Canning Question???

[MomM]

I just finished canning 4 quarts and 3 pints of chicken broth, and when I took the jars out of the canner, one of my quarts didn't have the lid or ring on (they were laying in the bottom of my canner). The rest all sealed fine. This is a first, and I'm not sure what caused this to happen. Any ideas??? I am so tired, I don't know if I didn't tighten the ring on correctly, or maybe I didn't wipe the rim completely before putting on the ring, or what??? Wouldn't you know that it would be the quart jar and not the pint jar to do this. Thanks.

[Crazy4Canning]

Wow...I've had loose rings upon removing a jar from the pressure canner but never a full-on swimmer!

 

First thought would be that the ring was defective. Was it old, bent, or dented?

 

Second thought - was the jar a one-trip jar? You know the kind that doesn't have an embossed name like Kerr, Ball, Atlas, or Golden Harvest...maybe an old salad dressing jar or mayo jar? These jars don't have the dense glass and the 'lip' at the bottom of the screw top to securely hold a ring and lid on.

 

Third thought...were your lids new? Sometimes I've had the new lids, right from the NEW pre-packaged boxes that are screwed onto the jars fail right from the package. In sitting on the jars sometimes the adhesive gets bent out of shape and doesn't work right.

 

Or....if all of these are not possibilities, there is ONE more...last, really probable cause..

 

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It's a day of the week ending in "y".

[Shandy]

Or...the most likely scenario for me...it's very late and I'm very tired. I wipe the rims of the jars. Then pull the tops out of the hot water and set them on the jars. Then pull out the rings and set them on the lidded jars.

 

Then one by one I tighten them. Then I put them in the canner.

 

And I did not tighten or *anything* one of the jars.

 

It's never happened to me, but I can see it as clearly as tho I'd done it.

 

Late night canning...it's always the very last canner full at 1:30 in the morning in which the jar breaks or all the liquid is sucked out of one jar or I get jars that didn't seal.

[Crazy4Canning]

Ohh...you do them all at once...see, I go by the one at a time method...this way when I do get interrupted (Notice I said WHEN not IF) I can easily pick up where I left off...

 

I think you're right...very probably you missed one...