Please help me check my estimate on how many jars/lids is reasonable per year.

[Dreamer]

I've been canning for a couple years, but I am still far from canning as much as I would like to. Between a (shared) feeling that things are accelerating, a desire to cut BPA out of my food supply, and moving towards food that is lovingly raised rather than just a commodity I plan to place a pretty big order on Tattler reusable lids. I've been using them for over a year, and I'm happy with the 3 dozen lids I own.

I am trying to guesstimate a reasonable number of lids to order. Would planning on one canning jar per day per person be somewhere within the ballpark if we are providing all of our own food? I expect that during the harvest season we won't be eating canned food, and that our food plans will include other preservation methods too.

What is your reaction to 350 jars a year for one person/700 for 2/1050 for 3? There will be a mix of sizes, to best accommodate a variety of foods.

If this doesn't seem right to you, I would love to have more information on why you think a different quantity would be better.

Thank you,
Dreamer

 

[Publius]

Ball Canning puts out a book! "Ball Blue Book" And you should hunt down a copy as its full of canning recipes and helpful information like how many jars of this or that you need to hold you over the winter and with that data you can add up how many lids and or jars one needs. My self I would get a whole flat of lids of each size and the rings last many canning's so you only need so many to last a life time.

 

[Dare7]

"all of our own food"

Would that include meat? Condiments? Soups & stews? Just Veggies?

In any case, you have seriously underestimated for the quoted statement because you need to be prepared for a bad crop year. An absolute minimum of two years worth of food should be in your rotation. You also might consider dehydrating & vacuum sealing to conserve space. The Ball Blue Book and other charts can give you a feel for how many of this & that but they make assumptions that may not apply to your family - one of which is who's doing the consuming. Peckish birdie adult female, farmer in the dell adult male, children by ages with young ones eating smaller amounts than the adult female (Both of DD's 11 yr old twins can currently out eat their 15 yr old HS athlete brother on most days & in most categories).

Another assumption is that you like & will use all things equally (52 qts green beans, 52 qts corn, 52 qts sour kraut ~barf~, 52 qts pumpkin, 52 qts beets, 52 qts peas, 52 qts lima beans ~another barf~). That gives you ONE (only one) vegetable a day, each day for a week right?
First of all, one jar a day is inadequate if TSHTF,
Second, of all if you hate the barf items you'll need to manually calculate a substitute for the missing days and
Third, if you're canning based off someone else's chart or you don't provide adequate variety, there is such a thing as appetite fatique when one knows they are going to have the same food over & over & over - most especially if they don't like it anyway. It is NOT true that if someone is hungry enough they will eat, especially small children, ill & elderly. If the only foods available to me were venison or organ meats & lima beans, I would starve to death as I cannot eat them and if force fed them (which is why I "can't" even try now) my body sends them right back out the way them came!

Here's an example of how the general size & quantity charts fails:
I live alone. I need a half pint of ketchup a year, maybe, because I don't particularly like ketchup. I go through a pint of B&B pickles each month. My daughter's family of four consumes a full quart of ketchup every week but an opened pint of B&B pickles would rot in their fridge before they finished a third of them. If I weren't responsible for coordinating the canning operation of my entire crew it would be silly for DD to make a batch of B&B pickles or for me to bother going through the motions of making ketchup!

Best method to determine your personal need --- Figure out how much of each food you need to preserve by tracking a full month or so of everything your household consumes (that you intend to can) and then extrapolate your jar count from there.


HTH

 

[lectrickitty]

I figured 3000 jars for my storage. The way I got to that total was to figure how many jars of veggies I'd use per day, then added meat & fruit to the total. If you figure how many you need for a days meals, it's simple to times it by 365 days. Then I times by 2 for the simple reason that I plan to have 2 years storage in case of a bad garden year.

I added extra jars for storing dehydrated foods, condiments, deserts, breakage, etc. We may not always have the option of using vacuum sealers, and other sealed methods so I want to be sure I have enough jars to cover it all.

 

[Dreamer]

Thank you very much for the responses! I have the Ball Blue Book, and while I have looked at some of the charts there is a pretty big disconnect (which was also mentioned above) between one size fits all charts and our own individual realities. lectrickitty - is your 3000/year for one person or more?

I was also planning for the flock to continue and provide our chicken a week, and to dehydrate extensively. While it is fun to vacuum seal things, I only see that as a neato thing to do right now and not a solid part of a sustainability plan.

The distribution of one jar leaned towards 3 a day for 2 people in winter, with potatoes and other storables and counting on the eggs continuing to come in. I also plan on jars being reused during the year as they are emptied out. And we tend to eat 2 larger meals with a very light third meal - today that means lots of eggs for breakfast, something almost snack-like for lunch, and a real dinner.

This also assumes a family-specific distribution of foods, but I am trying to do a quick-and-dirty calculation so that I can order the Tattler lids right away. To me, having an extra few hundred is not a concern. Doubling what we end up thinking is reasonable might fly with the hubby since he also believes they will be worth their weight in gold (or more!) if people need to preserve their own food to survive.

