Mason Jars

Discussion in 'General Survival and Preparedness' started by Motomom34, Apr 22, 2018.


  1. Motomom34

    Motomom34 Monkey+++

    I have Mason jars empty. I have Mason jars with canned food and water in them. I looked at my supply of extra jars and thought I needed more then I noticed I have dozens of jars filled with stuff. Three Mason jars fill with screws, nuts and bolts. I have a mason jar full of buttons. We use Mason jars in our house for drinking glasses and to hold food. Do you use mason jars for everyday use? Just to hold stuff? I find myself moving away from plastic storage contains because of toxins and Mason jars work. Glass is heavier then plastic but it is reusable.

    Here are some of my Mason jars being used in my kitchen and porch-
    IMG_3709.JPG IMG_3710.JPG IMG_3711.JPG IMG_3713.JPG

    Those solar tops for Mason jars are worth the cost. I bought my solar tops off of Amazon almost 2 years ago. I have left them on and in the weather. They still work, still bright. These are a must have item IMO.

    Next up on the Mason jar list is to collect/buy some more, melt down my old candles and make new candles. I have some Mason jar candles I feel they are safer and keep better when sealed.

    So what do you use your Mason jars for? I wonder if people are utilizing their jars in ways that I haven’t thought of yet.
     
    GOG, tacmotusn, Asia-Off-Grid and 5 others like this.
  2. Thunder5Ranch

    Thunder5Ranch Monkey+++

    I love my Mason and Ball Jars, I store rice, beans, popcorn, sugar, flour, herbs and just about anything dry that I want to stay dry and bug free in. Of course I save the big jars plastic or glass from everything else like spaghetti sauce to dill pickles come in. Sometimes I get a jar with a chip on the rim that makes the jar useless for food and I fill those up with Fire Fudge and wax seal them and use the Fudge for starting fires in the wood stove or setting off stump remover. (Won't give fire fudge recipes but it is a incendiary compound that can range from near goo to almost solid and is usually in a state that is can be molded and tends to be sticky in nature.) Anyway best not to store jars of it in your kitchen cupboard ;)
     
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  3. Bandit99

    Bandit99 Monkey+++ Site Supporter+

    We use them for everything and anything! I have one specifically for me sitting over the kitchen sink as a water glass. Why? Because I like it.
     
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  4. Ura-Ki

    Ura-Ki Grampa Monkey

    Same here, we use them for every thing, and I mean EVERY thing! I even twisted up a bronze handle for one of the big Balls and that's my Coffee mug! Lol
    I love that the size is uniform, and that you can find them all over the place both new and used, and they still work when ever you need. We have around 600 of them put up with various food stuff, and prolly 200 or more filled with other things, including ready to go Black Powder in three grades! I also like that they will fit the cup holders in a couple of the trucks, so I can toss a snack and a jar of pickles in and be good to go!



    P.s. don't tell the Wife, I may or may not have swiped some of the canned Black Cherries for a snack!
     
  5. Asia-Off-Grid

    Asia-Off-Grid RIP 11-8-2018

    Where I called home while growin' up, mason jars were used for specific purposes:
    • Momma's fig and other preserves.
    • Drinkin' sweet tea, lemonade, or moonshine.
    • Small hardware parts storage in my dad's shop / garage.
     
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  6. Ganado

    Ganado Monkey+++

    i drink tea of the the Ball brand because they have pint and half jars with wide mouth. Best tea glass ever!

    i do most of my fermenting in these as well. I just modfied teh lids to fit a airlock

    i cant find the thread where i showed how to modify the lids. I think it was when i made kim chi and posted it but i cant find the thread
     
    Last edited: Apr 22, 2018
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  7. duane

