Hi, Sharron. I, and most of the people I know, (being rank amateurs),
use crock pots for our pickle. (You can find them cheap at garage
sales). They have covers (Pyrex) that you can just lift off and stick
back on. I’m not saying you have to get a crock pot; (they may never
have heard of them in sunny Saigon!); just that if you check around
you can probably find some kind of a lid (preferably glass or
something inert like that) that you can use to cover your new pickle
pot, that is easy on, easy off.
Cheers!
Margaret.
In Sunny Saigon, a small rice cooker will probably be available.
Connie
I have also had the rust problem from the pickle pot here in sunny
California. I was using an old crock pot with a glass lid, but
apparently that was not sealed enough. So I got a wide mouth canning
jar with a spring lid and rubber gasket and put the pickle in that and
set the canning jar into the crock pot 3/4 filled with water - sort of
a double boiler arrangement. When finished, close up the canning jar.
The rusting of tools and motorcycles in our garage then stopped…
fortunately for my marriage!! and my motorcycles!!!
Of course this was after the “explosion of pickle jar on the hot
plate” incident… 
Mary Barker
Los Gatos, California