Freezing Mason Jars Like A Pro

I recently had a major malfunction with a poorly executed attempt at freezing mason jars.  Instead of beautifully frozen oat milk, I ended up with oat milk and glass shard surprise.  I managed to cause the untimely demise of four-quart size jars by assuming that I knew what I was doing.  This is my attempt to right my terrible wrong and to make sure these jars did not die in vain.  

First things first.  You must understand that glass can be a fickle b!tch and sometimes, even when you do everything right, (which I did not) it wants to crack and drive you bat sh!t crazy.  Having said that, if you do everything right you can greatly minimize the opportunities for glass to be the aforementioned fickle b!tch.

Step one.  Know your jars.  There are wide mouth and regular mouth.  I was trying to freeze quart size regular mouth jars and I thought it would be okay because I left about an inch of headspace and left the caps off during freezing.  Quart size regular mouth doesn't care about headspace because of the curve between the mouth and the sides of the jar that is known as the shoulders.  It isn't even recommended to freeze quart size jars, wide mouth or regular, but if you are going to do it anyway give at least an inch or so of headspace on a wide mouth jar and don't even dare to freeze a regular mouth quart jar.  

There are some mason jars that are recommended for freezing.  These jars are designed without curved shoulders to allow for easier expansion.  Some are regular mouth and others are wide mouth and they come in a variety of sizes.  You can look at the side of the box of jars and it should have a chart that tells you what is freezer safe and what isn't.  If you don't have a chart, a good rule of thumb is that if the size of the jar is less than a quart and the sides are straight, ie, no shoulders, you should be able to freeze them as long as you leave headspace and either leave caps off during freezing or just put them on very loose.

Step two.  Cool jars go in, cool jars come out.  What I mean by this is that glass can crack when exposed to extremes in temperature.  If you are freezing broth that is still hot or warm in the jar and you put it right into the freezer thinking it will cool in there before freezing, you are wrong.  Remember that glass wants to crack and you need to outsmart it.  You need to cool the jar and the contents completely before you stick that baby in the freezer.  Cool it in the fridge if you want but never in the freezer.  Frozen glass coming out of the freezer should also be treated gently.  Thaw it in the fridge or on the counter but don't try putting that thing in hot water to try and thaw it faster or you'll end up with glass shard surprise.

Well, there you have it.  Straight sides, headspace, cool in and cool out.  Good luck!