FoodSaverT03-0023-01P Wide-Mouth Jar Sealer

This is a GREAT product, IF you know how to use it! Tiny mistakes can make this product not work at all.Canning jars are designed to be heat sealed, and the sealing compound (upper red ring inside lid) softens at boiling point - SO, it is difficult to get a good seal without using heat (only vacuum) unless you know the secrets:WHAT TO KNOW:1. The vacuum jar sealer works by creating a vacuum between the jar sealer's inner softer plastic ring and the lowest outer glass bead/ring below the threads of the glass jar. That strong and airtight connection is not always easy to achieve.SO: Moistening both the upper side of the outer glass ring on the jar, as well as the inner soft plastic (blue on mine) of the jar sealer will help to get a better seal, if needed.2. Though this is an accessory attachment, the overall vacuum that is sensed by the vacuum sealing machine is affected. If there are any abnormalities in your main machine, the attachment will not work.SO: Make sure that the inner seals/gaskets of your main sealer are soft, pliable and completely free of any moisture, debris, dried food or creases. These are the gaskets where you normally seal bags. If they aren't airtight, your jar sealing will not work correctly. Clean them completely off and dry them. Replace gaskets if necessary. They MUST be clean and creating a good strong seal inside the machine.3. The lid adheres to the top of the glass jar only at the moment right when the vacuum process stops. As long as sufficient air has been evacuated from the glass jar, then the air rushing back in is what creates the seal.SO: The cancel button or simply releasing the vacuum motor on the sealing machine both DO NOT create large/fast enough volume of air to make a seal. Actually yanking the plastic tube connector (not the tube itself) out of the top of the jar sealer is the only way to get enough of a rush of air to properly seal. With practice you can do this as one person (one palm holds down the lid of the sealer activating the pump motor, and the thumb and first fingers of that same hand keep vertical downward pressure on the jar sealer), but it is easier and faster with two.STEP BY STEP:a) Remove the metal lid-retaining ring and the lid from jar. Set the metal retaining ring aside. You do not use the ring during vacuum sealing (only afterwards).b) Using a very clean partially damp sponge*, moisten the upper part of the lower outer glass ring (below where the bottom of the metal ring is), all the way around the jar. IMPORTANT! Place the jar directly next to the sealing machine (one hand must hold both when you seal)c) Using the same sponge, moisten all the way around the inside of the softer plastic ring on the inside of the sealer (this will contact the glass ring you just moistened)*d) lightly moisten just the red/sealing outer band on the bottom of the lid*. Tap on its side to remove any excesse) Place lid on jar, then sealer over everything, with hose firmly attached.f) While keeping strong downward vertical pressure with one hand, use the other hand's butt of it's palm to press down on the sealing machine to activate the motor.g) While motor is running, position the motor-actuating hand so that it begins to grab around the top of the sealer and pulls down using thumb and first fingers. You have to do this with one hand, because the other hand (or a helper) will be needed to pull out the hose connector very quickly.h) For a quart glass jar, the motor must run no less than sixty seconds (YMMV)i) After enough time has passed to have evacuated sufficient air from the glass jar. Keep your left hand (if right handed) with simultaneous downward pressure on the sealing machine/motor and downward pressure holding down the jar sealer., with thumb and fingers wrapped around as much as possible to create even downward pressure around the jar. Release your right hand with the motor still runningj) Use your right/dominant hand to firmly grasp the tube connector at the top of the jar sealer. While the motor is running, very quickly yank the tube connector straight up and out of the sealer.k) You can then relax all your muscles. Wiggle up the jar sealer, and if you did everything right, the jar will be sealed, the button on top will be down, and you can screw on the ring tightly to maintain the seal.TIPS:i) *Once you have your technique & confidence down (and your gaskets are clean), you may not need any use of moisture, or maybe only every several jars.ii) If you try a couple of times and you cannot seal, try the SAME lid with a DIFFERENT jar. Small imperfections in the manufacture of the jar (the seam that runs up the sides especially) can make it so that some jars simply cannot be sealed.iii) Heating up your lids in boiling water (remove, then tap to shake off water right before sealing) can help to create a better seal*.iv) If your glass jar does not have the full outer/lower ring below where the end of the metal ring stops, then it cannot use this jar sealer.v) Lid outer sealing areas must have full covering of the red sealing material. Nicks and scratches will not work. Some people swear by new lids, other by pre-dishwasher "relaxed fit" lids - doesn't seem to matter to my technique.

Foodsaver v3230 and Jar SealersThe main reason I purchased a Foodsaver vacuum sealer was to be able to store my cats’ (my Boys’) dry food to help maintain freshness, since I spend extra money to buy a high quality food that loses its freshness and spoils quickly when not stored properly – and yes, it is dry food. Plus, I wanted to be able to store this food in glass containers. I found the Ball 1/2 gallon canning jars and am able to store the contents of an 18 pound bag of food in 8 of these jars using the Foodsaver wide-mouth jar sealer. It’s great! I wish I had known about all these contraptions before now – would have saved a lot of wasted food/money. I also store human food but started out buying it for my Boys’ food.I am so thankful for the reviews; many of the comments were very helpful! One person wrote that she thought she would have to use one jar sealer for each jar she used. That’s exactly what I thought. That would have been quite expensive and didn’t seem worth it to me – given that the wide mouth jar sealers are approx $10 and for some reason the regular mouth jar sealers I’ve found have been more than that. so, one jar sealer can be used over & over & over again along with the flat part of the lid of the canning jar. After vacuuming the air out and removing the jar sealer, I put on the screw-on band. Anyway, I’m getting ahead of myself.When I 1st started using this machine, I was using it wrong and every time I tried to seal a 1/2 gallon jar using the wide mouth jar sealer, the machine would run for 2 minutes – every time. I just thought the 1/2 gallon required more vacuuming due to the amount of air in that size. Nope; it would also run two minutes on the smaller jars. Also, when I would try to take the jar sealer off, I had to be extremely careful so the lid of the canning jar didn’t come off with it - which it did in many cases using the wide mouth jar sealer and which it did every time when I used the regular mouth jar sealer. It was very aggravating. I was ready to return everything. On top of that, when I used the bags, no air was being vacuumed out, but it would seal. I knew something was wrong. That’s when I found the TurboedMX6 YouTube video.If you search the internet for Foodsaver v3230, one of the first links that I found that is listed is a YouTube video by TurboedMX6. This guy did a very nice job and went a long way to helping me use this machine properly. I highly recommend it. He didn’t talk about the jar sealers; he only talked about vacuum-sealing plastic bags, but the video helped me with both.In the video, when he turned the locking handle, it made a definitive sound, and I remembered that mine didn’t make that sound, because I didn’t turn it all the way; it kinda snaps into place. It’s amazing how everything finally worked after that. Air gets sucked out of the plastic bags now, and the jar sealer is absolutely fantastic. It vacuums the jars for 10-15 seconds. When it’s done making a lot of noise vacuuming, the “seal” light comes on, so I press cancel, because I’m not using the heat portion of the sealing process which is used to seal the plastic bags.I take the hose connection out of the jar sealer, and it makes a brief whoosh sound releasing any leftover air from the hose (something I also learned in another review). I never got any whooshing sounds before when the machine would run for 2 minutes. Now I can take the jar sealer off the jar without being hesitant or extra careful. that lid is on there so tight, it’s sometimes difficult to break the seal to open it again. That’s okay. I’d rather have that than to have to be extra gentle with it so I didn’t break the seal.I have bought several cases of many different sizes of the canning jars, and I have purchased extra food for my Boys to keep on hand. I also store food to take to work. I’m so happy with this investment of all these foodsaving products!