    duane Monkey+++

    I am trying to gradually reclaim the mason jars that I use around the house and shop. We buy a brand of spaghetti sauce that is close to natural and as low in salt as we can find that comes in a glass jar that will take mason jar covers. I use those for nuts, bolts, screws, etc. We have as a staple of our diet applesauce with oatmeal and the applesauce comes in a heavy plastic 46 ounce jar with a heavy plastic lid that seals well without the plastic seal that you tear off when you open the jar. I use that in tool boxes, for greenhouse chemicals, etc, and anywhere else there is a danger of breaking a glass jar and with a ziplock bag for dry food storage. We tend to wash and clean our mason jars as well as we can and store them clean and dry with extra seals. If we ever need them all, it would probably be to can the food in the freezer due to loss of power, to can the fresh garden produce because there are no freezers, to process meat in an emergency when there are no freezers, to can food when there is either no power for the dehydrators or I don't want to tempt the neighbors by using a solar one. I kind of think that if TSHTF and I brought the wife 30 or more jars that I had just dumped the hardware out of. I would have two problems, one with the unsorted hardware, and the second with a very upset wife looking at all the dirty jars with motor oil etc on them.
    Most of the food stored dry or as leftovers in the refrigerator is stored in the heavy plastic containers the food comes in when you get take out soup at the Chinese restaurants, they will stand microwaving, not the cover but the container, wash well in the top shelf of the dishwasher, stack well in the fridge or freezer, last for years, and they are free, they come in two sizes and nest perfectly to store in the cupboard..
     
    Last edited: Apr 22, 2018
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  8. Mom used to use Ball/Mason for canning almost everything. Veggies to meat. She grew up during the Great Depression and didn't lightly discard anything. She sorted any jar with a chipped rim and used a zinc lid with a rubber ring. Are these still available?
     
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  9. Seawolf1090

    Seawolf1090 Retired Curmudgeonly IT Monkey Founding Member

    Mine have been strictly for canning. I use plastic coffee cans and other nonbreakable containers for hardware and small parts.
     
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  10. ghrit

    ghrit Bad company Administrator Founding Member

    MT peanut butter jars are good for the small stuff.
     
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  11. Seawolf1090

    Seawolf1090 Retired Curmudgeonly IT Monkey Founding Member

    Don't know the "MT" brand.
     
  12. ghrit

    ghrit Bad company Administrator Founding Member

    :lol: Next time you look down the neck of a beer bottle to see what's left and there's nothing there, that's an MT brand bottle.

    My bonnie looked into the gas tank,
    the height of its contents to see.
    She lit a small match to assist her.
    Oh bring back my bonnie to me.
     
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  13. Motomom34

    Motomom34 Monkey+++

    For the ice tea drinkers here, I found the perfect accessory. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B018XBP9GM/?tag=survivalmonke-20 I use this tea infuser and make a quart of ice tea. It is perfect and I can use my loose teas. We used to make suntea but those big jugs of the same flavor got boring after a few days. This way I can make small jars of ice teas/ different flavors.
     
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  14. Motomom34

    Motomom34 Monkey+++

    I am not sure about the zinc lid but the rubber rings are still available. They are sometimes called tattler rings. I got the flat rings like my Grandma had.
     
  15. ochit

    ochit Monkey+

    Backwoods home magazines "ask Jackie Clay" is a great canning information source look up her articles.

    Mason or ball canning jars in any size or configuration are fantastic.
     
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  16. GOG

    GOG Free American Monkey

    About four years ago I bumped into a guy whose parents wanted to get rid of a bunch of canning jars. I filled the back of my Ranger and the area behind the seats with I don't know how many jars, but a whole bunch and then some. IIRC it cost around a hundred bucks and was an amazing deal. :)
     
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  17. Seawolf1090

    Seawolf1090 Retired Curmudgeonly IT Monkey Founding Member

    Being a long time mainframe programmer doing batch processing, my mind works very literally. Often odd undefined terms go under my radar, as they are unresolvable. On forums, I just bail out of that post and move on.

    I tend to buy "Classico" brand spaghetti sauce. They use Mason jars.
     
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  18. Motomom34

    Motomom34 Monkey+++

    Those are unsafe for canning. Classico itself has a blurb on their site saying their jars are not made heavy enough and could break.
     
  19. Illini Warrior

    Illini Warrior Illini Warrior

    ditto - those sauce jars are nothing but regular molded glass - no heat tempering like a canning jar requires - it's Russian roulette when that jar is going to go - busting apart when you lift it out of a canning pot or pressure canner is just about every canner's nitemare ....

    same same on those old mayo and pickle jars - just because they have the same size neck & thread doesn't make them a canning jar .....
     
    Last edited: Apr 23, 2018
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  20. BTPost

    BTPost Stumpy Old Fart,Deadman Walking, Snow Monkey Moderator

    We save all the Ragu Sauce Jars... They are just fine for Boiling Water Canning..... AlaskaChick likes to make "Cake in a Jar" using them, for Christmas Gifts...
     
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