your experiences with "pings" or "pops"

[annmarie]

This was my first year canning, and I was wondering about jars sealing and the whole pinging or popping thing. Here's my 2 questions:
1) I canned a few jars of peaches earlier this season, and not a single one pinged, but all the jars appear to be well sealed (no flexing lids, tryed pulling lids off semi-hard by hand and they don't open). Is the lack of pings proof that the jars didn't seal, even though they appear to be sealed?

2) I just finished canning some apple pie filling about 2 hours ago. I heard lots of pings, but 2 jars are clearly not sealed yet because I can see that the center of the lid is still raised. I've read over and over again that it "could take as much as 24 hours for a jar to seal". I have a hard time believing this, as all of my pinging and sealing seems to happen no later than the first 45 minutes. Anyone ever have a jar seal many hours after canning? Just curious. Worst case scenario, I'll need to make an apple pie!

 

[poppycat]

I've found that larger jars take longer to seal and they don't ping so much as, oh I don't know, a muffled click. As long as you press the center and it doesn't snap back, it should be sealed. As far as the timing goes, just let them sit overnight. If they don't seal you could put the contents into a clean jar with a new lid and re-process, or just enjoy some pie right now

 

[Dace]

I just pickled some peppers yesterday afternoon. In keeping a watchful eye on my jars ( read: obsessively admiring my handiwork) I noticed that one lid was still up, had not sucked down yet. I made a mental note to check it before bedtime. thinking I would just put it in the fridge. Lo and behold some several hours later it had sealed and I never heard the ping.

 

[patandchickens]

This was my first year canning, and I was wondering about jars sealing and the whole pinging or popping thing. Here's my 2 questions:
1) I canned a few jars of peaches earlier this season, and not a single one pinged, but all the jars appear to be well sealed (no flexing lids, tryed pulling lids off semi-hard by hand and they don't open). Is the lack of pings proof that the jars didn't seal, even though they appear to be sealed?

2) I just finished canning some apple pie filling about 2 hours ago. I heard lots of pings, but 2 jars are clearly not sealed yet because I can see that the center of the lid is still raised. I've read over and over again that it "could take as much as 24 hours for a jar to seal". I have a hard time believing this, as all of my pinging and sealing seems to happen no later than the first 45 minutes. Anyone ever have a jar seal many hours after canning? Just curious. Worst case scenario, I'll need to make an apple pie!

1) you won't necessarily hear it - for one thing, some will pop down *as* you remove them from the canner, at which point you are likely to be doing enough sloshing and slopping and possibly Use Of Vocabulary (although I'm sure nobody else is as stupid as me, canning in bare feet or shorts ) and may not notice it.

2) if they're not flexed down now, I'd doubt they'll seal but I'd leave them strictly alone for a good long while just in case.

To me, the pinging/popping thing is just a byproduct -- The Definitive Test of whether you've got a good seal is that, when you take the screwband off, you should be able to pick the jar up by holding just the edge of the lid and not have it come off. It's good to get into the habit of doing that, IMHO. They can be popped down and *apparently* sealed but fail this test (although a lid that is not popped down, for sure shouldn't pass either).

If you do end up with a seal failure or two, refrigerate them and eat them 'soonish'... but also, inspect the lip of the jar. Sometimes it is a random thing, or operator error, but sometimes a failed seal is because there was a little chip or 'ding' in the rim of the jar that you didn't notice, and if that's the case you want to remove the jar from your canning pool rather than have the same thing happen again next time!

Good luck,

Pat

 

[annmarie]

Thank you all for your helpful responses. I'll be patient and if tomorrow morning the 2 jars are still not sealed I'll put them in the fridge. Patandchickens, I'm glad you mentioned picking the jars up by the lid when the bands are removed as a test. I hadn't heard of that. I had read that you should try prying the lids off with your hands "with some force, but not too much force" which is a really silly direction that drives me nuts. I don't want to just go ripping all the lids off after all that hard work!