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Home / Canning Equipment / Canning Jars / Leifheit Jars

Leifheit Jars

Leifheit jars are very sturdy preserving jars from Germany.

In the preserving world, Leifheit is not as famous as Weck is. Many people in Germany know Leifheit only for their “cleaning supplies”: small appliances and tools for laundry, kitchen organization, etc.

Contents hide
  • 1 Leifheit Mason Jars
  • 2 Leifheit Mason Jar Sizes
  • 3 How many Leifheit jars in canners?
  • 4 Don’t use the Leifheit recipe book
  • 5 Shape of Leifheit jars and heat penetration
  • 6 Tattler and Jarden wide-mouth lids on Leiftheit jars
  • 7 Are Leifheit lids BPA free?
  • 8 History of Leifheit

Leifheit jars and lids

Leifheit Mason Jars

While Leifheit makes many different kinds of preserving jars, it is the Mason-jar style with the 2-piece lid system that would be suited for safe home canning and preserving.

These are wide-mouth jars, that take standard 86 mm wide mouth Mason-jar lids with a plastic gasket on the underside.  North American wide-mouth mason jar lids and rings fit them.

On the front, the jars have embossed lettering that says, “Frucht & Fun.” That means, “fruit and fun.” The jars are completely plain on the sides and back, so you have lots of other places to label the jars.

To be clear: this page does not constitute a recommendation for or against the jars for home canning.  It is for informational purposes only, particularly for people in countries where traditional North American brands of Mason jars are not available and they need to consider alternatives.

Leifheit Mason Jar Sizes

The jars come in ½ litre (1 US pint), ¾ litre ( 1 ½ US pints), and 1 litre (US quart) sizes.

The lids that come in the boxes with the jars will have a label on them saying ½ litre, ¾ litre or 1 litre, but it’s all the same lid: that’s just to make the jar size more obvious to customers. The word “Einkochglas” on the lid label means, “preserving jar.”

The bottoms of the jars are also sensibly engraved with the jar’s capacity in large, clear, easy-to-read lettering. It would be nice if Jarden took note of that for its Ball, Bernardin and Golden Harvest jars.

Jarden lids compared to Leifheit Lids

Jarden lid with red ring on left; Leifheit lid with white ring on the right.

How many Leifheit jars in canners?

Should you use them for home pressure canning of low-acid foods?

Leifheit certifies the jars and lids for use in water bath or pressure canning.  [1] “Und zwar platzsparend zu dritt oder sechst in jedem Topf oder Schnellkochtopf.”

They are squat rather than tall. Owing to the shape, you can fit far fewer into pots than you can North American mason jars. For instance, on the bottom of a Presto 16 quart and 23 quart, you can fit 7 Leiftheit ½ litres vs 9 Bernardin ½ litres vs 10 Ball US pints. (Or 7 x ¾ litre Leifheits, or 7 x 1 litre Leifheits.)

7 ½ litre in a Presto

7 x ½ litre Leifheits in a Presto canner

Their literature seems to think it’s good that owing to the shape, you can fit 3 or 6 into a pot at once, which perhaps is illustrative of how small batch European preserving is.  [2] “Und zwar platzsparend zu dritt oder sechst in jedem Topf oder Schnellkochtopf.”

7 x 1 litre in a Presto canner

7 x 1 litre Leifheits in a Presto canner

Don’t use the Leifheit recipe book

Each box of jars comes with a small recipe book.

Leifheit recipe book

Do not, however, follow any of the recipes or the processing directions or tables provided in the Leifheit brochures. Their suggestions would all be deemed to be dangerous by the National Center for Home Food Preservation. For instance, they endorse oven canning.

They give a procedure for canning vegetables such as carrots or beans via oven canning or water bathing, both of which are known to be and are lab documented as unsafe (though their pressure cooker times for the two don’t seem too far off.)

Leifheit shape comparison

Leifheit shape comparison

Shape of Leifheit jars and heat penetration

Some sources might suggest there would be the question of whether the shape is sufficiently different from that of North American mason jars so as to require completely separate heat penetration studies.

So Easy to Preserve says of jars in general,

The shape and size of a jar does have an effect on the safety of the canning process, so it should not be assumed that our recommended processes can be used with jars other than the standard sizes and shapes of Mason-type jars manufactured for home canning… The suitability of jars… for our recommended process times will be limited by the size and shapes of jars, as well as heat tempering for canning.” [3] Andress, Elizabeth L. and Judy A. Harrison. So Easy to Preserve. University of Georgia Cooperative Extension. Bulletin 989. Sixth Edition. 2014. Page 24.

The squatness of a Leifheit isn’t too much different from the Ball square jar (which Ball certifies for all types of canning), and it’s certainly no wider “squat-wise” than the standard Jarden pint jar is tall.

Leifheit and some other jar shapes in use now and in the recent past by canners.

Leifheit and some other jar shapes in use now and in the recent past by canners.

If one is going to question the shape of Leifheit jars, then it would be fair to wonder about other jar shapes people currently use or have used in the recent past.

If shape is a concern, perhaps all these various jar shapes could be reserved for high-acid stuff only such as fruit and pickled items.

Tattler and Jarden wide-mouth lids on Leiftheit jars

Tattler re-usable wide mouth lids work on these Leifheit jars as well.

Tatler Lids work on Leifheit Jars

Tattler wide-mouth lids fit Leifheit jars perfectly.

