If you want to make jam or preserve fruit yourself, you should definitely sterilize your jars beforehand. We’ll show you three easy ways to get them germ-free fast.
If you want to try your hand at making jam or preserving fruit and vegetables, you can’t avoid using mason jars. You don’t have to buy these again – just collect your old jam jars, vegetable jars and other screw-top jars.
Before you reuse these jars, it’s important to rid them of any germs. Otherwise you risk that your filled compote etc. will become moldy or go bad. Glasses are sterilized with the help of heat, i.e. germs and bacteria are killed. Below we present three simple methods of how this works.
Sterilize jars in boiling water
The first variant is also the most well-known method of sterilizing glasses. All you need is a large pot.
Pour water into a large pot.
Place the open jars and lids inside. The glasses must be completely covered by water.
Bring the water to a boil and let the glasses boil in it for ten minutes.
Sterilize jars in the oven
You can also sterilize glasses in the oven. This is useful if you want to clean a lot of or large glasses. You do this as follows:
Rinse the glasses with hot water first. For example, pour water from the kettle over them.
Then place the jars in the oven. Caution: You should not put the lid down with you. These are only sterilized with hot water (step 1).
Then set your oven to around 130 degrees Celsius and put the jars in for 15 minutes.
Then let it cool down first or take it out of the oven with gloves on.
Sterilize glasses in the dishwasher
The third and last variant is also suitable for a larger number of preserving jars. What do you need for this? Just your dishwasher!
Put the glasses in your dishwasher like normal dishes. You put the lids in individually.
Choose the hottest level of the machine and start the program. You don’t have to add dishwashing detergent or dishwasher tabs.
Remove the glasses after the round and fill them up as quickly as possible.
Important: The preserving jars must be alone in the dishwasher. You should not put other dirty dishes in it.
Also: No matter which variant you choose – you should always clean the glasses immediately before filling them. This guarantees sterility.
