[Intro music]
Alright everyone, welcome back to Cody's lab!
So I've been using these plastic reusable canning lids for about a year now, and I really like them
especially because you don't have to throw away the metal lid every time you open a jar and that really adds up if you're using them for your lunch everyday.
The only problem I have with them is that they're made of plastic.
And so I thought I'd see what would happen if I tried making one out of metal.
So here's a chunk of tin, food-grade, of course.
So I've made a mold of the lid in plaster as you can see. I even put in Reverse Cody's lab insignia in there.
And so now what I'm going to do is I'm going to melt some tin and we're gonna get something and smash it flat.
Then it should be left with a chunk of tin that's in the shape that I can use for the lid.
All right.
All right, looks pretty smooth.
[unclear]... Aghh
It's got a big gas bubble in there... that might not be a deal-breaker though
that might still function as the outside here is all intact.
Let's save this one. Let's still try again.
Ah, got it!
I wonder what other damage it did though.
Well, it broke the mold, but I think it's salvageable. Just clean it up a little bit.
So here's the two lids I managed to make all cleaned up.
This one you can see that I've crimped it a little bit.
How I did that was I put it on a jar and I just tightened it down really tight.
Tins such a soft metal you can pretty easily deform it like that.
So now I don't see any reason why this gasket wouldn't fit into there. You just be able to seal the jar with it.
Yeah, what's wrong with that?
It's kind of expensive because, you know, tins something like $20 a pound but it should work. It's not toxic.
This other one, let's do something a little different maybe a little more DIY. Let's put some silicone on here and see if that'll work. I don't see why it wouldn't.
And here are the finished lids let's go use them for canning how about some peaches.
So here's our jar of peaches.
I'm gonna cheat a little bit and use the vacuum chamber to drive the air out rather than hot water.
This is a much simpler and faster to reset so, should be easier on us.
To make sure that centered just tighten the band on there just like I would if I was doing the hot water bath.
There we go. Get a little bit looser there.
So the idea is the air can force its way out but once the air is gone...
it won't continue boiling and throw all the liquid up out of there and maybe get some of the peach fiber stuck in the seal.
That would keep it from sealing properly. All right, it's probably all good.
Now let's do the silicone sealed one. The problem with this one is I'm not gonna be able to tighten it down as much.
Is that seal will probably get ruined it's just,
I Just really like the seal it on there. Alright, let's close this up.
There we go. Now to turn on the vacuum.
Let's see. Is there an air bubble in there we can focus on.
Not really, I really I must of did a pretty good job.
I'm sure air bubbles will show up once we start sucking out the air though so vacuum pump on.
There we go.
Ah, there's one.
There's definetitly a bubble in there now. Pressure drops.
And also the liquids going up, that's not good. It's gonna start boiling over.
We might have avoided it. We're leaking a little bit on the back one.
Can't really see it on the camera, but maybe you'll see a little bit of liquid down there.
Just turning to foam in the vacuum. A little bit is okay.
As long as they don't get any peach fiber up on the seal. Let's turn the vacuum pump off.
Let's just let the air work its way out for a few minutes.
And then we'll turn on the air and slam it down with the atmospheric pressure.
Hopefully that makes a good seal.
If not, I'll just have to try again.
All right, turn on the air.
Aw it sprayed peach juice everywhere. *laughs*
There it is.
Lets see how they look.
Let's take the ring off, see it it's sealed.
Ha ha! It did.
You see I can lift it up by the metal lip there, perfect.
So that one worked that was the silicone gasket.
This one did not this one was the one that was boiling over a lot more.
Yeah, you can see some peach fiber on the seal there. So I'll just have to clean it off and try again.
You can see I put a little bit more liquid in there to make up for what was boiled off.
I'm gonna tighten it up quite a bit more than they did the first time.
As I think it's just not tight enough.
Y'know, the lid I made is not perfectly flat. So, I guess it has to be tighter to compensate.
So, let's vacuum it down again. Hopefully this time there's less air bubbles in there too. So that'll also help.
Welp, it didn't seal again hmm. I can already tell it didn't seal. Yeah.
Well, this is of course why,
we're doing it in the vacuum chamber.
If this was the hot-water bath this would have taken hours every time.
As tight as I can get it, let's see if that works.
All right, so this is actually attempt 4.
let's see if it worked this time.
Ah it did. Okay.
Yeah, see it holds.
So it finally sealed.
Now, of course getting the air out of the jars is only part of the process
The most important part of course is to kill all the bacteria and fungus that are living on the peaches.
And to do that, we use heat of boiling water.
So they're currently warming up and once it gets up to temperature,
Y'know, the water's boiling then I'll let it sit there for 20 minutes and then I'll let it cool off.
Normally the hot water would cause the air to expand and force its way up out of the jars
and then once it cools back off, it creates a partial vacuum that holds the lid shut
But, we've already got the vacuum in there. So that's not a problem.
In fact, I've tightened the lids down nice and tight much tighter than I would normally.
Hopefully there's not too much pressure that builds up in there.
Just in case these lids do blow off I'm gonna be standing well back once it gets up to the temperature.
Yeah, hopefully this works. See you guys in a bit.
Alrighty, they're done just got to let 'em cool hopefully they seal.
I guess it's time to see if it worked. They've cooled off.
It looks like the lids tight, so the silicone seal worked.
[Chuckle]
Awesome, let's try this along with the rubber gasket. Oh I really cranked that on there didn't I?
Let's see...
Yeah, we're good they're sealed.
All right now I guess this is time to see if they keep.
So I'm down in the pantry and this is where I'll be storing these peaches.
Right next to the green beans that we canned back in February.
February 19th in fact.
I'll tell you what, I'll open these all up on November 19th.
That way I can have the video out by Thanksgiving. [laughs]
I probably won't eat the green beans because well beans grow botulism and
yeah, I'm not super confident that this was sealed properly.
But I'll definitely be eating the peaches
And actually, you know there's something I've been wanting to try let's see I've got some these...
commercially canned peaches here. Let's open this up and
see what the lining of this is, y'know hit it with the x-ray.
Cause I've heard that it is actually tin, but I don't know for sure.
So let's test the outside bottom of this can.
See what that's made out of.
So it's telling me that it's a carbon steel.
It's a bunch of random elements let's have a look at the peaks.
Okay, there's the iron peak.
If we keep zooming in we should see a peak at about five point four and five point nine.
Yeah, so that looks like chrome.
Although, yeah, there's probably manganese in this peak as well as why it's so high.
Anyway, let's cut open the can.
See on the inside here, it's got a different metal. See that?
Like the top and bottom look like this is the chrome steel.
Lets see what this is.
I'm gonna set this on top of a block of wax just so
nobody can complain about the table, you know, if it's interfering.
I don't think the x-rays could actually go through this tin though. Not the energy I'm using.
Yeah, that was tin.
Yeah it's gonna be a thin coating. So it'll give me a low percentage.
So looking at the graph for the energy so you can see a nice big peak for the iron because the iron is still most prevalent.
So if we zoom in over here around twenty five, twenty eight.
So twenty five point, two seven we should see a peak for tin.
Yeah, right about there.
So that's the main peak for tin and
there should be a secondary peak at about twenty eight point four five ish.
Like right there. [Chuckle] So they are lined with tin.
As far as I know, peaches are the only food that is still canned in actual tin plated steel.
[Chuckle]
Supposedly the tin imparts a good flavor of the peaches. Anyway, hope you enjoyed I'll see you next time.
[Cheerful music]