Allotment Gardening Advice Help Chat

Eating and Drinking => Cooking, Storing and Preserving => Topic started by: Finrodfelagund on October 26, 2011, 13:59

Title: Shelf life of food once opened
Post by: Finrodfelagund on October 26, 2011, 13:59

Hello all

I am new here.  Just been getting the preserving bug and made a couple of jars of mulled pears.  One of them sealed great, the other didnt  :(

What can I do?  What does reprocess mean and if I decide to eat the pears how long will they last inthe fridge?

Also when I open the other jar in the future how long will it last once opened?

Any help gratefully appreciated.

Thanks  :)

Title: Re: Shelf life of food once opened
Post by: mumofstig on October 26, 2011, 14:14

Once opened a jar should last a couple of days in the fridge.
Reprocess means heat the pears and liquid up to boiling again and place in hot and sterilised jars..perhaps a different jar if that one didn't seal properly :unsure:

Title: Re: Shelf life of food once opened
Post by: Trillium on October 26, 2011, 15:51

I'm with MoS on that. If I have to reprocess, I'll very carefully inspect the rim area of the bottle in case there's a slight chip I never noticed before. This will often stop the sealing process. I'll also always replace the seal itself since it failed for some reason in the first place.

If you're working with the metal self-sealing type, then you need to have the screw ring tightened down enough but not overly tight. Never leave them loose. And the contents do need to be at boiling point before processing so that your timing works out properly.

Title: Re: Shelf life of food once opened
Post by: Finrodfelagund on October 26, 2011, 22:30

Great help guys. Just what I was looking for.  Started eating the pears, they taste great so I got something right!

Will order up some new seals and reprocess next time it happens.

Spiced pickled pears and home brew chutney next....

Many thanks again  :)

Title: Re: Shelf life of food once opened
Post by: cheshirecheese on October 29, 2011, 17:55

I LOVE spiced pickled pears - my recipe says to leave them whole, but I find it's far better to halve them and core them first, because you can then fit so many more into a jar!  :)