If you love Mason jars, like I do, then a little part of you dies each time one is broken. Let me tell you about a little miracle box that will save your jars and their precious contents–the JarBox. These gems are the perfect solution to so many Mason jar problems. Let me walk you though how it works step by step.
First of all, Jarboxes nest when they are not in use. So they take up a bit of space but not enough to worry about; a lot less than cardboard boxes. They come in two sizes. One size stores quart-sized jars and one sized stores pint-sized jars. The JarBox will also accommodate some (not all) of the unusual shaped jars, and will allow you to use plastic lids when storing your dry goods.
Here is a closer look at the nesting.
And here’s a front view. Note the zip-ties, we’ll come back to those in a moment.
The top and the bottom of the box lock in place.
If you have more than one they stack on top of each other. These locator rings keep them in place and make it very difficult to knock (or push) them over or dislodge them from each other. However, they lift off of each other without difficultly for easy use.
Does this look familiar? Well, maybe you don’t can quite this much or perhaps you have a root cellar or a basement. I have neither and I live in a hot climate where storing filled jars outside or in the garage is not an option. Heat will destroy canned food. Also the temperature fluctuations are not good for canned food in storage. You should never stack jars on top of each other because if a lid becomes unsealed it can re-seal itself without your knowledge from the pressure of the jar on top. So toward the end of the summer (or ahem, presently…) my house looks like this with boxes against my walls.
The JarBox to the rescue! The Jarbox protects the jars by placing a strong layer of plastic all around the jar. The plastic lid does not set on top of the jars but leaves a good inch of space between the jar and the JarBox lid. Another feature of the JarBox is that it encases each jar in plastic so if for some reason one jar breaks the others are safe; this especially helps when moving your canned goods. When you pick up the Jarbox the jars do not rattle around or touch each other. The plastic totally protects each jar. So if you do have a jar come unsealed you can immediately tell and the lid will not re-seal itself. Because of this design you can stack the boxes! You can tell I need more JarBoxes because I didn’t quite get all of my cardboard boxes eliminated – did I mention I can a lot?
But it keeps getting better. The JarBox also has this tie down ring for extra security when stacked and moving. If you have your JarBoxes tied together you can just slip a dolly under them and move them anywhere. This is especially helpful if you live in area prone to earthquakes.
Here I’m using paracord to tie all the JarBoxes together but you can use rope or bungee cords, whatever you have to tie something down.
You can actually tie the JarBoxes down in three different places. See the extra holes? I just did one strap. Honestly, I would not bother with the straps if I were just going to stack them for storage, the locator rings do a great job of keeping the JarBoxes in place. If I had a climbing toddler I would tie them together as well as bolt them to the wall or stack them on a shelf unit that was bolted to the wall. With the Jarboxes full they do get heavy. So the stack falling on a toddler would be bad.
Don’t forget you can use the JarBox for any Mason jar. Not just jars you’ve canned. You can use them for jars you have stored dry goods in too. Like tomato power or dried peppers.
