canning question

[mlynd]

OK I remember my grand mom using wax to seal her jars of jelly what I don't remember is if she used a lid with them too, any ideas ?

 

[Marianne]

I remember that, too! I think my mom put used lids on the jars with wax. Around here I'd have to or it'd have a layer of dog and cat hair by the time I got to the last jars.

 

[sufficientforme]

It is not considered a safe canning method by today's standards. My elderly neighbor still uses this method and every jar she has given me is not sealed properly.

 

[justusnak]

Its true...you can seal jams and jellies with wax...however...over time, the wax receeds...and air gets to the jam/jelly, and lets bacteria in. My mother used to do this as well....I don't..I like my jelly bacteria free! LOL

 

[rebecca100]

if you use a lid then there is really no reason to use wax. The wax sealed it the same as a lid would, but it is really not used anymore, and was only used on jams and jellies.

 

[Cindlady2]

It is a very old method and my family was rather good at it however even we had many jars that did not seal well. You are better off to use canning lids.

However, if you really want to try.....

For best results use jars that have a neck not the *straight jelly canning jars.
Make sure your jam is very warm as well as your jars. We kept our jars in sub-simmering water until we were ready to fill them. Fill the jars to or just a hair below the bottom of the neck. MAKE SURE THERE IS NO JAM ABOVE THE FILL LINE! The part you want to fill with wax MUST be clean and dry! Do no more than 6 at a time. Take your melted wax and slowly pour (almost a trickle) over the jam about 1/2 way up the neck. Then you can fill the next 6 with jam. When the first 6 have turned almost white you can pour in a little more wax. For this we would use a spoon and dribble it around the inside of the neck. Let cool without disturbing! This should give a halfway decent seal. If you have the old lids for the jars use them to cover the wax or cover with foil or wax paper and a rubber band.

*We found that it was harder to get a good seal with straight jars. The wax seemed to be too easily dislodged with them.

After a few days you can check the seal by gently tipping and rotating them.


Hope this helped... good luck!

 

[patandchickens]

OK I remember my grand mom using wax to seal her jars of jelly what I don't remember is if she used a lid with them too, any ideas ?

If you use wax you don't use a lid, the idea is that the wax itself forms the seal.

It is no longer recommended by the USDA etc, but honestly I don't think it can be described as "dangerous", just a lot more failure-prone than other methods.

REason being, it is real easy to end up with a fine gap between the edge of the wax and the glass, and mold spores get in there and grow.

Traditionally one just said "oh phooey" and discarded the obviously-moldy portion and ate the rest, but apparently the USDA decide that there are a couple of particular kinds of molds whose (very mild) toxins will permeate deeper into the jar of jelly, so one is Officially advised to throw the whole jar out. It is not like it is gonna kill ya dead and personally I think it's a matter of individual choice.

FOR SURE you get more seal failures than with lid methods, speaking as someone whose first 25 or so years of life depended heavily on PB&J sandwiches made from strawberry jam etc that was put up using wax (and I've done it once myself, too, just to be perverse LOL). Also, especially if you use the curved jelly jars (which reduces seal failure somewhat) it is sometimes really obnoxious trying to get the wax broken and OUT of there, without getting jelly all over the floor. Also also, it only really works on fairly firm jams -- softer preserves/conserves do not behave well with wax. *Also* also also, be real careful heating the paraffin, it is flammable and can cause serious accidents.

Frankly, considering the nontrivial aggravation of doing it and the greater number of mold-topped jars and the annoyance of having the occasional jar go "plooosh!" all over when you are trying to get the wax out to use the jar, I can't see any reason myself for doing it, unless you are stuck on a desert island with paraffin and a double boiler but no canning lids at all

Yeah, the paraffin is reusable (up to a point anyhow) but then frankly so are canning lids (ditto), for jams/jellies especially since the cosnequences of seal failure are not dire.

JME, good luck, have fun,

Pat

 

[mlynd]

ok thanks for all the info I was really thinking about it and I might try it since I have wax that is just sitting there I didn't know that i could reuse lids??do they have to be a special lid or can use the ball lids ??

 

[Cindlady2]

The idea of putting an old lid or foil or wax paper over the waxed jar was the because often the wax winds up in the jam! LOL It just keeps it cleaner.

Yes, you can reuse lids, just as you do new ones, however the "fail factor" is higher. Inspect the lids well for flaws before reuse.

 

[patandchickens]

ok thanks for all the info I was really thinking about it and I might try it since I have wax that is just sitting there I didn't know that i could reuse lids??do they have to be a special lid or can use the ball lids ??

There are special allegedly-infinitely-reusable lids for sale these days, I beleive the brand name is Tattler maybe? I have not tried them.

What I was referring to though was the regular ol' Ball (or whatever brand) lids, which can be reused "up to a point, albeit with lesser reliability". You need to be careful when removing them from the jars during opening, so as not to bend or dent them at all. And because the softenable seal material (that reddish stripe near the edge, that actually sits on the jar rim) "takes an impression" when used, there IS a greater rate of seal failure with reused lids. So I would for SURE never contemplate reusing them for pressure-canned goods, and really not for anything else either EXCEPT jams/jellies/preserves or very strong pickles and preferably only if you waterbath them (rather than open-kettle method i.e. pack while boiliing and then cross fingers)... i.e. things where you do not honestly NEED a super seal and if it fails the result will be both noticeable and nonfatal

I have gotten to where I reuse lids a fair bit for batches of jams/jellies/etc that I know I will not be giving to other people, and actually I do not think I have yet had a seal fail. But I would not personally do it where consdquences of seal failure (which is not always obvious) were higher, i.e. more vulnerable foods or gift jars.

Pat