Best electric pressure canners for preserving food

Top pick: Presto 02152 17-Quart Digital Pressure Canner. Presto is the name most canning guides trust, and this one holds a full load of jars while keeping the dial-in pressure that pressure canning low-acid food (beans, meat, stock) actually needs. It's the safest all-rounder for a household that cans in batches.

Who the others suit:

• Presto 02144 12-quart — same trusted line in a smaller pot, better if you can a few jars at a time or have limited counter space.
• Presto 02153 23-quart — for big gardens and marathon canning days; heavy and tall.
• Ball Electric Canner — the familiar jar brand, sized for standard pint and quart jars; simplest for beginners following Ball recipes.
• NESCO NPC-9 / CAREY DPC-9SS — compact 9.5-quart electric canners that double as multi-cookers; good for small batches and tight budgets, less capacity per run.
• 6-quart models — only for very small batches; check the manual states pressure canning, not just cooking.

Whatever you choose, use a model with tested pressure-canning settings and follow USDA-tested times.