Presto vs All American: Which Pressure Canner Should You Buy?

The short version: who each one is for

Here's the whole decision in a paragraph, then the reasoning underneath it. If you're new to canning, not sure you'll stick with it, or you just want to put up your garden without fuss, get the Presto. If you already can a lot, plan to for decades, or can't stand the idea of babysitting a dial and swapping gaskets, get the All American. One owner who's been through the debate framed it better than any spec sheet:

The All American is an absolute workhorse, like pass it down to your kids and their kids type deal. That being said, it's heavy, expensive, and are generally incompatible with induction stoves. The dial gauge like every other one can also go so you'd need to make sure you have a weighted gauge as well. The Presto is fine for most people and what I use. Things that go wrong it are gaskets, pressure gauge can be off. Frankly, given that you're not even sure if you like canning - go with the Presto and just immediately invest in the weight gauge. Spend your money elsewhere and grab an All American when you've been doing it for a few years. To me, it's almost like asking if you've never owned a truck should you go with F150 or an F350. The bulk of people are going to be fine with the F150 and the few that need the 350, know they need the 350.

That's the honest frame. The bulk of people are fine with the Presto, and the folks who genuinely need the All American usually already know it.

Gasket versus metal-to-metal: the difference everything hangs on

Every other tradeoff flows from one design choice. The Presto seals its lid with a rubber gasket, a ring you pull out and replace as it ages. The All American has no gasket at all. Its lid and base are machined to meet metal on metal, and you clamp them together with wing nuts.

The biggest difference is that Presto (like Miro) use a rubber/plastic O ring to seal the cover. That seal needs to be changed once a year (depending on usage). The All American is metal against metal seal which is better and more leak proof.

That single difference drives the price, the maintenance, and the longevity. A gasket is cheap and easy to replace, but it's a wear part, so you'll buy a new one every year or two depending on how hard you run the canner. Metal to metal never wears out, but you pay for that machining up front, and the All American's lid takes a bit more care to seat correctly.

What you actually maintain on each one

On the Presto, two things want attention. The gasket ages and gets replaced. And the dial gauge should be checked for accuracy once a year, usually free at a local extension office. Neither is hard, but both are chores you'll remember you own.

Plenty of Presto owners sidestep the dial entirely by swapping in a three-piece weighted gauge, the kind that rocks and hisses so you can listen instead of watch. It's a cheap add-on and a common first upgrade. On the All American, there's simply less to keep up with, which is exactly why some people pay for it:

I highly prefer the All American (but I've never owned a Presto, just used one once). There is no rubber gasket to replace and you don't need to check the gauge. It is, unfortunately, higher cost, but it is never going to wear out... you will pass it down to a family member.

The All American isn't zero maintenance. It has a rubber overpressure plug that eventually gets replaced, and the manual asks you to keep the sealing edge lightly greased. But you're not chasing a gasket or calibrating a dial every season, and for a canner you run hard that adds up.

Weight, price, and the space on your stove

This is where the Presto quietly wins for a lot of kitchens. It's lighter, so a full canner is easier to lift on and off the burner and up to the sink. It's cheaper, so buying a couple of spare gaskets still leaves you well under the cost of the All American. And it stores more easily, without a tall handle jutting up across the lid.

The All American's heft is the price of its build. Owners love the solidity right up until they have to move it:

New to canning i bought once, cried once on an All American, its been great but I have nothing to compare it to. I love the structure and never feel like it's going to blow up. One con, it's very heavy!

If your stove hood sits low or your counters are tight, measure before you fall in love with a big All American. More than one canner has wanted one and found it wouldn't physically fit under the microwave.

Why some owners switch, and which way they go

The switch stories cut both directions, and they're the most useful thing in any of these threads. Some people move up to the All American because they got tired of paying for gaskets and calibrations. Others go the opposite way. One owner bought the All American for its metal seal, hit a snag, and ended up back on a Presto:

i actually own both an all american and a presto. as people here have said, the single biggest difference between the two is the gasket vs. no-gasket model. indeed, i got the allamerican precisely because of the "metal-on-metal" design. however, my first two canning batches resulted in vacuum seals that made it extremely difficult to open the canner. as a result, i moved to a presto and have used that pretty much consistently with awesome results.

That's the All American's one genuine quirk. Because it seals so completely, the lid can vacuum lock as it cools, and you learn to keep the weight on until it's cool or ease the lid open with a flathead. Most owners treat it as a minor thing you do once and forget. A few find it annoying enough to prefer the Presto's simpler open-and-close.

The heavy-canner case for spending more

If you can in real volume, the math changes. When you're processing for days at a harvest, or replacing more than one gasket a season, the All American's up-front cost starts to look like the cheaper path over time. Here's that case, straight from someone deep into it:

Any pressure canner is an investment. Pay up front (All American) or continue to pay after initial investment (Presto.) Most of My family have upgraded to All American. I have the hand me downs, Presto, Streamliner, etc. While both do the same job, I appreciate All American having precision machined mating surfaces. I've had years where I did enough canning that I had to purchase more than one seal a year, and not having a spare or backup on hand, costly in not getting things canned. I've also spent additional money in replacing and calibrating gauges, before spending more money to modify my presto canner further to have a graduated weighted gauge which is stock to All American. I've also witnessed All American outperform presto, where the presto canner became deformed and out of round because of the thinner aluminum and getting too hot on the outdoor burner (I don't recommend ever purposefully trying to do this experiment.) But if I was in the market, and was going to buy new, it would surely be a larger than 23 quart All American. The larger because I would stack tuna in it, and ideally can 14 quarts of stock in one go.

That's the buy-it-for-life logic in full. It only pays off if you actually run the canner that hard, which is exactly why it's the wrong first purchase for someone still finding out whether they even like canning.

So which should you buy?

Start with the Presto unless you already know you're the exception. It's the value default for a reason: it works, it lasts far longer than people expect, and the upkeep is a gasket and a yearly gauge check you can skip with a weighted gauge. For most kitchens, that's the whole story.

I love my Presto. I don’t have any one to pass a canner down to, so it only needs to live as long as I do. We have 2. There only 2 of us, so we mostly can pints. With the bigger presto, we run both canners double stacked & get around 40 jars per session. We don’t hundreds of jars per year & haven’t even had to replace a gasket yet. So, while the AA is pretty & tempting, I just cannot justify the cost.

Step up to the All American when you can constantly, plan to for decades, or simply want the one you'll never replace and can hand down. You'll pay more and lift more, and you'll likely never buy another canner. Pick the one that fits how you'll actually cook, and either way you're getting a canner people trust with their food.