Tattler Reusable Canning Lids On Sale in October

For the month of October, Tattler is running a 10% off sale for their reusable canning lids. Great opportunity to try them out if you’ve wanted to but shied away from the price: 2 dozen each of the wide and narrow mouth lids and gaskets are on sale for $35.16, down from the normal price of $43.95. And shipping is free, woo hoo.

If you haven’t wanted to try them because you’re saying to yourself, “I obviously did not read that correctly, because, reusable canning lids?!” – no, you read that right: Tattler makes reusable canning lids. I’ve been using them for, gosh, going on three years now for most of my canning…at this point, they’ve definitely paid for themselves.

Quick product review, what I like about them is:

• I never find myself out of lids when I’ve got 300 pounds of rapidly-decaying tomatoes on my kitchen counter…and allllll the local stores have stopped carrying them in favor of Christmas ornaments
• This has actually happened to me more times than I like to think about
• Yeah, I can mail order…but that doesn’t help the tomatoes already rotting on my countertop…sigh…
• I’m protected from the occasional price-gouging that goes on in Such Times, when there is only one place that still has canning supplies, and they know it, so suddenly that little box of 12 throwaway lids is $6 or some crazy thing
• After you’ve opened a home-canned jar of something, the same lid and gasket (<= the key selling point here!) make resealing that jar and sticking it in the fridge a bit less…leak-prone…thing to do than reusing the same one-use lid for the same purpose
• At least it is around here, because the Denizens are infamous for rummaging through the fridge like starved boars on a forage, knocking things over and not righting them again
• …don’t ask me how many times I’ve found a formerly-almost-full quart jar of some sauce or other lying on its side in a vast puddle of its own innards, quietly dripping all down the back/sides of the thing and making everything in there stick to the shelves as if Gorilla Glue had been applied to their bottoms…
• I no longer have to suffer that twinge of guilt one suffers these days when one casually tosses something onto a landfill-bound pile
• Which means that I no longer suffer the hot flash of anger that I’m made to feel guilty about something like that
• Which further means I am spared the worry that perhaps I need counseling, because show me WHO is saying that you SHOULD feel guilty about this…methinks you are perhaps just a TOUCH defensive/paranoid on this count, my dear…
• This increasingly-indented-cycle-of-psychosis actually goes on for quite a while, so, let’s just stop here, shall we? yes, do let’s… 
• They are Zombpocalypse Compliant. Extremely important right there: We will still be able to can produce, even if WalMart is overrun by zombies.  
• OMG, WAIT, I THINK THAT HAS ALREADY HAPPENED!!!!!
• …sorry, couldn’t resist…

What sometimes irritates me about them:

• They have a learning curve! You do things a bit differently when you use these, and at first? The seal-failure rate is dreadful – it gets better with practice, but y’all should know going in that you may have a session or two of redo ALL the jars before you get the hang of it
• They have a higher seal failure rate than the ‘traditional’ throw-away versions – very careful handling / making sure you wipe the lips of the jar with vinegar etc. will get this to reasonable rates, but inattention to detail will be punished more severely with these reusable lids than their throwaway counterparts
• They take up more storage space – the plastic lids are bigger / heavier-duty than the one-use ones
• The gaskets loooooooove to get separated from the lids
• This may be a Den of Chaos thing more than anything else – The Randomizer lives here and takes great delight in moving things to inappropriate spots on me
• I hesitate to give away a jar of something to someone who doesn’t can or who might not return them to me, since they aren’t exactly cheap – kind of like the difference between giving out something in a take-n-toss container versus your good Tupperware, you know?
• Oh yeah, almost forgot: The gaskets also make awesome cat toys, which means that if you have cats, they will be constantly pulling a Mission:Impossible on you to get at them (she said, picking one up off the floor under her desk, a-HEM…)
• Samantha Schilling and Fleur Fatale are insisting this is in the wrong section and should be in the ‘pros’ one
• But, as they lack typing skills, ha ha, I win