Over the last decade, the Ball Canning folks have brought a handful of canning appliances to market. The first was the FreshTECH Jam and Jelly Maker in the summer of 2012. The FreshTECH Automatic Home Canning System was the thing during the 2014 canning season. And now, we have the Ball FreshTECH Electric Water Bath Canner and Multi-Cooker.
This electric canner is exactly what I know a number of you have been hoping for. It’s a giant pot that has an independent element so that you can move your processing pot off your stove top and over to the counter.
It holds 8 quarts, nine pints, or a dozen regular mouth half pints (that means that if you stack them, you can process 24 quarter pint jars at once). It’s particularly great if your stove is slow to boil water or if you’ve been warned off canning on a glass top cooktop. It works like any other boiling water bath canner, so if you live at higher altitudes, you will still need to adjust your processing time upwards.
It has a spout on the left side of the canner, so if your kitchen is arranged in a way where you can set the canner to the right of your stove, you can drain the water directly into the sink. The canner comes with a steaming rack as well as a canning rack, so that you can use it for all your high capacity steaming needs (I could see it being perfect for tamale parties).
It can also be used as a portable cooker, so can work for large amounts of soup, chili, or even something like mulled cider. Nice if you help with community potlucks or church suppers.
I’ve now run a number batches of jars through the canner and I am really happy with it. It’s not going to become my primary boiling water bath because I make a lot of small batches and it doesn’t make sense to heat up this much water for two or three pints, but for larger batches, it’s a boon.
It’s also incredibly useful during tomato season and I’ve started bringing it with me to my classes and workshops where I know we’re making multiple batches and so we’ll need more canner space.
This canner does cost $149.99, which is a pretty penny if you already have a canning set-up you like. If you like the idea of moving your canning pot off your stove top but can’t swing that price point, there is a more affordable way to create something similar.
Get yourself an induction capable stock pot (a classic speckled canner with a flat bottom will work) and the induction burner I have (it’s just $60) and you have a canner you can run anywhere (I highly recommend outdoor canning on really hot days).
My bottom line on the Ball FreshTECH Electric Water Bath Canner is that it’s a great tool for people who do lots of large batch canning. If you have the budget and storage space for it, I highly recommend it.
Disclosure: The folks at Ball Canning sent me a FreshTECH Electric Canner for review and photography purposes at no cost to me. They are also provided a giveaway unit. No additional compensation was provided for this post and all opinions expressed are my own.
I would like to enter your sweepstakes. I am only a 3 year small gardener. I use my neighbor’s canning supplys . I would like to be a more efficient canner. Thanks for listening. Connie
I have been canning since I was a teenager. My old water bath pot actually had a hole in the bottom! So a few years ago I purchased a new one. The pressure canners I used are also very old 50+ years but still work perfectly!
My canning setup is just a giant spaghetti pot that spent years (before my discovery of canning) looking for a practical use. It’s been great, and has survived several kitchen purges, but I have been debating moving on to something more substantial for the next tomato season. I learned to can in my grandmother’s cobalt blue, speckled enamel pot. It’s gorgeous, and she is still getting a ton of use out of it- grape jelly, chokecherry jam, rhubarb jam, salsa. It’s amazing how some of the most simple equipment continues to be the best! Unrelated, but the added use of this new, electric pot for mulled cider is a major selling point!
We have a canner set-up we bought several years ago where you have to time it carefully and watch the little pressure gauge thing at the top. It works pretty well with my OCD husband but it would be great to win one of these and take the guesswork out of it!
I give canned demonstrations with several items from my Grandma Anna. The thought of being the third generation to pass on the joy of preserving your own food is a lot of fun. I would love to be able to demo this beauty as well.
I give canned demonstrations with several items from my Grandma Anna. The thought of being the third generation to pass on the joy of preserving your own food is a lot of fun. I would love to be able to demo this beauty as well.
I started canning again last year after a long hiatus, I had given all my supplies away. This would be awesome to get me up and running again this season as my veggies come into season.
I have been using a tall (and my widest) stockpot. Sometimes it’s just not wide enough as I’m doing more canning. I have been reading all the reviews and LOVE to try this!
I have used a speckled enamel canner until it finally had a hole in it. It will need to be replaced. I would love this new canner.I can whatever fresh goods I can get my hands on. My group of friends want to do a pickle party this year and we’ll help each other make pickles. Having this canner would be awesome because we’d love to move to the porch to do this.
I have a glass cooktop – got a single burner to use – but I don’t use it it! Help. I need this!!
I have been canning 30 years. All my stuff has been around awhile. This looks wonderful.
I use a 2nd hand granite ware water bath canner with a round, metal cooling rack inside.
I grew up watching my mom can many jars of pickles and salsa every summer from our bountiful backyard garden. I have enjoyed learning to can from her as an adult and the bug bit me hard last summer. My husband loves to cook and has a very large stock pot for sous vide cooking (or a big batch of pho one time), so I borrow it for canning with an insert I bought on amazon. The pot is large enough that it takes up a little too much space on the stovetop when I have other burners going with jam or pickling liquid. A separate device would be handy!
