I spent Memorial Day picking strawberries and making preserves. I'm
fairly new to this, with just a few batches of preserves under my
belt. This time I had several jars that didn't seal during the boiling
bath. I didn't check the jars until 24 hours after canning. I'm left
with 2 questions:
1) if the preserves sat unsealed for 24 hours, can I still use them? I
put them in frig. in case I can. One jar I realized didn't seal almost
immediately and put that in the frig. and have used it. It hasn't set
up yet, but tastes fabulous! (if I do say so myself.)
2) any ideas on why a low seal rate (about 2/3 of the jars sealed
properly) my method was a bit different from past tries in that I
boiled the empty jars/lids first, then put them in a 200 oven until I
needed them (read an article that suggested this.) In times past I
kept them boiling in a separate stock pot until I needed them. After
filling, a 10 minute boiling bath in a canner.
Thanks!