Dear Home Ec 101,
I was given a whole bunch of glass canning jars and I was wondering if I could use them to freeze things like homemade stock? I don’t own a pressure canner, but don’t want these to go to waste.
Signed,
You Really Frost My Glass
Heather says:
Some canning jars are excellent for freezing. Straight widemouth jars are safe in the freezer. Don’t forget to leave a good bit of space at the top, aka headspace, to allow for the expansion of water during freezing.
If your jars have shoulders either skip the freezer entirely or only fill them 2/3rds full. If you don’t leave a significant amount of space below the narrowed opening, the jar may break as the water in stock expands. You see, water isn’t smart enough to know it has room above the shoulders, it simply expands in all directions. Use care, as cleaning glass fragments out of a freezer doesn’t sound like much fun.
I use extra canning jars to store items like dried beans and odd grains I have in small amounts (wild rice, quinoa, millet, etc). Not only are they functional, they are pretty, too.
Send your household questions to helpme@home-ec101.com.
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The other thing is not to put the lids on til they are frozen. The expansion of the liquid as it freezes will actually blow off the lid and blow up the jar!
Why don’t you purchase a water bath canning kettle? You can find them quite cheaply at hardware stores, around $25-30. (Or check out rummage sales, thrift shops, etc.)
Great idea to keep grains, etc in canning jars. Especially over the “off” season. I am going to get my jars out and start using them instead of leaving small amounts in the box. Thanks for that!
Be -very careful- when freezing glass and always put it in the back of your freezer on a level surface. Glass, when it gets super-cold, has a higher capacity to shatter when dropped, and the last thing you want is frozen bits of ANYTHING mixed with glass all over your floor … or worse, on your toe.
Another benefit of freezing a lot of this is that a freezer that is FULL uses less electricy to stay cold than one that has a lot of empty spots. So….not only are you keeping your groceries fresh over the long haul, you are cutting down on your power bill and usage!
Thanks for the tips……I, too, had forgotten about putting grains in the freezer this way to keep them fresh!
my lemons don’t stay fresh only 2 days they go old and how do i keep them and fruit fresh longer . tired of the waist on them Thank You
Shirley Dean
Hey Shirley. There really isn't any way to keep the lemons longer in their whole state. I've tried various methods. What you could try, though, is what I have recently done. I bought a whole bunch of organic limes (tons of juice and more flavor – healthier, too), and juiced them all. Then I immediately poured the juice into ice cube trays and froze it. I measured first to see how much each ice cube tray held, so I'd know about how much each cube would be on the flip side. Then once they were all frozen, I popped them out, and put them all in a freezer bag. Now, whenever I need fresh lime juice, I just grab a cube or two. yummy!