[Casey76]

If I wanted to bottle some home made pasta sauce, can I put it into sterilized hot jam jars and invert til cold, or do I need to boil the jars?

They don't have to keep forever, and would be kept in a fridge

I've done a fair bit jam, but not sauce before.

Thanks

[shokkyy]

Yes, you do need to heat seal them or they'll start to ferment.

[mumofstig]

^ I'll second that 

[Kleftiwallah]

Yes, for the sake of healthy living, I would put your sauce into warmed glass jars and boil in water 3/4 of the way up with the lids slightly loose.  Then romeve from the water and tighten the lids.  There is (in my opinion) no need to invert the jars.

I find it far less of a fiddle to freeze the prepared sauce in the (chinese) takaway plastic trays.

Cheers,   Tony.

[Casey76]

OK, second question...

Can I use jam jars, or do I have to use kilner-type jars?

And to confirm Tony's suggestion (because I want to make sure I've understood correctly), I put them in a pan with water up to 3/4 of the height of the jar?

How long do I have to boil the water for?

Thanks ever so much

[mumofstig]

Jam jars are fine  
here's how to do it - personally I put the lids on fairly tight so the vauum is pulled while the jars are in the hot water and check that they won't tighten more when I take them out
http://chat.allotment-garden.org/index.php?topic=82201.msg918774#msg918774

[Trillium]

Definitely process the jars further, either water bath, or as I do by pressure canning to ensure everything stays edible. There's a misconception that because tomatoes are considered acidic that they'll keep in non preserved jars. In reality, they are not acidic enough to keep by themselves, less so if you added things for flavouring like onions, celery, etc that all help to raise the pH level even further.

Kilner type jars or mason jars are better as they have thicker seals than jam jars, plus, the jars are better able to take the boiling heat without cracking. Most water baths should have the water above the lids to ensure even heating, hence the need for proper bottling jars.

For water bathing, I'd recommend at least 30 minutes for pint jars, 50 for quarts to be safe

[Casey76]

Thanks mum, you're a star... guess what I'm doing tomorrow

Trillium, for the future I might invest in some kilner jars, I can easily get the 500ml ones, but I'm looking for 200ml ones, i.e. individual portions.

They don't have to keep long, my pasta sauce is quite versatile, and relatively low calorie, so it's pretty much a staple.

I've been known to have it on a baked potato, use it as a pizza base (top with cheese no extra veggies needed), use it as one of my 5-a-day as a side dish with red meat, stick it in the oven with a chicken breast on top... you get the picture

[shokkyy]

I use ordinary jam jars cos I just find the clips very fiddly on the kilner jars, and because I picked up a job lot of 100 new jars on ebay for very little

I had problems getting mine to seal last year, because I bought a new range cooker with an induction hob, and of course my big maslin pan is aluminium so it wouldn't work on it. I had to use my biggest stainless steel pan, which meant that once I'd put a tea towel under and round the jars to stop them jiggling into each other they were sticking out of the water a fair bit, and the seals wouldn't pop. I finally hit on a solution though. I've got one of those sets of metal mixing bowls, and I found if I inverted the biggest one over the top of the saucepan it kept the heat in really well and the seals popped very quickly.

[Casey76]

One more question...

I had great success at the weekend.  Made a small batch to experiment, and got 2x 500ml kilner jars and 3 200ml jam jars.

How long can I expect them to keep, bearing in mind the sauce has no preservative in it?

Planning to scale up at the weekend when (if) I receive my new kitchen scales.

[mumofstig]

traditionally, in Italian families, they lasted from one harvest to the next, as long as they're mostly tomatoes, herbs and garlic.

As long as the lids have sealed they will be fine - obviously keep an eye out for any that that get bubbles in, as they have started to ferment.........
I like to use the jam jars with 'buttons' on the top cos you can see (and hear, cos they pop) that they've made a good seal 
Any that haven't sealed succesfully will only store for a week or so in the fridge