What To Try if Your Jar Didn't Seal

This happened to us yesterday, and I thought maybe if someone reads this blog, who is new to canning, the info may help them....so thought I would post about it.

Yesterday, after the canned apricots came out and sat on the counter, one of the seals did not seal. How could we tell?

Hard to tell from the pics, but I'll try to explain. When you take the jars out, it's important to Leave them Alone on your counter for 24 hours. Sometimes it takes awhile to hear the tell tale ping of the jar sealing.

Who has time to sit there and listen for 7 or 8 jars to ping? Not me....so I just leave them alone for one day and then check them.

You can tap on the lids....you'll hear the different hollow sound of a seal that didn't seal, if ya know what I mean. It sounds....well, hollow.

You can also give each seal a bit of a press down....if it doesn't move, it is sealed. If it moves, then give it the tapping test....

So there's the one jar that didn't seal (on the far left) .Because I moved on to pickling beets today, I added it to that canner full.

Now, this is important. The beets have to be in the hot water bath for 35 minutes. The apricots had to be in for 25 minutes.

So, when there was 10 minutes left on the timer, I knew that that one jar of apricots had been in there for 25 minutes, so I took it out. Then I let the beets continue for another 10....right?

In this case, the jar of apricots still did not seal. OK...well, now I'm going to just stick it in the fridge and we will eat it up within 2 weeks. If it had sealed, then it should sit on the counter for 24 hours, then get put in the pantry.

It is Really Important to let those jars sit undisturbed...don't be tempted to move them, tip them, push on the seals...nothing! Don't do it - you could disturb a seal in the midst of sealing itself down on the lid of the jar.

EDITED: Ooops, thank you Anon for pointing out a crucial detail I hadn't put in the original post!

In order to re-seal a jar, you need to remove the lid and clean the rim of the jar very well. Place a new lid on the jar, tighten down the ring like usual, then process.

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