After Kathy's mention in "the" thread I also got the Cook'n software so I plan to develop a solid rotation of meals to get a true handle on what and how many. I hope to not be short in my estimates by less than 250 or so, since the price breaks become significant at 500 lids.

So, knowing that this and that we are soon to be a family of 3 (I hope the US doesn't show twins, I'm OK with delivering 1 grid down but twins terrifies me!) would 3 jars a day per person per year be reasonable? I plan to exclusively breastfeed, but that also means I will be eating more. It also means that if things go crazy sooner than later we will be a couple years in by the time #3 becomes any sort of significant eater. Even calculating as a full 3rd person, this means 3-4 a day per person would be available for the leaner 8 months of the year with 2-3 a day in the flusher months. This doesn't account for multiple fills in a year either, which should help. This would mean 1050 lids per person per year, or 3150 a year for my family. Per year. Wow. Twice that for 2 years. With 5,500 regular lids and 500 wide mouth that is nearly $3,000! I had a recent moderate* windfall ($2,400) and was hoping to round out the areas lacking in my planning. That would be $300 for a Berkey and $450 for the All American model 941. The Berkey and AA would be improving upon what we have. So if I buy one year of the lids (2500R, 500W for $1,650) plus the other two this would bring me to my windfall amount. I would then look to add the lids for the 2nd year when the funds allow.

Does this seem more reasonable? Do you find fault with my plans, and if so could you please tell me why? I greatly appreciate the ability to draw on the knowledge of people who are far ahead of where I am.

Thank you.

 

[summerthyme]

Your figures sound reasonable. Remember, that you can keep rotating and reusing jars and lids... Some of mine get refilled two or three times during the calendar year. You know... strawberry jam, gets used and then refilled with green beans, and then soup later in the fall...

The Tattler lids are great! I bought a mixed case (250 each of wide mouth and regular mouth) and have experimented with them all this year. They WORK. You need to train anyone who might be opening your jars how to remove them with a bit of care so the rubber rings don't get dinged up or stretched, and you need to train yourself to wash them carefully and thoroughly... but they are going to save a lot of money over time. I do have several hundred cases of flat lids yet to use up, but the Tattlers are my "insurance" and I'd like to get at least one more mixed case...

On the jars... you can cut down the number of jars (and hence, lids) you need by using quarts instead of pints wherever possible and practical. I use pints (or even half pints, now that the kids are all grown) for meats. When the kids were here, soups and fruit all went into quarts- and we'd use more than one jar at a meal for soup. Now, a pint of peaches is plenty for us... but it doesn't hurt to have them in quarts and refrigerate the leftovers for a few days. If that was no longer possible, we'd just use them up over a 2 day period (supper and then lunch- which is a heavy meal for us because we're farmers) the next day. I wouldn't do that with meat or low acid soups, though!

Jams and jellies do well in pints... maybe not as "cute" as the little jelly jars, but more practical if you have a family.

What I'm saying is that if you need, say, 100 pints of jam for a year... you can either use 100 pint jars, or 200 half pints, or 400 of the little 4 ounce jars... with correspondingly higher numbers of lids needed.

I added many cases of pint jars to my stash in the past two years, because just the two of us really don't use quarts of stuff easily anymore. BUT... if TSHTF, we'll likely have at least some (probably all) of the grown kids, plus two small grandsons, coming home.... and we'll be back to filling quarts and using more than one for a meal. In the meantime, I have space problems in my basement, even with building eight "tower shelves" I designed, which each hold either 8 cases of quarts or 10 cases of pints... but that's the price you pay for prepping!

Summerthyme

(oh, I strongly suggest you budget for some good containers for storing the Tattler lids. I bought several round Lock n Lock containers which just fit the rubber rings, neatly stacked. I bought one extra more than I needed for each size, and that's the one I put the "used and washed" rings into, so I'll keep rotating them, rather than using some over and over and some not at all because they're in the bottom of a container. I also bought some larger rectangular Lock N Lock containers which hold the plastic "flat" part of the lids. These are great, because they're airtight and keep the lids clean and in one place...)

 

[Deemy]

I also use Tattler lids(since 99) and love them...hadn't thought about the Lock and Lock? I by wide mouth jars only and if by chance little mouth jars come my way I give those to friends with food in them and not worry if I will get them back. Each year I get as many new jars as I can afford rather then trying to go to the expense of all at once! If some of your family really foes gaga over the food you give them, offer to can for them and keep some of the jars as payment...say two boxes, one for them one for you and you pay for the food and canning. I go to food auctions every week but check for farmers markets or if you have room have a veggie garden.

 

[Tristan]

As you use the canned goods you can then begin canning the current crop whatever that might be; but then again it's better to have a bit too much than a bit too few.

Best of luck to you in your endeavor!

 

[packyderms_wife]

I've been canning for a couple years, but I am still far from canning as much as I would like to. Between a (shared) feeling that things are accelerating, a desire to cut BPA out of my food supply, and moving towards food that is lovingly raised rather than just a commodity I plan to place a pretty big order on Tattler reusable lids. I've been using them for over a year, and I'm happy with the 3 dozen lids I own.

