Ot canning question.

My wife bought some tomatoe sauce in glass bottles, I tried a mason jar cap and seal and they fit. I saved them to use for canning. I was reading a book about canning and they recommend not using commercial glass jars. So I guess I will toss them, but I was wondering if anyone has used them in a pressure canner or Boling water canner?

have used mayo jars over the years, never a problem.......

Wife says when she grew up her mom used jars like that for years and knows others that have and as long as they seal they're fine.

We have too, but typically, the later ones are lighter weight, more subject to catastrotic failure. Wife has been systematically discarding them as they come up for use in favor of brand names. "Course all the mayo jars are plastic now, not worth a darn for canning.

Like the others, we used whatever we had, mayo jars, Ball, Kerr.
As long as they sealed we never had any trouble.

They are handy for hot packing maple syrup or for other things that do not require pressure canning or prolonged boiling, but I have only used jars that say MASON on them somewhere for actual canning as such.
Zach

The commercial jars are lighter weight glass and made for one time use. For that reason they recommend you use mason type jars for canning.

With that said I have seen people use commercial jars over with the original lid and it work. Doing this you need to fill the jar with like items as it came with originally cause some lids are not made to seal with some items.

For me I will use old commercial jars with new lids for hot water bath type foods only.
For a pressure canner I use mason jars only because of the extra heat and the increase of spoilage from hair line cracks in the glass.

Thanks that's what I was worried about.

Lol, That's what I was thinking all our mayo jars are plastic now.!

Classico spaghetti sauce is in Atlas mason jars, and Mom likes those for tomatoe soup as they're just a hair under a quart, and it's about right for 2 people to eat. The rest, she chucks. She sells jams, salsas, kraut, etc... at the local farmers market and has to buy new jars all the time. Once in a while, an older gal will get to talking and then either sell or give all of her jars and lids/rings to my mom.

She's got some lids marked at $.36 that still seal just fine...

Donovan from Wisconsin

To do real canning you need true made for home canning jars. Ya I know of people who have used jars like what say a tomato sauce came in and have done ok but they can will will cause odd problems from time to time. Shoot i did some pickles not long ago and one jar I had from who know when the bottom fell off but I know it was at least 20 years old

ASked my sister, the retired Home Ec teacher and long time canner. She concurred with the others- mayo jars and other stuff is OK for water bath canning (fruits), but for pressure canning, stick with the real thing- Mason, Ball, Kerr.

Jay:

Commercial (non-canning) glass jars are fine for COLD canning, ie: Pickles, etc. where you don't have to boil them or pressure cook them. As others have said, the glass is thinner than your normal canning jars such as Ball / Mason / or Kerr; but the major difference is in the glass itself, the commercial glass is missing one key ingredient - Colemanite. While Ball / Mason / Kerr jars are not Pyrex glass, they do have minute amounts of Colemanite in the glass to allow them to withstand extended boiling and pressure canning.

Colemanite is a Calcium/Sodium Borate mineral that has a high coefficient of thermal expansion and when added to glass or ceramic materials in minute quantities gives the glass or ceramic materials the ability to withstand sudden extreme temperature changes. That's why you can take "Corelle" cookware right out of the freezer and put it in the Microwave without it shattering. Colemanite is also used in many other products such as Owens-Corning "Pink" Insulation, Pyrex Glass, the ablative tiles on the Space Shuttle, glass automotive headlights, eyeglasses, medicines, paints & coatings, and even for nuclear radiation shielding.

There are only TWO known deposits of Colemanite of commercial size in the world today, Death Valley, California and the country of Turkey. I worked as a Union Certified Top Millwright / Senior Underground Mine Maintenance Mechanic for the American Borate Company at the Billie Mine in Death Valley, Calif. - the LAST operating mine in Death Valley National Park.

Doc

i must be in real trouble, my shelves are full of tomato juice in mayo jars,..and i use a pressure canner

I love those Corelle dishes

thank you for the info

Back in the good old days, when times were bad, my wife used anything a canning ring would screw onto. I particularly remember an old tall oval shaped jar that she used for years. Mayo jars - you name it. Over the years she has inherited her grandmother's jars, her mother's jars, some of my mother's jars and many that other relatives have given her. You could say that she's rollin' in the dough, as far as canning jars go. She still uses an occasional wide mouth Mayo jar, usually for pickled beets, but mostly uses regular canning jars. They'll either seal or they won't. She did break one jar in the pressure canner this summer. It was an old green mason jar that cracked around the bottom. I made a porch light shade out of the top of the jar.

No lives have been harmed by her nearly 50 years of canning.

If you use non-standard jars, you risk a higher rate of jar breakage and failure to seal. If the risk of food loss from breakage or having to eat the food quickly (put it in the fridge) due to a failed seal is an acceptable risk, then use any glassware you want.

Of course, any person that cans is always taking these risks and should always be able to identify a jar that hasnt sealed properly so it really is a pretty low risk. Same with breakage, can you risk losing that food? Pretty low risk if you ask me, last week you had zero jars of food and this week you have 99, would have had 100 but a jar broke. Shrug. Sucks cleaning out the canner though....

Main problem with mayo jars in pressure canner is breakage- if they don't break, and they seal, you're fine. We never used them in pressure canner because we always did some water bath too, so just used them all for that.

We've used tons of them over the years with minimal problems. Occasionally one will break, but you will have that with name brand jars too. Some will require two lids to make enough space to get a good seal, but if they seal they are OK.