Canning with Superb Canning Lids

We sure have done a lot of canning over the last 44 years and that doesn’t include the many years Johanna canned with her Mom and Dad as a young lady.

Truth be told, all canning is now done by Johanna but before she came along, for years, I did my own canning so I’m well versed on the topic.

Some of Our Pantry Contents

We have a full pantry with hundreds and hundreds of jars of canned goods. I have no doubt over our homesteading life, we’ve successfully canned well over 15,000 jars. And it has been pretty rare to have a failure. Maybe a few a year with some years, zero failures. Let’s chat about our experience canning with Superb canning lids.

Pay Attention to Details!

We attribute that success to years of experience coupled with an eye to detail. Follow the canning directions to the letter. Absolutely no shortcuts. Make sure head room is proper. Clean the rim and threads properly with a clean towel before putting lids on. A slide of a finger around the rim is unacceptable for cleaning. Processing time according to the specific directions and it goes without saying… you cannot substitute boiling water bath if the directions and science say it must be pressure canned to be safe. Not once in all these years have we ever had a food borne illness from anything we have preserved in some fashion whether canned, pickled, frozen, cured or dried. We’ve utilized all these methods at one time or another.

As you can imagine, we have a varied assortment of jar sizes, everything from half pint up to half gallon. And that means many different brands of jars, lids and bands being utilized. Ball, Bernardin, Golden Harvest and Mason are some of the brands we’ve purchased over the years. We always took advantage of sales on jars and lids. Everything was interchangeable and trouble free. If a ring started to rust, it was discarded. Lids were a one time use unless it was reused to stow something in the refrigerator.

Superb Lids – A Company We Had Never Heard Of

Last year we returned back to the US for a visit. During covid a few years previous, everybody and their brother took up gardening and canning and lids were in short supply. We always have a good supply but it never hurts to take advantage of opportunities. While back in the States, we wanted to procure a large supply of canning lids, good enough for many, many years to come. I did some research and found a company we were not familiar with called Superb.

Superb is a US company which was a definite plus. In researching lids, it was apparent that a lot of junk lids were being imported creating a nightmare for any serious canner.

The price from Superb was good so we got a crate of narrow and wide mouth lids. To the tune of about $500 worth. That’s a lot of lids!

The garden did well as usual for us this summer and Johanna set out to preserve some of that garden goodness by canning. She broke out some of our new Superb lids and away she went. Stick with me through the end because you will get a great deal of valuable information here.

Lid Failures – What’s Going On Here?

Lids that Blew Off

We had seal failures and we had some bands and lids literally explode off the jars. Never had we had such catastrophic failures. Johanna double checked her procedures. She did another load and had the same results. I got involved and double checked her method of tightening the bands on the jars and was convinced she was doing everything right as per the manufacturer’s page.  If you go to that page, there is a question and answer regarding how to properly tighten the lids and bands. There’s a lot of information to browse on their site.

This was a real head scratcher since this was a new experience for us. So many failures. None of it made sense. It was easy at this point to ask what had changed and make the assumption that the new lids must be to blame. Guilty as charged.

Johanna was understandably more than upset to go through all the effort to grow the food, harvest it, prepare it for processing and then see some of that effort splattered to kingdom come.

So I wrote the company a lengthy dissertation about our experience and results voicing our frustrations and concern of having $500 worth of lids that seemed to be useless. We received a response from a lady in customer service who was anxious to deal with the problem.

We had a telephone chat with customer service. It was apparent right from the start she was technically proficient, had canning experience herself and wanted to get to the bottom of the problem.

One of the first questions she asked was if we had any deformed or buckled lids after canning. That would be an indication that the lids were tightened too much and could not vent properly. We did not have that problem and honestly, after a gazillion jars of canning food, we have never seen a buckled lid. Ever!

So that was actually a good troubleshooting clue. We discussed the quality of Superb lids versus the standard lids of other manufacturers. The Superb lid and seal material are high quality and produce higher internal pressures when canning. Those higher pressures then translate into a better vacuum and tighter seal when things cool down. You will typically hear a little pop when the lids cool enough to suck down. Then you have a good idea the jar sealed. The lids will be concave.

So at this stage, we got a good education from this lady on the lid quality and finer technical points of canning. Since jars are pretty standard, the only thing left to discuss was the rings.

Over-sized Bands – Big Problem!

Can rings/bands really make that much difference? Aren’t they all the same? Since our rings work with all the lids we’ve ever used, how is it possible they would be a problem? You can bet Johanna snugged them properly and the bands felt perfect.

The lady in customer service was confident that we needed to investigate the rings further and she offered to send us some replacement rings to try. She also sent a gauge for the narrow bands. That gauge had a good side and a bad side (go/no go) so that we could test our inventory of narrow bands and see if they were oversized.

Well that certainly was an eye opener. Some bands were snug on the gauge and others were obviously too big. And when I say too big, we are only talking a tiny difference. But that is the difference between lids blowing off during processing or successful canning. We proved some of our bands we’ve been using were too big.

A look at the threads inside the bands was also quite revealing. The superb bands had a nice robust full thread whereas the standard bands were more modest with less of an aggressive thread.

Would that beefy thread on the Superb bands make that much difference? The next step was the big test. Do another load of canned product using the new Superb lids with the new Superb bands. Johanna did a load of spiced apple wedges in a water bath and processed per the instructions. With nervous anticipation, the jars came out of the water bath and on to the counter to cool. 100% success!

Complete Success Canning Squash

On to the pressure canner. A load of squash was pressure canned for 90 minutes. That’s a long time. During the processing of the previous load she pressure canned, we heard a couple of lids explode off the jars as they were processing. So we waited for something to let loose while the canner steamed away. Nothing. This was certainly encouraging but we were still wary. Ninety minutes passed and it was time to take the canner off the stove.

You should know we have always used a nonelectric canner on a wood cook stove. So I lifted the canner off the stove and over to the counter. Please lids, don’t fail. We’ve come this far. Once depressurized, the lid came off the canner, the jars came out and by golly… 100% success rate.

Success with the Superb Lids

So here is the bottom line. Because of all the manufacturers and brands of jars, lids and rings, you cannot assume they are all made to the same standard and quality. There are variations and we are living proof that small changes in ring width or thread have an enormous impact for being a successful canner.

We are convinced that the Superb lids and rings are high quality. It is highly suggested if you do go with Superb lids, you get the combo packages that come with lids and matching bands. Then you know you have good bands for years to come. Then just buy lids as needed. Or if you continue to use what you have, just be aware if you start having lids and bands blow off, the bands are likely the culprit.

And remember I mentioned that you hear a typical pop when a jar cools enough to seal? Well these lids let you know in no uncertain terms they sealed. Thump! A canner’s dream sound. One cannot get enough of that sweet thump sound as the jar seals.

And for what it’s worth, we have no affiliation with Superb. We were mighty unhappy at the losses we were sustaining yet we have it solved thanks to good customer support. We pass our experience on in the hopes this might be helpful for you as well regardless of what manufactured products you use. Happy canning!

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