Granite Ware Water Bath Canner Reviews: Our Honest Verdict

The short version

If you want the verdict before the detail, here is where the Granite Ware lands after reading through a hundred-plus owner comments. It is a lot of canner for very little money, with one axis you should go in clear-eyed about.

What's good:

• Cheap enough that a first-year canner can start water-bath canning without a real investment.
• A true pint-jar canner: it covers half-pint and pint jars with the two inches of water processing needs, and holds about seven pints a batch. For quart jars you need the taller 21.5-quart Granite Ware.
• Comes with a jar rack that lowers a full load in and lifts it out, so you are not jury-rigging a trivet.
• Dead simple and light when empty, which makes it easy to store and easy to learn on.

What's not:

• The porcelain enamel chips, and bare spots plus the rack and rim can rust over time.
• The steel is thin and the rack and lid feel flimsy on some units.
• The wavy or ridged bottom boils slowly and sits unevenly on glass and induction cooktops.
• It is water-bath only. It is not a pressure canner, so it cannot safely do low-acid foods like plain vegetables, meat, or beans.

Who it's for

The Granite Ware fits one kind of canner beautifully and frustrates another. Sort yourself before you buy.

Buy it for:

• Getting into water-bath canning for the first time on a small budget, with jams, jellies, pickles, salsa, and tomatoes.
• A gas or propane burner, or an outdoor turkey-fryer ring, where the pot can sit flat and boil hard.
• Anyone who wants a dedicated canner with a rack rather than hunting for a pot deep enough and a trivet that fits.

Skip it if:

• You cook on a glass or induction top and want a flat base that heats fast and sits evenly; the CLMSTE canner with rack is a cheap flat-bottom alternative.
• You want a canner that boils fast and stays light on a full load; a Concord steam canner uses a fraction of the water and comes to temperature quicker.
• You want to plug it in and walk away rather than babysit a stovetop; the Ball EasyCanner heats electrically and holds its own temperature.
• You need to can low-acid foods like green beans, corn, or meat; none of these is a substitute for a pressure canner.

The specs that matter

The Granite Ware's spec sheet is short, which is part of the charm. Here is what the numbers actually buy you at the stove:

Twelve quarts of depth over a wire rack: enough height to cover half-pint and pint jars with the couple of inches of water processing requires, and room for about seven pints a batch. This is the important limitation to understand: at roughly seven and a half inches deep, the 12-quart is a pint-jar canner, and it is not tall enough to hold quart jars and still cover them with the required inch or two of water. If you can in quarts, you want the taller 21.5-quart Granite Ware instead. Depth is still the spec beginners get wrong with a regular stockpot, and it is the main reason people reach for a real canner. One owner bought hers for exactly that pint-covering reason.

The height is the most important thing! My tallest stock pot wouldn't cover pint jars with enough water, so I got the GraniteWare canning pot.

Enamel-on-steel body, roughly a pound or two empty: light and easy to store when empty, which is a genuine plus for a bulky pot. Filled with water and jars it is heavy like any canner, so the light body is about handling and storage, not about lifting a full load.

A wavy or ridged bottom built for a burner flame: that base is designed to sit over a gas or propane ring, which is why it can rock or heat unevenly on a flat electric or glass top. It matters more than any other spec if you do not cook on gas.

What’s your heat source? The granite ware usually has a wavy bottom designed for gas or propane burners.

How well it preserves

For its actual job, high-acid water-bath canning, the Granite Ware performs. It gets a tall pot of water to a rolling boil and holds the jars under it, which is all a water-bath canner is asked to do, and owners turn out jams, pickles, salsa, and tomatoes with it season after season. The rack is a real part of that: it keeps jars off the bottom and spaced apart so the boiling water can circulate, and it lifts the whole load out at the end.

The honest performance knock is speed. That burner-style bottom and thin steel bring a big volume of water up slowly, especially on electric or glass, and several owners keep a kettle going on the side to speed things along. One owner who runs both a stockpot and the canner lays out the tradeoff plainly:

I have both. The stock pot works really well, but only holds three jars at a time. The water bath canner takes forever to boil. I speed that up by adding kettles of boiling water as I am working. It holds many more jars, so ends the overall task quicker

Volume causes its own hiccups. Overfill it and a hard boil will push water over the rim, and jars can rattle against each other in a roiling pot. Both are fixable by using less water, leaving a little space between jars, and easing off the heat. Owners pass the fixes along to beginners who hit them:

1) you only need 2 inches of water over your jars for water bath 2) if you have any voids in the pot for example doing a smaller load you can place empty jars in there with no lid to prevent rattling 3) the lack of a "pop" does not mean the seal failed. Not every jar makes a sound and you might not hear it from the other room 4) your pints should be safe to eat however like you noticed it does mean that the contents turn mushy.

The usual cause of an overflowing canner is nothing more than too much water in the pot, and the correction is as basic as it gets:

Too much water. All you need is an inch/2.5cm about the top of the jar.

The one line to underline: this is a water-bath canner, not a pressure canner. It is right for high-acid foods like jams, pickles, and tomatoes, and it is not safe for low-acid foods like plain vegetables, meat, or beans, which need the higher temperature only a pressure canner reaches. Judge its performance on the high-acid job it is built for, and it does that job well.

Built to last

This is the axis to go in with open eyes, and it is why the number below sits lowest. Treated gently, a Granite Ware can genuinely last a very long time, and plenty of owners are decades deep with theirs. One sums up the long-haul case as well as anyone:

My granite ware canner has served me well for decades. Well worth it. I like having a dedicated canner with a rack that fits and can easily be lowered into the pot, rather than just using a random pot and jury-rigging a rack.

