when I bought some wide mouth lids for a $1 a dozen and that inventory is really low.

I am not so particular with a lid brand. I very rarely get a seal failure with water bath canning and if I do its with a commercial thin rimmed jar that they recommend not using anyway and I have to use a lug lid instead of a two piece system to tighten it with.

[Joan.of.the.Arch]

Oh yeah, Golden Harvest at Big Lots. I had forgotten about it, but I did buy jars there two years in a row. I don't remember if my Big Lots had just lids, though. Come to think of it, the last lids I bought were probably from Target, and that $0.74 does sound just like a Target clearance price, doesn't it?

Hey while I'm at it, Golden Harvest is good in that they package the jars in whole boxes which can be reused for storage. The Ball brand jars come shrink wrapped onto just a cardboard tray which doesn't provide such good storage for the jars later, empty or full.

A tip---I save the boxes our wine comes in. They are just about the right size for storing mason jars and have the cardboard separators so the jars don't clank against each other.

[JBinKC]

Good idea on the wine boxes. I save the box the jars come in. I haven't bought jars in 10 years and I know they went sky high also. I just scored 3 dozen of wide mouth quart jars in their original box from a friend a month ago so I am at around 10 dozen plus my commercial jars which really work fine also.

Another thing to know I canned with some lids given to me that were 25 years old last year and the seals didn't fail so I am confident you can obtain a stash without any risk of them dryrotting.

[mom-from-missouri]

$1.12 for regular and $1.60 for wide mouth. That is just for the flats. I didn't get any rings.

FYI-walmart has them on clearence usually in October-so last year I got a bunch for 50 cents a box.

[Pollyanna]

I get mine at fillmorecontainer.com Just bought a case - 3105 lids. I do realize that not everyone cans this much They do offer smaller amounts. These are good quality lids, with a thick area of compound.

I paid about 9.5 cents a regular size (70mm) lid with shipping; shipping was higher because I live in the boonies.

Cheapest commercial lids I have been able to find around here is $1.48/12 at the Evil Empire (WM); no clearance sales last fall, and Dollar General and Big Lots in my area are not carrying canning supplies this year.