Seasoned Advice is a question and answer site for professional and amateur chefs. It only takes a minute to sign up.
Sign up to join this community
I made peach chutney yesterday, hot ingredients into hot sterilized jars. Wiped the rims. After submerged in boiling water 20 minutes, and sitting placidly on counter all the jars popped but one. Today when checking the seals, depressing the center of lid, the one that had not popped on its own, popped. Now I am not sure if the seal of that jar is good.
Is it OK to store it, or should it be used and refrigerated immediately?
You should either store that jar in the refrigerator or reprocess it with a new lid.
The vacuum formed is not going to be as strong as your other jars and may be temperature sensitive. It may stay sealed on the shelf, but it may not. I wouldn’t risk having to discard the whole jar.
As long as the lid doesn't pop up again, you're OK, I'd say.
IMO the reason that this one didn't pop on it's own could well be because that jar was more full. More full means less air. It's the contraction of the air as it cools which creates the vacuum that makes the lid pop. If there's not enough air, its likely that insufficient vacuum will be generated to cause the pop.
The fact that it did pop when you pressed it re-enforces this. If the seal was bad, it would have let enough air in that it wouldn't stay down when pressed.
Note that I've never made jam/chutney, but am fairly well versed in Physics!
jams have enough sugar in them generally speaking to preserve them even sitting out in the open. If you water bathed them correctly time wise, the air left inside is purified by temperature , the contents was heated to 220 to 221 degrees to Jam set , then, I would not even worry about it. I have had that same thing happen, and have never had a jar of jam go bad. if its jam, and NO OTHER product, shelf it. That would NOT be true for any meat product or a tomato based product , only high sugar high acid products with a PH level of 3.5 or less.your stomach has a PH level of 3.5 or less...you have 2 preservatives working in Jam ,High Sugar and High Acid....and the air inside was purified by a 220 degree temperature