I use the standard canning pot you can get at Wal-Mart. Would love to have a new canning pot.
I started canning 2 years ago, and am a self-taught canner. It has been such a lifesaver as I have growing boys in my home, and this has helped me utilize the food when it is in season. I use a granite wear HWB canner that I picked up at a yard sale that first year for $5. It has served me best, but we just bought a new home, and have a glass top stove. I’m going to have to set up a canning cooktop somewhere this summer, especially for pressure canning, but this new Ball FreshTech would sure save me on the HWB canning!!
What a unique Invention. Currently, I use the water bath technique on a gas stove. Love canning and sharing what I can, can. Still too afraid to try the pressure canning method. Maybe this year.
I did some canning when I lived in nova scotia in the 70’s & really enjoyed it. I moved back to Massachusetts & never thought of it again. I made jalepeno chowchow a few yrs ago & my family loved it but not all jars sealed. I have brand new canning tools & jars & would like to start again. please, I really love this
A couple of years ago a started getting the urge tostart going back to my roots. It started with a small garden and has grown since. The bigger it got the more had and couldn’t give it all away before it would go bad so I felt waste full. I then went to my grandmother and ask her to teach me how to can. She was a great teacher. We just use a old stock pot with jars. I love it! The food iitaste so much better and know I’m getting no extra additives. Would like to try old ways versus The new ways. Thank you.
Currently use a stock pot with a round metal cake pan at the bottom.
I use a standard granite ware setup for hot water bath canning. I did splurge for an All American pressure canner. I have wondered why Ball has not made an electronic pressure canner/cooker. That would be the only one I might get that spendy on.
I currently use the speckle-ware pot system. In my small home, this system really heats the whole place up in late summer making it warmer inside in August than outside! My preference is to do large batches with pint jars as it is only for me. Also, I should mention that I cook on a wood-burning stove. It is a 1909 Majestic that fit my budget, free. If I am the opportune winner of this wonderful looking canner, it would make my life so much easier. Thank you for allowing me to enter and have a great day.
I grew up on the farm and helped mom can. I am just about ready to retire and returned to gardening three years ago. I still remember how to grow vegetables. I now have a small 20 x 20 foot garden plot and grow enough to share with four neighbors plus what we eat. I have started to freeze some of the produce, which is okay, but I want to return to canning.
I will be 56 year young this July and I have been canning and freezing since I was 8 years old. Old enough to help with the water and cleaning and snapping of the green beans. The very first canner I helped with was a navy blue ceramic canner with a double rack in my Grandma’s very tiny kitchen. I remember that day well because we were canning and doing laundry on her wringer washing machine and hanging it on the clothes line. Since that day I have had several canners of my own. I also have used a pressure canner that I bought at a yard sale my second year of being a bride. I since then have purchased a newer pressure canner. But I still use both methods of the pressure canner and the hot water bath, it just depends on what I am canning and what my sunny disposition is that day. LOL to all of you young Girls who do not know how to can and preserve, you are truly missing out on a wonderful part of life.
I use a speckled enamel canning pot.
I am using a combination if old and new for my canning needs. I would love to try this!
I’ve always been interested in canning, but never took the time to do it. 2 years ago we bought a house on the Eastern Shore of Virginia, and we’ve started to cram as many tomato plants, beans, squash, radish, etc. onto our rurban (rural urban= living in town in a rural area) plot. This would be great in our abundant tomato season. We use several different sized pots we have gathered from family over the years. This would be a great addition to add modernity to nostalgia in keeping the canning tradition alive.
I use a water bath on the stove to seal my jars and a old presser cooker my mom gave me she had for many years
I I use a large stock pot with a dish cloth in the bottom. I really need a new set-up.
Found my pressure canner at a yard sale close to 20 years ago, had been using water bath before that. Still use water bath occasionally. My husband started canning with me when he saw it didn’t have to be done outside over an open fire. We still can as much as we can and give it as gifts to friends and family.
I only do water-bath canning (so far). I use a 12-quart stockpot with a round metal cake-cooling rack in the bottom. We rent, so I didn’t have any choice in stove-top style, and the house came with a glass-top stove. I worry about that, both from the standpoint that it might not be maintaining a proper temperature (although I’m certain enough that I don’t let that stop me) and that canning on it might be harmful to it, as the area around the burner and the edges of the stove get very hot. This FreshTECH appliance would be a fabulous solution!
Hubby & I started canning 4 years ago so that we could bring food down for when my son’s Company (he was stationed at Ft. Campbell, KY) came home from Iraq. Hubby & I prepared the welcome home meal for the troops & their families. We now can almost everything. We try at least one new recipe a season. The most requested is Apricot Habanero Jelly and then our Spicy Hot Pickles.
