Personally, I'd just say ... Don't Worry. There are people -- many people, in fact -- that do not process their jams and jellies. Some people just turn the jar upside down for five minutes after they're filled with hot jam, then turn it back right side up ... and the lid will ping and seal. With a proper recipe and clean jars I'd say you're good to go. Jams and jellies have a pretty good shelf life, and you might want to eat these sooner rather than later. But if you're really concerned, you could always freeze the jars and take them out as you need.

And now you've learned and you'll continue doing things a little closer to the guidelines! Good luck.

You won't risk serious illness with jam. There is a possibility a seal could fail or mold could grow. In either of those cases you would know. Personally, I wouldn't sweat it but would use those jars first.

Thanks for your quick replies. I know sterilizing is important, I just wasn't sure if the lack of it would ruin jam. ( I'd probably be more concerned with veggies I suppose). Additional thoughts welcome but advice above is much appreciated!!

I'd probably be more concerned with veggies I suppose

Yeah with veggies it would be a whole different story and response.

The easy thing to do with jams and jellies is just always use 10 mins. regardless of what the recipe calls for.

Dave

I was always trained to process jam/jellies for 10 minutes. I didn't even realize that by sterilizing you could cut the time. 10 minutes go by so quickly, I'm usually making sure I have my towel and space ready and before I know it, it's been 10 minutes. To me, you can't get sterilized enough in a home kitchen, but that's just me.

Did you use a standard sort of recipe, with a lot of sugar? If so, they'll be fine.

If you used little or no sugar, they will ferment, and it would be worth the bother to recan them with new lids (for 10 mins this time :) or store them in fridge or freezer.

They would probably keep several months in fridge, unopened, if you want to go that route.

Thanks all.

Also, I didn't mean to imply you can cut time processing by sterilizing. However, USDA says that jars processed in boiling water more than 10min need not be pre-sterilized (http://nchfp.uga.edu/how/can_01/sterile_jars.html). Jars processed for less time (ie: some jam recipes that have instructions to process for 5min) should be pre-sterilized in boiling water for at least 10min. Because all my jam recipes to this point had called for at least 10min of processing I hadn't pre-sterilized. So I got didn't think to pre-sterilize when I used this new recipe that only called for the jam to be processed for 5min until after the fact.

And yes - the two recipes I didn't pre-sterilize on were both standard and contained lots of sugar. Thank you!

USDA says that jars processed in boiling water more than 10min need not be pre-sterilized

Exactly. Which is why we always recommend processing for 10 mins. regardless of the lesser processing time that may be called for in the recipe.

Dave

If you had a no-added-pectin old-fashioned full-sugar jelly you might want to go 5 minutes because the product can be very delicate and you risk breaking the jell. Otherwise I'd do just what Dave says.

Carol