Where to buy fermentation jars in Toronto, and what each shop stocks

What to take away

What to check before buying fermentation jars Toronto shops carry

Start with the ferment, not the shelf. Sauerkraut needs volume and a way to hold cabbage under brine. Hot sauce needs an airlock so gas escapes without letting oxygen in. Quick pickles need a clean jar and a fridge.

Check the mouth width first. Wide-mouth jars accept weights, airlock grommets and silicone lids. Narrow-neck jars take none of them. If you might add a weight later, buy wide.

Check the glass. Toronto shops sell soda-lime jars made for canning and borosilicate jars made for brewing. Both work. Soda-lime is cheaper and heavier. Borosilicate handles hot brine without cracking.

Check the lid. Metal two-piece canning lids corrode in brine within weeks. Plastic airlock lids and glass weights do not. This point separates one fermentation vessel from another more than price does.

Check volume against your batch. A 1 L jar takes about 700 g of shredded cabbage once packed. A 5 L crock takes a whole 2 kg head with room left.

Ask about spare parts. Grommets, airlocks and weights get lost, and Consiglio's Kitchenware and Toronto Brewing both stock replacements.

Named Toronto shops and what jar types each stocks

Six Toronto stores carry fermentation gear as a real category rather than a sideline. Stock rotates, so call before a long trip.

Tap Phong Trading Company, 360 Spadina Ave. The Chinatown housewares warehouse. Basic glass canning jars, wide-mouth jars, plastic lids and cheap funnels. Airlock lids are rare here.

Nella Cucina, 983 Queen St W. A west-end kitchen shop with wide-mouth jars, funnels, glass weights and the odd airlock kit.

Consiglio's Kitchenware, 52 St. Clair Ave E. The best in-person stop for stoneware crocks and ceramic weights, plus two-piece lids and jar sets.

Fiesta Farms, 200 Christie St. A large independent grocer that brings in Mason jars and lids by the case from late summer. Cheapest per jar when a case is on the floor.

Toronto Brewing, 2266 Lake Shore Blvd W. A homebrew shop in Etobicoke. Airlocks, drilled lids, grommets, bungs and food-grade buckets.

Williams Sonoma, Yorkdale Shopping Centre, 3401 Dufferin St. Mass-market airlock jar kits and wide-mouth jars. Thin selection, open late.

If you are stocking shelves rather than filling them, the order changes. See what a shop should stock first in fermentation jars, lids, and weights.

Market stalls and seasonal vendors around the city

Farmers' markets are the underrated source. Preserve vendors sell ferments and will often part with an empty jar or name their supplier. Ask at the stall, because there is rarely a display.

St. Lawrence Market Saturday Farmers' Market, 92 Front St E. The largest concentration of stalls, and the preserve vendors on the market floor take custom jar orders through September.

Evergreen Brick Works Saturday Farmers' Market, 550 Bayview Ave. Smaller, but the preserve sellers here work in glass and often have surplus jars after a production run.

Withrow Park Farmers' Market, 725 Logan Ave. Saturdays, spring to autumn. Vicki's Veggies, a Prince Edward County farm selling pickles and preserves, is the stall to ask about jars.

Trinity Bellwoods Farmers' Market, 1053 Dundas St W. Tuesday afternoons, with Sundog Organic Farm and other preserve sellers who move extra jars when preserving slows.

Toronto Fermentation Festival. The best single day to compare crocks, airlock jars and weights, because vendors bring stock and answer questions.

Market supply runs from late summer into autumn. From January to April, expect little or nothing.

Market vendors work under Ontario's cottage food and farmers' market rules, and many are small businesses. The province's guide on how to start a small business in Ontario is the reference they use for registration and labelling.

Canadian online suppliers that ship to Toronto addresses

Online is where the specialist gear lives. Canadian suppliers ship to Toronto in days and avoid cross-border duty, which matters once a crock passes $100.

Toronto Brewing. Ships from Etobicoke. Airlocks, drilled lids, grommets and food-grade buckets, usually inside a week within the city.

Ontario Beer Kegs. An Ontario homebrew supplier shipping Canada-wide. Airlocks, drilled lids, stoppers and silicone fermentation lids.

Well.ca. A Canadian general retailer based in Guelph. Silicone fermentation lids, glass weights, wide-mouth jars and Bernardin canning supplies.

Golda's Kitchen. A Mississauga operation selling canning jars by the case, plus funnels, tongs and jar accessories.

Before ordering from an unfamiliar Canadian supplier, verify the business through the federal Business and industry hub.

Online orders also collect personal and payment data. The Privacy Commissioner's summary of privacy laws in Canada covers what a Canadian retailer must tell you about the data it keeps.

Weight and airlock options, and which shops carry them

Weights and airlocks decide whether a batch succeeds, and they are the two things most often left at the till.

Glass weights. Round discs sized for wide-mouth jars, holding cabbage under brine. Nella Cucina stocks them, as does Well.ca.

Ceramic weights. Heavier, usually paired with a crock. Sold with the crock at Consiglio's Kitchenware.

Silicone fermentation lids. One-piece lids with a one-way valve for standard wide-mouth jars. Well.ca and Ontario Beer Kegs carry them.

Plastic airlock and grommet sets. The S-bend or three-piece airlock plus a drilled lid. Toronto Brewing and Ontario Beer Kegs stock these year round.

Drilled lids alone. Toronto Brewing carries wide and narrow mouth sizes.

Crocks with weight stones. Consiglio's Kitchenware sells them in store; Golda's Kitchen ships them.

Where extra money spent on a fermentation vessel pays off is the lid and weight, not the jar body.

Current price ranges in Canadian dollars

Ranges below are typical Toronto shelf and online prices in Canadian dollars, before HST unless noted. They move with glass and freight costs.

Ontario retailers must charge HST on these sales, and store shelf prices already include it. Online listings often show the pre-tax price, so the checkout total runs higher. The province's Harmonized Sales Tax page explains what is taxable and at what rate.

Only the crock has no cheap route. Jars and weights do go on sale, usually in late summer. For what experienced fermenters already know about Fermentation jars, the seal and the weight matter more than the vessel.

How to match a jar to the ferment you actually make

Work backwards from batch size and the gas the ferment produces.

Before you spend, run a short check on any shop or listing.

Fermentation jars reward planning. Our fermentation supplies reviews cover the gear worth walking past, and the same logic applies here. Know your batch size, your gas production and your lid material, and you buy once.

Common questions