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How To Use Your Vacuum Sealer To Seal Jars?
Last Updated March, 2023
Nowadays, you can find lots of vacuum sealer models in the market that can be set up to work with a large variety of containers such as mason jars, glass canisters, plastic deli, and marinade boxes, thus making them more versatile than their bag-only counterparts. In this article, we focus on how these machines can be used to seal glass jars.
Mason Jar Sealing Feature?
Only the best vacuum sealer featuring a specialized vacuum outlet port can be used for pressure-sealing jars. Even so, you’ll need to connect a few extra attachments to get the job done. Normally, these attachments come bundled with the vac-sealer, but if they aren’t, nothing to worry as you can always purchase them separately.
First off, you will require an air extraction tube. This is a narrow plastic hose that connects to the vacuum outlet of your machine. The other end of the hose connects to a top-hat shaped, plastic attachment that will fit on top of a mason jar. This component is available in two sizes i.e. regular or wide-mouthed, so take stock of what kind of mason jars you have at home and buy the attachment accordingly.
How To Vacuum Seal Standard Mason Jars?
For better understanding, the entire process starting from preparing a standard mason jar for pressure-sealing to achieving the intended result has been broken down into four simple steps and explained below.
- Prepare The Mason Jar: When you fill the mason jar with food, make sure that you leave at least an inch of empty space from the mouth. This is especially important when storing dry food of a powered nature as some of it can easily be sucked through the hose and end up inside the machine. Keep aside the metal ring that came with the jar and use only the flat lid to cover the mouth of the jar.
- Fit The Jar Sealing Attachment: This shouldn’t be too hard if you are using the appropriate (either regular or wide-mouthed) sealer attachment. Basically, you’ll need to firmly push the attachment downwards over the jar’s closed mouth until you can no longer see the neck of the jar.
- Attach The Air Extraction Hose: Connect the ends of the tube into their respective positions i.e. the opening at the top of the jar sealer attachment and the small outlet on the vacuum sealer. Check to see that both ends fit snugly into their respective openings otherwise the requisite vacuum pressure won’t be created and you won’t get a tight seal on the jar.
- Begin The Vacuum Sealing Process: Press the right button on your vac-sealer to start the air extraction process, which should shut down automatically once the pressure has been achieved. With older models requiring manual supervision, the trick is to keep an ear out for a characteristic popping sound and switch off the appliance immediately after.
Sealing Atypical Jars
In order to seal Classico glass jars (normal pasta jars), you’ll need to a larger, cylindrical canister that has the sealer attachment features incorporated into its lid. So, apart from the usual inlet for the hose, the canister’s lid will also have a depressurize button at its center.
Basically, what you do is fill the jar with the required constituents and screw the lid back, but not too tightly. The glass jar then goes into the canister, and it too is closed shut using the special lid. Connect the hose into the inlet provided on the lid; do the usual pre-run checks and start the suction process by pressing the right button on the vacuum sealer. What this will do is suck out all the air inside the canister, including what little that is trapped between the mouth of the jar and its lid.
Once the suction process is over, press the depressurize button on the canister’s lid. This will allow the air to gush back into the canister, thus instantly sealing the jar’s lid. While this procedure won’t extract all the air inside the jar, it will nonetheless do enough to create an effective air-tight seal that will keep outside air from entering into the jar.