Canning by crock

Well kind of - it's a matter of letting the crock pot help you through the tedious portions of canning ... That is the heating up parts!

The parts that seem to take so dang long - like heating water for the lids but not to boiling ... The crock is perfect for that! But most crock post are too large for the quantity of lids you will be using ... I suggest finding one of the ones made for cheese dips or potpourri ... Just be sure that you put the lids in one ata time and alternate the direction of the seal - first one seal up, next one seal down, repeat.

Or how about heating the jars and keeping them warm while waiting to be filled? You want to put hot items to be canned (tomato sauce, jams, jellies, chili, soup, etc) into a hot jar to keep them from cracking - especially if you are going to be pressure canning where a hairline crack could spell total disaster for your hours of time.

I am going to use it this week to do the work of cooking my onions for some onion compote this week - I am going to give it as a Christmas gift so I want to make sure that I don't burn the onions ... The crock is PERFECT for this.

I will post shots of it as I go - so keep checking in, I'm not sure exactly what day I will get to it the recipe calls for 10 cups of onions but I'm not sure I have that much on hand.

but let me emphasize your crock is NOT hot enough to use a hot water bath ...

While yes your chili may bubble in there it is not hot enough to get to a ROLLING BOIL which you need to get the water up to before turning it back down to a simmer ...

And while yes your lids may make a vacuum seal after you pulled it out of the crock, I don't believe that the heat would have been sufficient to kill bacteria which might KILL YOU or YOUR FAMILY ---

DON'T DO IT!

Use the crock as a helper only ...

I have however found my spaghetti pot with the deep strainer insert works as a wonderful boiling-water bath for SMALL batches (1/4 - 1/2 pints only)