Have a beginning canner you are shopping for? Want to get the best canning supplies for the beginning canner in your life? This post will share exactly the Best Home Canning Equipment For A Beginner, even if they are just canning curious and want to to start canning, or if they have canned a few times before. Read on for the complete list of canning supplies for a beginner!

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The first item that everyone thinks of when they think of canning is the big, speckled canning pot. My favorite tips for beginners is that they DON’T need that pot! What?! That’s right. You don’t need it.

Here’s what you need instead. You need a regular stockpot, or a pot that’s 3 inches taller than the tallest jar you plan to can. A pot that you could boil artichokes in is probably large enough. Think this type:

You don’t need the lid. Yeah, it’s helpful if you have it but it’s not absolutely necessary. THEN, you need this gem:

 This is a silicone trivet, and they sit in the bottom of the regular stockpot and prevent the mason jars from rattling around and breaking. They are useful as a regular trivet, inexpensive, collapse for storage, and once I got one, I NEVER pulled the giant speckled canning pot out again.

The canning jars that are best for a beginning canner are wide mouth pint canning jars. You want to get wide mouth canning jars because they are easy to clean, the most versatile size for the widest number of recipes, double as drinking classes, and you can freeze in them.

The next size that’s great for beginners is the wide mouth half pint. This size jar holds one measuring cup, so it’s just right for jam, applesauce, and for gifting the fruits of the canner’s labor.

Best Home Canning Equipment For A Beginner Continued: If the canner in your life has jars already , or maybe has canned a time or two, you should DEFINITELY get them several boxes of NEW lids. Lids can only be used ONE time through the canning process so a canner goes through them fairly quickly. They are a great gift item that a canner will always use in the same way a cooking enthusiast would always love a great bottle of olive oil. Here are the wide mouth lids that fit the jars above.

A beginning canner needs a set of tools that are usually sold together called a canning utensil kit.

Here’s my pro tip: That little wand that has a magnet at the end is called a lid lifter. They are used to lift lids out of simmering water before putting them on jars. If you’ve not canned much, or even if you’ve canned a lot, you might think that because that thing is sold in the kit, you need it, right? Wrong. You actually do NOT need to have that lid lifter and I wrote a blog post about why here but the short reason is that the lids haven’t had to be simmered since the 1960’s.

You NEED the tongs (called a jar lifter) and the funnel and you can get them separately through those links if you don’t want to purchase the kit, though I bet the kit is cheaper.

The Best Home Canning Equipment For A Beginner list is nearly finished- download the checklist here to be sure you got everything you need!

And finally, if you or someone dear to you wants to learn how to can, I cannot recommend enough that they join the Start Canning Course. This premium video course teaches STEP BY STEP exactly what to do when!

In Start Canning

I teach how to can:

• Strawberry Jam
• Strawberry Rhubarb Jam
• Strawberry Syrup and Strawberry Butter
• Tomato Sauce
• Roasted Bell Peppers

Plus once you know how to make the basics, you can take your newfound skills and use them with different types of fruit and vegetables. It’s like having an entire farmer’s market on your pantry shelf!

Click here to learn more about Start Canning!

And for the canning enthusiast, they need these super cute canning tee shirts.

And once a canner starts canning, it’s not long before they experience Canic- the fear brought on by having tons of quickly ripening produce, but not enough time to can it all. It’s a very real thing, and the canner in your life needs this shirt.

Many canners have little Berry Picker helpers- these shirts are awesome for those littlest helpers whose motto usually is, “one for the basket, two for me.”

I hope this Beginner’s guide to home canning equipment was helpful! Best Home Canning Equipment For A Beginner shouldn’t feel daunting- there’s really not a lot you need to start preserving healthy, homemade food in jars!