As it's one of the Jam maker's busiest times of the year (January and marmalade is the next busiest), I'm following the theme and am now reviewing this stainless steel straining funnel.

The funnel
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Available from Lakeland at a cost of £9.49, it seems expensive for a funnel, I mean, what does a funnel do? It just aids the decanting process and avoids spills and things; but this funnel is dual purpose and has a straining attachment that can be utilised if you should wish.

As a jam maker, the main benefit of it is, being stainless steel, and not plastic, is it can be sterilized in the oven along with the jam jars, to ensure that is bacteria free, prolonging the life of any of my jams and chutneys. It also has quite a wide diameter (5inch or 13cm), allowing me to fill it with a good ladle full of fruit or chutney, making the bottling process quicker and easier, 'in theory'.

The straining attachment is simply pushed into place, and is held secure by two prongs. The holes in it are tiny, as to prevent berry seeds and pips, entering the jams and jellies and spoiling the end result.

Downsides
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And now onto the downsides of this product, the holes do their job to a point, but I was trying to strain some exceptionally seeded berries, it just got clogged, it took so long to strain through, that the jam began to set and totally solidified in the funnel.

The funnel tube itself, is rather narrow. Even if you aren't using the straining attachment, due to a long furrow down the length of the tube section, making it even narrower, it still gets clogged up and makes filling up your jam jars while the substance is still hot, really difficult.

I know a funnel is a funnel, but this is advertised for jam/jelly and cordial making on the Lakeland website. In my opinion, it's not very good at doing what it is advertised for. It's great at other things, like pouring liquids into smaller bottles, straining traditional lemonades or homemade wines, and getting lumps out of gravy (5 out of 5 for that), but for the purpose I purchased it for, it's rather a disappointment sadly.

Overall
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Overall, this is great at straining for some tasks, but definitely not all, and with its solid stainless steel construction should last a lifetime, which in all honestly I'm glad about, as it does some jobs well. If you require this for bottling up jams etc, there are better funnels out there, so shop around.

My Thoughts
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This is a quality item with no design flaws and I can see it out-living me. Sadly, I think it was the poor product description on Lakelands behalf, which let this product down. Therefore, I'm torn as to what star rating to give. In my heart of hearts I want to give five as in it's brilliant at what it does, but it just didn't fit the purpose it was intended for, so a three from me.

Many thanks for reading my review.

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