Can't find a canning rack

CharlottesWeb

I have all the ingredients to can salsa. All I needed to do was pick up a canning rack to fit in my stock pot. BB&B is out of stock and I can't find one anywhere. No time to order one online.

Am I S.O.L? Or is there a "homemade" solution?

mrsbooboo

You don't need one...

When I was canning last weekend, I had stuff going in two canners, but only had one rack.

The goal is to not have the jars touching the bottom of the pot. You can solve this by folding a kitchen towel in half, putting on the bottom of the canner and setting the jars on that. It worked great.

Let me know if you have any other canning questions! HTH

mrsbooboo

You WILL need a jar lifter though. When I started out, I was using ladle(just for support) and kitchen tongs. Yeah...that was no good. I broke more jars than I care to count. And burnt myself pretty badly...

Btw, canning equipment is "seasonal". I don't know where you live, but these are places where I found canning jars, canning racks and jar lifters:

Home Depot and Lowes

ACE Hardware (is a freaking canning central.LOL)

Fred Meyer (in the Home section, not by the fruit pectin and jars)

Walmart

I also had good luck finding jars for 20 cents at Goodwill and thrift stores (you would need to purchase new lids though).

wittyschaffy

A round cooling rack from your local home goods supply (target, walmart, etc.) will do.  The other suggestion I've seen is to use twist ties to make a ring (and center) out of 5 screw bands and set the jars on that.  Basically 4 around a circle with one in the center to fill it in. 

belovedbride07

My mom and I canned plum preserves last weekend, and we couldn't find a canning rack at the store, either.  Luckily, she had a metal trivet that fit in her stock pot, so we used that.

SuperGreen

Ditto PP, you just need to not have the jars sitting on the bottom of the canner.  I think the metal trivet is a brillant idea. A cookie cooling rack would probably work too.

treesapplaud

I've used the rings for the bottom and towels for in between jars... will need to try the twist ties!

amz05

maybe try a pie cooling rack? its like a cookie one but smaller and round.

junebride060306

I just used a kitchen towel. worked great! I also read you could just put the jar bands down at the bottom too and put jars on top of them 

jebuell

Walmart in my area has a TON of canning stuff in my area right now.  I'm not a huge fan of Walmart in general but I was impressed by their selection and prices in their canning section (which is near the kitchen stuff).  They had 12 8oz jars on sale for $6.