I am trying to guesstimate a reasonable number of lids to order. Would planning on one canning jar per day per person be somewhere within the ballpark if we are providing all of our own food? I expect that during the harvest season we won't be eating canned food, and that our food plans will include other preservation methods too.

What is your reaction to 350 jars a year for one person/700 for 2/1050 for 3? There will be a mix of sizes, to best accommodate a variety of foods.

If this doesn't seem right to you, I would love to have more information on why you think a different quantity would be better.

Thank you,
Dreamer

A loose tally tells me I have a some where in the ball park of 4000 jars, of varying sizes, for OC and I. About a third are currently empty and are awaiting meat sales, the spring garden, etc.

K-

 

[Publius]

Seeing how you don't have that many jars, as I see it any food storage is better than none. So don't despair just keep plugging along.

 

[Dreamer]

Thank you everyone for all of the help so far! I started off with the idea of using all wide mouth jars, but with the difference in price for both lids and jars I decided that I would change course and go for a mix. I don't have enough family nearby that I would want to know that I can enough food to make good on the deal suggested, or else I would definitely use that great tip! Also, we are going to supplement the food from the garden this year and also see if we can work some bulk deals out with the local farm stand. I am NOT set up to grow corn, but I see myself canning lots of creamed corn for my favorite corn muffins...


Also, I definitely have more than 3 dozen jars - I simply decided to demo the Tattlers with a small order to start. I generally pick up a case of jars whenever I see them and it seems prudent. I didn't count how many I have at the moment, as I know that I need more and I have no problem buying significantly more Tattlers than I have jars at this point, since I will catch up. I haven't found any economic benefit to buying jars in bulk (if someone has a line, please share!) but there definitely is on the Tattlers. I also have probably a couple thousand traditional lids, but since those are pretty much one and done (and contain BPA) I really want to move away from them.

I think the breakdown above seems reasonable to me at this point (2500 regulars, 500 wides) plus a 941 All American and a Berkey. Other than the fact that the 941 can be pretty heavy to move around when full, does anyone have a compelling reason to choose a smaller size? I already own the Presto Pressure Canner that you find on the shelves at various stores that have a small canning section, so I figure that can take care of smaller batches.

 

[blueberry]

You can never have too many canning jars! Just the fact that you are thinking ahead and planning, puts you miles ahead of everyone else.

1999 was the last time I actually counted my jars. Then I had right at 2000, in various sizes. Even though I have not purchased any more jars, I have had many more given to me. When someone finds jars cleaning a garage or find jars in an old barn, they call me to come get them. Let everyone know that you need jars - you might get some freebies.

You are doing great, Dreamer! Keep up the good work.

 

[ainitfunny]

Could you list a source for bulk purchase of reusable tattler lids and the other Lock lids?

 

[Publius]

Look For Yard Sales and Stop.

Do keep an eye open at yards sales :Look: for canning jars and we our selfs don't turn down a box of canning jars because half of them are old mayo jars, they work just fine. We have picked up jars at yard sales like this may times and come home with as many as 4 dozen jars for only $3 or $5 dollars and wife this past summer came home a few times a box of mixed jars she only paid .50 cents or a $1 dollar for.

 

[Dreamer]

Could you list a source for bulk purchase of reusable tattler lids and the other Lock lids?

I found them on the manufacturer's website. The site sponsor mentioned in another thread has the best deal on smaller quantities. The bulk amounts listed on the manufacturer site aren't in "packaging" but apparently loose pack in bulk. It is reusablecanninglids.com, which I hope is OK to post per forum rules... I'll take it down if not.

 

[Deemy]

I couldn't find Lock-N-Lock containers but did find at Wally World Great Value Twist and Store containers that are called the 16oz small size and both lids and rings fit in nicely.

 

[Leigh19717]

I try to find used jars, but our town seems to be a canning town I think lol. Mine are bought new and are expensive. I buy less expensive ones for seasoning storage and dehydrated items. Anything that is canned is only in Bell jars for me. I sure do hope we have more time than on the front board, so dh can get in some overtime hours for canning jars!

 

[missd]

I figured 3000 jars for my storage. The way I got to that total was to figure how many jars of veggies I'd use per day, then added meat & fruit to the total. If you figure how many you need for a days meals, it's simple to times it by 365 days. Then I times by 2 for the simple reason that I plan to have 2 years storage in case of a bad garden year.

I added extra jars for storing dehydrated foods, condiments, deserts, breakage, etc. We may not always have the option of using vacuum sealers, and other sealed methods so I want to be sure I have enough jars to cover it all.

Wow I have no place to store that many glass jars does anyone have pictures of their storage shelves? Guess I'll have to get busy

 

[blueberry]

Wow I have no place to store that many glass jars does anyone have pictures of their storage shelves? Guess I'll have to get busy

I have well over 2000 jars, several water bath canners (including a giant one that will process 1/2 gallon jars) and 4 pressure canners. Keeping them in the house would be a real challenge!

I keep them all in the outbuilding closest to the house. Early last century, a carpenter lived in this house and that building was his shop. The whole building is full of shelves and benches to store my empty jars ... perfect for all my canning supplies.