Jars of Unusual Size! Ha! (Well.... the dog thinks I'm funny....)
I don't generally buy new canning jars. I started out with hand me down jars. Over the years, I've inherited quite a few and found even more through bookface. Friends and family know to send jars my way too. The newer jars don't have enough glass in them and I love seeing what jars I find in the boxes I bring home. This weekend, I found another small jar haul and I was so pleasantly surprised at what was in it!
We use the 24 oz asparagus jars for iced tea, they are the perfect size. I can add a lid and ring to keep anything inside from spilling out too. I don't can in these jars just because of their more valuable use to us on the daily. They are very hard to find. IF you can find them new, they don't even come in cases of 12 anymore, only 9! I was blessed with 15 of these beauties!
Then these squat 12 oz jars are also unusual. There were two in this batch and they appear newer than the old old ones that were used for filters on the old tractors. What?! Yes, you read that right, they were added to the air intake on the old tractors to sift out large particulates before the air went into the engine. I added water to the shoulder and it's exactly 12 oz.
In the antiques, there were 18 glass top bail closure jars and a couple dozen blue quarts and pints. Then for regular canning jars there were a couple dozen regular mouth quarts and a couple dozen regular mouth pints.
After that stop, I went to the thrift store and found 17 more jars! Yippee! Most are ready to be used for canning. I'm only going to have to soak a few of them.
Grimy Jar Soak:
Fill your kitchen sink with hot hot water from the tap.
Add in a generous amount of dish soap.
Pour in several glugs of white vinegar into the water.
Place jars on their sides into the water, making sure they are fully submerged.
Soak atleast 20 min for light grime.
Soak for as many hours/days as necessary to take the gunk off the jars.
Wash well inside and out, rinse with hot water.
Jars are ready for use.
IF I have to soak a jar that has had a seal failure after canning and putting away; I will also run them through the dishwasher after doing the soak process. It just makes me feel better about sanitizing the germies.
IF this process does not take the lime scale off your jars, you can resort to using CLR. That's a whole other discussion. I have rarely had to resort to that method.
What jar deals have you found lately?