But that longevity comes with an asterisk, and the asterisk is the enamel. The porcelain coating chips, and once the steel underneath is exposed it can rust, with the rack and the rim being the usual first casualties. Owners who otherwise like the pot name the same two failure modes without prompting:

It depends on the size of your stock pot mine's 22.5 quarts AKA 5 1/2 gallons. The recipes assume a 5 gallon pot, the granite ware ones are fine, they do however chip and rust.

The steel is thin, the rack and lid feel flimsy on some units, and the coating does not love rough handling or being put away damp. The good news is that care buys you years: drying it thoroughly after every use is the single habit long-term owners repeat, and it is the difference between a canner that rusts out and one that outlives the stove it sits on.

The granite ware is a great starter. Be sure to dry it throughly after each use. I used mine to hold the 'canning kit', everything (everything!) I need to make a batch, the spatula, the clean dish towel,, the thermometer, the waterproof pen etc. because I hate digging around for a tool. That kit is sacrosant and lives in the back of a closet.

So durability here is less a gamble than a bargain you are consciously making. You are trading a heavier, better-sealed pot for a cheap one that will chip and can rust if you neglect it, and that will not do low-acid foods no matter how well you treat it. Buy it knowing that, keep it dry, and it earns its keep. Expect it to feel and age like a premium pot and you will be disappointed.

Living with it

Day to day, the Granite Ware is easy in the ways a beginner cares about and fussy in a couple of ways worth naming. There is nothing to learn: fill it, load the rack, boil, process, lift the rack out. It is light and shallow enough to store, and cheap enough that you are not precious about it. Owners on the right stove report zero drama.

I use mine on my glass stove frequently and haven't had a problem.

The friction shows up on flat cooktops. That burner-style bottom can rock on a glass or induction surface, heats slowly, and puts a lot of weight on the glass when the pot is full, which is a real concern owners raise before they even boil water. A new buyer on an induction range hit that wall right away:

Hey all! I just recently bought a Granite Ware 21.5qt high gauge pot. It DOES work on my induction flat top but its huge and I have concerns about it busting my stovetop. I read my stove manual and it mentions canning like its fine but has no guidelines on how big of a pot is ok or not other than "make sure it is at least as big as the burner surface" Has anybody used this specific pot on their glass top? Or any type of stove and what is your opinion of it?

It is heavy when loaded, like every canner, so moving a full pot on and off the burner takes care, and the slow boil means you are committed to standing by it for a while. None of this is a dealbreaker on gas or an outdoor burner. On a glass top it is enough that some owners go looking for a different pot before their first season, which is exactly the situation the picks below address.

How it compares

The Granite Ware does not exist in a vacuum, and three alternatives come up whenever owners hit its limits. Here is how it stacks up against each.

Versus the Ball EasyCanner Electric Water Bath Canner: the EasyCanner is the plug-in upgrade. It heats electrically and holds its own temperature, so you skip the slow stovetop boil and the glass-top weight worry entirely. You pay more and give up the huge open pot, but for a small kitchen or a fussy cooktop it removes the two biggest Granite Ware headaches at once.

Versus a Concord Stainless Steel Steam Canner: steam canning is the answer several veteran owners give when they finally retire the Granite Ware. It uses a small pool of water instead of a full pot, so it is lighter and comes to temperature far faster, and it handles the same high-acid foods for processing times under about 45 minutes. Stainless also sidesteps the chip-and-rust problem.

Versus the CLMSTE Water Bath Canner with Rack: this is the closest like-for-like on price. Same idea, a big pot with a jar rack, but with a flat base aimed at glass and electric tops where the Granite Ware's wavy bottom struggles. It is the cheap swap for someone who wants the Granite Ware's simplicity without the cooktop mismatch.

Using it well

Get the most out of a Granite Ware with a few habits. Only fill it enough to cover the jars by an inch or two, not to the brim, or a hard boil will slop over the rim. Leave a little space between jars on the rack so they do not rattle, and drop empty jars in to fill gaps on a small load. Bring it up on your largest, hottest burner and keep a kettle of boiling water on the side to top it up and shorten the wait. Most important for the pot itself: dry it completely after every use, rack included, so the exposed steel does not start to rust.

If you are still deciding whether this is even the right first canner, it is worth reading how it fits against the other beginner options first. Our guide to the best water bath canner for beginners walks through pot depth, rack design, cooktop fit, and steam-canning in more depth, with the Granite Ware in context against the alternatives.

The bottom line

The Granite Ware is an easy canner to recommend for exactly what most people want it for: a cheap, roomy, no-fuss way to start water-bath canning jams, pickles, salsa, and tomatoes. It boils a tall pot of water over seven pint jars, comes with a rack that does the lifting, and asks almost nothing of your wallet. For a beginner on a gas burner, it is a genuinely sensible first purchase, and decades of happy owners back that up. Just know going in that it is a pint-jar canner: if you plan to put up quarts, size up to the taller 21.5-quart Granite Ware.

What keeps it from a higher score is not the price, it is the wear and the fit. The enamel chips and the steel can rust if you do not keep it dry, the thin body and flimsy rack feel their cost, and the burner-style bottom fights a glass or induction top. And it will never do low-acid foods, so it is not the last canner you buy if you get serious. Go in expecting a cheap, capable water-bath canner that rewards a little care, and the Granite Ware is worth the small money. Want fast, flat, and long-lasting, and one of the picks below fits better.