The best jar and bottle openers

Most jars have metal vacuum-sealed lids which make them difficult to open. These include pickle jars, jam jars and pasta sauces. The vacuum is created by adding the contents into the jar while still hot. The contents cool down and so does the air inside, which contracts and sucks the lid down tighter.

For ease of comparison, we trialled each jar-opening product on a large gherkin jar (lid diameter 85mm), along with a smaller jam jar (lid diameter 65mm). Each product got a fresh new jar so the seal was still intact. We also tried the products on a screw-top Vegemite jar (58mm diameter) and, if appropriate, screw-top bottles as well.

For bottle-only openers, we trialled these products with a variety of cap sizes from 28mm to 40mm (many bottles now have these larger caps).

We performed some subjective scoring of each product, with three categories:

• Ease of operation: how easy is it to place the opener onto the jar?

• Ease of opening: how much effort is required to remove the lid? (double score category)

• Adaptability: will the opener adapt to fit a variety of lid sizes and/or also open bottles?

Note: Prices listed are what we paid for the product in October 2022.