Barbara Schaller wrote:

> <snip>

>
> Eeew, Dude! I remove the rubber seal from my pressure cooker whenever I
> wash it. I throw it in the dishwasher.

There's a significant difference between pressure cooking and pressure canning.
In canning the cooking happens inside the jar and what happens outside the jar is
of
little interest to the food. Thus, the fastidious (and warranted) cleanth you
bring to bear
upon your pressure cooker sealing ring is lost upon the canner. In fact, you
should be able to use
cowshit as a canning rack, embed your canning jars into it, add a few inches of
water and can safely
to your heart's content (assuming that the resultant cowshit soup's
temperature/pressure curve
does not deviate from that of water). The only difference between that admittedly
bizarre scenario
and the standard one is that in the former your downwind neighbors would likely
strike your name
from their xmas card list.


> I don't think the rubber ring
> has an upside and a downside.

A new ring does not. A well-used one is a different matter. I encountered the
same problem
that Dwayne did. I could feel the lid lugs fetching up against those on the pot
but couldn't
divine why that was so until I retraced my steps and recalled that I had removed
and replaced
the ring. This recollection prompted me to wonder if the ring had developed a
sidedness
which escaped observation, even when I looked for it specifically. I flipped the
ring over
and all was well w/ the world. Temperature of the sealing ring plays a
significant role as well.
Leave your canner out on a cold porch overnight and try to latch down the lid.in
the morning.
Good luck.


> And I'd use whatever I needed to to get
> the crud (crusty stuff?) off. And I haven't ever lubricated it. But
> that's just me. I would expect to do no differently with my pressure
> canner.

Lubricating or not is an individual choice. But if one is disinclined to wash the
canner's
sealing ring after each use, vegetable oil/ shortening, which tends to get gummy
in short order,
ought to be eschewed in favor of silicone grease.

P