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Storing drinking water in canning jars

Canning jars
The biggest problem with storing drinking water is that it takes up a lot of room....


Weekend Homesteader paperbackEvery good homesteader has a hundred or so quart size jars.  Jars take up the same space whether they are full of beautiful fruits and veggies or empty.

A great way to store water is in those jars once you use your precious preserves.  Water and preserves need the same storage requirements --- dark, cool, rotated often --- so you can put those shelves to use in the off season to store drinking water for emergency power outages.

Do you have a great idea to share with Weekend Homesteaders?  Enter your photo and short writeup and win a t-shirt!



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Storing water in canning jars

Great idea. I typically fill a jar with water when I don't have a full canner. This keeps the jars from rattling together and in my mind makes the process more efficient since I have to heat up that space anyway and water is a better heat sink than air.

Up to now, it was just a jar. Now I'm going ot start putting a boiled lid on it so it seals. This will fill that empty jar and make sure the water is sterile.

Comment by Fritz — Tue Nov 15 12:32:42 2011
comment 2
duh....why didn't I think of that?
Comment by fostermamas — Tue Nov 15 17:39:15 2011
Canning drinking water
I was thinking about that idea as I read Kathleen's tip. I guess, the question is whether you want to "waste" a canning lid to ensure the sterility of the contents. I might be tempted to put the water-filled jar in the canner, but use an old lid that no longer ensures a seal, then just plan to rotate the water every six months to a year as you would with an unsealed container.
Comment by anna — Tue Nov 15 18:02:07 2011
Can't see the forest for the trees
Fostermamas --- For the same reason I didn't --- it's such an outside the box, awesome idea. :-)
Comment by anna — Tue Nov 15 18:05:32 2011
bottled water
Years ago, the Mother Superior of our local convent was my patient and once presented me with the gift of a can labeled "Dehydrated Water." Directions: just add water and stir.
Comment by doc — Tue Nov 15 18:09:05 2011
Dehydrated water
The fact that the gift is funny (to me too :-) ) just shows how accustomed we are to having clean water flow out of our taps on demand....
Comment by anna — Wed Nov 16 09:50:34 2011
comment 7

You know how dangerous dihydrogenmonoxide is, don't you?

Comment by Roland_Smith — Wed Nov 16 16:26:30 2011
DHMO
I didn't read the whole website, and their FAQ wasn't all that helpful. Is that the chemical that can seep into foods from the canning lids? If so, I wouldn't be terribly worried from this application --- properly canned food (or water for that matter) would never touch the lid.
Comment by anna — Wed Nov 16 16:43:42 2011
DHMO
Dihidrogen monoxide is also known as water. The site is a joke to show how outragous warnings can be sometimes and to point out that even common things such as water have killed more people than exotic stuff has. I am sure even if you don't remember that you ran across Jim with a flyer from that site back at swat.
Comment by Rebecca — Wed Nov 16 20:59:30 2011
Oops
Ah, yes. That would explain why my quick skim of the website couldn't turn up any facts.... :-) And here I thought it was just badly designed.
Comment by anna — Thu Nov 17 08:37:50 2011
Water canning
I love the idea of canning water,especially in emergencies, Has anyone read the magazine Mother Earth News? the one with the pic of canning jars on the front, read the article on Drought on page 12. A friend of mine just told me she seen a tv program they was saying part of the sun is gone, it burned out. And yes you can google it.
Comment by Brenda A — Sun Jun 7 19:58:18 2015
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