Last week when it was raining and a little cool I decided to can some dried black beans. I had ordered a dozen Tattler reusable rings and lids to see how they performed. Dried beans have to be pressure canned after they are soaked and simmered just as you would prepare dried beans for any use. The lids come in two pieces, the plastic lid and a red rubber ring. They are used a little differently than traditional canning lids but if you follow the directions you should have success. The largest difference aside from the two pieces is how tight you put the metal bands onto the jars before they go into the canner. They are only tightened finger tight. The lids must be allowed to vent well while in the canner in order for the lids to seal correctly. As soon as you take them out of the canner the bands must be tightened down tightly.
What I found on mine is that the bands were fairly loose when I went to tighten after taking the jars out of the canner, with the exception of two of the jars. These jars bands were already tight so I must have tightened them too much before putting them in the canner. These two lids failed to seal.
I am planning on getting more of these lids. It will be nice not to have to always buy new lids every canning season. The Tattlers are a bit more expensive that traditional one time use lids but I believe that I will be able to save a lot of money in the long run.
There are several places that you can purchase these lids. I bought my first dozen from Amazon but I have found a better and less expensive place to get them it is Directive 21. They have free shipping within the US. I like the fact that I can buy a case of several dozen at a significant discount over just purchasing one dozen. I would suggest that you purchase one dozen to give them a try as I did before you stock up on several dozen. I am impressed enough that I am going to gradually build up my stock so eventually I will not have to buy disposable lids except for the things that I can to give away to friend and family.
I hope you enjoyed this personal review of this product. From time to time I may do this for other items that I either use regularly or a new item. Please let me know what you think in the comment section.