Originally published at: http://boingboing.net/2017/08/04/use-plastic-lids-and-mason-jar.html
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I use the 1 gallon size for cold brew coffee, home made style. It’s delicious and as strong as a kung fu grip.
1] grind beans
2] place beans in mason jar
3] add H2o / water
4] wait 24 hours
Kung Fu Grip cold brew ready to serve!
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Wow. Learn something new every day.
Lids. On jars. Amazing.
(sorry.)
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Storage jars are far more interesting than you’d think!
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This is good, because I like to save some of the jars that we get from my mother in law for dry good use (she loves to can stuff from her garden) but I’d prefer lids like these. I also found the big jars work great for foaming milk with a stick blender for home made cappuccino - stick blend the cold milk, then microwave a little.
And for those people that do can, can someone please explain to me why narrow mouth jars even exist?
I can’t for the life of me understand why - other than not throwing old ones away. My MIL will at times have those in the mix and we give them back or stick them in a corner in the pantry.
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I think the normal canning lids are cheaper. Available at every grocery store as well, which avoids the inevitable return because of broken jars.
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Also (voting for the usual metal lids)…
If you’re not using the jars for food, but say, keeping different sized bits of hardware in them in the garage, unless you regularly plan on applying a plasticizer/polymerization agent (like maybe armor all) to your plastic lids, prepare for inevitable failure/cracking within some years.
On the flip side, I’ve got some jars of hardware in a box in the garage that I inherited from my grandfather. Metal lids are still good to go…
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Ahm, obvious insight is completely obvious, no?
Maybe to some people this is still news:
~Reduce —> Refuse!
~Reuse (This means not to throw away all the jars one buys right away)
~Recycle. (It’s on the bottom of the list because it’s the least effective)
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Kung Fu Vibrating Grip!
My wife says I never throw away anything. No true!
I do recycle all most all our glass containers but save and clean the plastic lids.
I use them to replace metal lids that rust after cleaning. Also, I can sometimes replace a lid with one that has a snap type opening or holes like a shaker on to glass bottle that did not come that way. Looking at this photo now it looks like I have been beach combing for plastic.
Narrow jar mouths make for neater pouring.
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Neater pouring out? I’ve never noticed, but most canned things are chunks. And I’d certainly think putting chunks in a jar with a wide mouth would be easier.
“Easier pouring” is kinda the TL;DR version. Back in the '60s, when I was first exposed to canning, it was all about cost and efficiency. That is, country folks canned because it was cheaper to grow/process/can food than to buy (tin-)canned food in the store; actual pennies mattered. Small lids cost less. They also failed less – the old latex-lined lids had to be heated just-so before applying, and do-overs rarely worked. Narrow necks were stronger, less breakage. (Also, these were folks who cut their canning teeth in the days of wax, when mistakes cost even more.)
Typical canning fare was spaghetti and other sauces, chutney, relish, mustard, ketchup, vinegars, jams & conserves, “medical” soups, baby food, syrups…lottsa pourables, and I’ve pbly forgotten more than I listed. Yes, there were large pieces to can – peaches, beets, cabbage-like stuff – but pbly no more than pourables.
(200+ cans was no big deal, back in the day when a ‘small’ family was ‘only’ 3 kids. Sheesh…in my grade school class there were 4 different kids who had at least 5 siblings – you measured their families’ canning output in station-wagons-ful. Maybe it was different in town; I grew up rural - 
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Yes, I am a city boy. 
My wife’s from a rural town in Indiana as well was my own maternal grandpa.
Though he left Indiana as a young man, all that stuck and he and my grandma used to can a fair amount - especially for non rural people.
My wife said that when she was young her parents canned a lot, all of which they grew. She told me when she moved to CA it was the first time she’d really ever had mass quantities of fresh fruits and vegetables because her mom canned everything they grew. She’d never had a fresh steamed green bean. Which seemed weird to me, as I’d think you would have some for dinner while in season.
Oh, this brings back memories… my grandparents used to do just that, on both sides of the family.
Yep, slowly replacing my last set of plastic on plastic lock n lock containers with mason jars and these lids. Canning makes good holiday presents and when I get empties back I use the plastic tops until it’s canning time again.
Billionaire, film director, and aviation pioneer Howard Hughes was way ahead in the storage of his own urine in very similar glass jar containers. A genius such as him recognized the versatile nature of such jars.
Our household uses Mason jars for beverages.
That’s awesome. I have old memories of helping Mom boil maybe a hundred tomato jars, plus jelly and jam if we had time, but we were amateurs in comparison to what you describe. These days, my own family still puts away a lot of produce, but we’ve mostly shifted to freezing. Easier, and fruits and veggies taste so much better. But we hope the freezer never goes out while we’re away!
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You can also reuse one-piece metal lids from some types of prepared spaghetti sauce, etc. Best of both worlds.
