Preserving equipment and Sterilising jars and

By Clare Chambers
@CerebralChasm

I am always interested know of or see the equipment other cooks use: 1. Because I'm nosy and 2. Because I might be able to pick hints and tips on how to make things easier.

Rather than trying to give directions on how to sterilise jars and lids with every preserve recipe I thought to give it its own 'recipe'

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Comments:

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Serves:

based on the size of the maslin pan up to 10 lbs of jam etc

Method:

Stove Top

Ingredients

: maslin pan
: jar wrench
: oven gloves
: wooden spoon
: ceramic or other good quailty sharp knife
: peg
: tea towel
: kitchen paper
: seive
: small plates
: teaspoon
: bowl
: chopping board (wooden if you are using a ceramic knife

How to Make Preserving equipment and Sterilising jars and

Step-by-Step

1To sterilise jars: Rinse jars in hot water and stand upside down on a baking tray. Place in centre of the oven and bake for 30 minutes at 180C. Remove jars from oven just before jelly is ready and place upright on tea-towel on work surface. - use good quality oven gloves when handling the jars.
I highly recommend the use of a jar wrench to hold and lift the jars. *see step 3
2To sterilise lids: Rinse lids in hot water and place top down in a saucepan. Cover with water and bring to boil. Keep on a rolling boil for ten minutes. Drain and place open side down on kitchen paper.
When putting the lids on the jars do them up firmly but not too tight.
3<------ My wonderful ceramic knife and olive wood chopping board.

If you are purchasing a ceramic knife buy a good quality one where the blade is deeper than the handle as this enables you to chop fruit and veg with ease. A lot of ceramic knives have a deeper handle than the blade which means you either have to chop using only the edge of the chopping board or you can not cut all the way through the item
4<------ here is a picture of my set-up and equipment.
5A maslin pan is a large saucepan with gently sloping side large enough to hold most single batches of preserves. The one I use is 7.5 litres.
6I could not live without my jar wrench as I use it to hold hot jars whilst pouring in the preserves a putting on the lids and to transfer hot jars elsewhere to cool.