We have a six burner stove, so we have plenty of room to cook & can at the same time, but when the temperatures start getting hot, we move the water bath outside to our single burner.
We also do pressure canning.
Yes, we are addicted to canning & sharing what we do…….
My set up is a stockpot w/a cake rack in the bottom. That’s a graduation from an aluminum pie plate with holes punched in it. For small batches I use an asparagus steamer. This would be so great! None of my pots are tall enough for quarts & although I don’t use them much, it’s nice to can large batches of pickles or tomatoes!
I have always wanted to can tomatoes but have never done. This device looks awesome for a beginner with my stove having a ceramic cooktop. Looks like it would offer the additional function of making soups.
I didn’t even know there was an issue with canning on a glass cooktop! Would love to try this instead.
My daughter and I can every year almost all year. we usually have 3 canners going plus pots with tomatoes or apples stewing. we make our own spaghetti sauce, chili and catsup, sometimes bbq sauce. Plus applesauce and lots of jams. This would work so well for us to use and clear up some burners
HI. I started canning with my mom when i was young. She used to do the best canned fruit and tomatoes that we enjoyed all year when I was a kid in the 50’s and 60’s.In my 20’s, I had my own huge garden and canned lots of produce on my own with a canner that she gave me and I still have. The inside rack is a bit rusty, but it still works. Canning is one of my favorite summer/fall activities because it’s such a pleasure to see the storage shelves loaded with tomatoes, pickles, jellies, jams, relishes and fruit. It always reminds me of my mom (gone 10 years now) and working with her in her kitchen. Now my daughter is also interested in canning, so I’ve given her an extra one from Mom’s house. I would love to try that new electric canner, though. It sounds superb – no more hours of gas burning in a hot kitchen, lifting and pouring a huge pot of hot water when all is done, and space to do more small jars at once, saving time and energy. Thanks for doing this for a lucky winner.
I used to can several years ago, but having to move around I eventually got rid of my canning supplies. Now that I am in a place that has pretty good farmer’s markets, I am trying to get back into canning the great produce that is available.
I started canning last year when my Roma tomato plants began producing more than I could keep up with. I found an old pressure cooker at the Salvation Army store and was able to can enough jars of spaghetti sauce to keep my family happy all winter but I think the gasket has had it because it seemed to be losing pressure. I would love to have that beautiful Ball FreshTECH Electric one. I’m planting strawberries this year and making jam would be the perfect way to break it in. 🙂
Using old pressure canner a friend gave me.
i have been using my mothers pressure canner she gave a few years before she passed away a it 20 years ago. It has a lot of jars pass through it!
I use a blue enameled canning pot or a pressure canner, both bought at yard sales decades ago. I can a lot of jams and chutneys (trying to find out if I can pressure can or water bath can bacon jam safely). I muscle the pots around and because of arthritis some days are tougher than others. But I’ll never stop because I love it so much. Having the electric pot would be fabulous… I don’t think I’ll find one at a yard sale!
up until this year I have borrowed a canning pot (from anyone willing to let me!) so for Christmas I asked for a stock pot and trivet… I haven’t tried it out yet so I am not attached and I am sure I could grt used to this freshtech instead 😉
My mother did not can anything except tomatoes that she grew in a tiny space near our house. She took pride in those tomatoes. I now grow and can everything from my own garden. Being only 40, I don’t find many of my friends canning. Its kind of a lost art. I use the typical large pressure canner. I would love to be able to utilize a canner for other things and store in my kitchen.
I’ve been canning for almost 50 years. Use 3 large canners. Lots of work but the rewards are many. Every year I say it’s the last year I’ll be canning. Then as soon as the fruits and veggies start appearing, out comes the equipment, I must say that everything is getting heavier every year that I get older. The demand for my garlic dills has grown over time so I can’t quit now.
Just started canning last year. Found an aluminum pressure cooker at a peddlers mall in Berea, KY. Lid has 6-8 screw downs around lid. Has silicone/rubber plug. Lol this seems like it could get us out of the heat of a canners, fall kitchen.
I actually use a big stainless pot my husband uses to make beer… On a propane burner from a turkey fryer! So this is limiting because I have to keep it outside, but it is a good setup as far as keeping a steady temperature, etc.
I use a stock pot with jar rings on the bottom..it works but this canned looks amazing!
I am a 50 year old disabled man that started gardening as a way a the to pass the time, so I desided to learn to teach myself how to can so I ask my mother in law which was very helpful. and went looking for a canner and they were very pricey but lucky I was got one given to me but it is on its on it last leg. Now I have been ask by my brother and a cousin to teach them how to can tomatos and pickles and could use new unit.
I inherited my current water bather from my mother in law 35+ years ago when I first became interested in canning. The seal no longer works and it leaks all over my stovetop but every time I use it and the many family canning recipes, I think of her and Grandma.
I remember both my grandmother and mom canning. Fruits, tomatoes and venison. After awhile my mom stopped saying it was too much fuss to do. I miss the canned venison the most. Those where good times!