This is my first attempt at canning, at least since I was little with my mom. I bought a large pot for the water bath, but stupidly forgot to wash it before use.
I sterilized the cans because I'm at a high elevation and didn't want to risk the water bath not being long enough. Now that I'm done, all the cans have this film on them. I'm worried it was something from the pot that's now in the cans as well as on the outside.
I also have hard water at my house, I don't know if others have seen this from hard water, or if this is really from the pot and probably unsafe to eat.
by shmelli13
3 Comments
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This is actually pretty common with hardwater! If you can wipe it off easily with vinegar I would be pretty confident in saying that it’s just hardwater deposits. I honestly wouldn’t worry about it even though the pot wasn’t washed. In the future you can add a little bit of vinegar to the water in your canning pot to avoid this.
Adding a little vinegar to your water will help to prevent the hard water build up on the outside of the jars!