Tatler Lids work on Leifheit Jars

The Tattler wide-mouth lids look quite sleek on the Leifheit jars.

Jarden wide-mouth lids fit these Leifheit jars perfectly.

Jarden lid on Leifheit jar

Jarden lid on Leifheit jar

Leifheit lids fit Jarden wide-mouth jars perfectly.

Leifheit lids fit Jarden wide-mouth jars perfectly. “Einkochglas” means “preserving jar.”

Are Leifheit lids BPA free?

Boxes of Leifheit lids

Boxes of Leifheit lids

If you are concerned about BPA, the Leifheit branded lids are not BPA free. Here’s what Leifheit customer service (which was spectactular by the way) found out for us; we appreciated their thoroughness and honesty:

We contacted our supplier and he told us that the inner lacquering is with BPA-NI-lacquers, but it is safe and under the allowed limits. The usage of this lacquers complies with the EU-regulations. During extracting-researches at this lacquers there was no free BPA detected, i.e. the concentration is under the detection limit.”  [4] Anna-Christina Wahl, Leifheit customer service to healthycanning.com. 1 Apr 2015. Correspondence on file.

But as you have seen already, you don’t need to use Leifheit lids: you can use Jarden or Tattler lids with them.

Leifheit box

Bottom of Leifheit box

Double layer of plastic.

The jars are secured in the box by a doubled-layer of tough plastic that has some air between the layers.

Leifheit jars are not cheap, even in Germany, but they are beautiful, and are so sturdy that they should last for several generations of use.

Food gifts would look beautiful in them: just remember to give them to people who are your very best “jar returners” so you get them back :}

leifheit-jar-filled

Size recap:

  • The ½ litre size is 2 cup;
  • The ¾ litre size is 3 cup;
  • The 1 litre size is 4 cup.

If you are in Europe, these Leifheit jars owing to their Mason-jar style lids could be a safer choice to investigate for a preserving jar than bail-type clamp lids. It’s nice that they are certified material-wise for pressure canning as well.

Here are some links if you want to research these Leifheit jars on Amazon.

Note 1: Someone at some point took some stock photos that came out funky and made the jars and even their lids look blue; they are not, they are clear glass as you saw above.

Note 2: There’s also a ¼ litre / 1 cup size but as that doesn’t take a standard Mason lid, we haven’t covered it here for the purposes of safe home canning.

Note 3: There are no processing times, usually, set for ¾ litre (1 ½ pint / 3 cup) jars. For processing times, they need to be treated as though they were 1 litre / 1 US quart jars. If a recipe doesn’t allow 1 litre / 1 US quart jars, then you can’t use the ¾ litre jars for it.

History of Leifheit

Leifheit is an American-owned Germany company.

Leifheit was founded in Nassau, Germany in 1959 by the husband and wife team of Ingeborg and Günter Leifheit (Günter born 1920; died 2009.) The original name of the company was Günter Leifheit KG. Their first product was carpet sweepers. The company now makes many domestic appliances, particularly those related to cleaning, laundry care, kitchen and well-being. Consumers might also know them under the Dr. Oetker name, for which they make the bakeware, and under the Soehnle name for kitchen scales. In 1972, ownership of the company was acquired by the American ITT corporation.

References[+]

References
↑1 “Und zwar platzsparend zu dritt oder sechst in jedem Topf oder Schnellkochtopf.”
↑2 “Und zwar platzsparend zu dritt oder sechst in jedem Topf oder Schnellkochtopf.”
↑3 Andress, Elizabeth L. and Judy A. Harrison. So Easy to Preserve. University of Georgia Cooperative Extension. Bulletin 989. Sixth Edition. 2014. Page 24.
↑4 Anna-Christina Wahl, Leifheit customer service to healthycanning.com. 1 Apr 2015. Correspondence on file.
Tagged With: Jars

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Lynne

    January 23, 2020 at 10:23 pm

    Are the LEIFHEIT lids as cheaply made as Jarden lids. I have HUGE problems with lid rust. The best metal lids I have found are made in South Africa but I can’t get them in bulk to the USA.

    Reply
    • Vanessa

      February 07, 2022 at 10:17 am

      Hi Lynne. What company did you source in South Africa for lids?

      Reply
  2. Mr James Forrest

    March 20, 2018 at 10:44 am

    Are Leifheit Preserving Glass Jar suitable for making Kefir?

    Reply
    • Healthy Canning

      March 20, 2018 at 7:25 pm

      Mason jars are suitable for making Kefir in, and Leifheit jars are essentially Mason jars by another name, fully tempered glass.

      Reply
      • Mr James Forrest

        March 21, 2018 at 9:23 am

        Thanks for the info Randal.

        Good Luck

        Best regards Jim.

        Reply
  3. Kathryn

    July 17, 2017 at 3:31 am

    Do the Leifheit lids function the same as Ball/Kerr lids? They don’t appear to have a ‘button’ like the North American beans do. I processed three jars of pickled beets today, two Liefheit lids and one Ball, and neither of the Leifheit sealed, while the Ball did. I wonder if I need to do something different with them?

    Reply
    • Healthy Canning

      July 17, 2017 at 10:03 pm

      How odd, and annoying! Yes, Leifheit’s two piece lids do function the same.

      Reply
If you need FAST or relatively immediate canning help or answers, please try one of these Master Food Preserver groups; they are more qualified than we are and have many hands to help you. Many of them even operate telephone hotlines in season.

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