Every family has one person who’s an ace at opening sticky jar lids. It isn’t me! When I was a kid, the go-to jar person was my younger sister, Sue. Everyone in the family, including Dad, would take a turn at a jar lid that wouldn’t budge, and finally we’d hand it to Sue, and pop! — off it would come. “You loosened it for me,” she would always say, modestly.
I had a new jar of crushed ginger recently that I just couldn’t open. I tried using one of those flat rubber disks that companies and organizations plaster with their logos and give away as jar openers. No luck. I put a wide rubber band around the lid, which sometimes helps. It still wouldn’t budge, for me or for my husband. Finally I put another rubber band around the jar itself, and whaddya know, the lid finally popped.
I don’t know if it’s because the rubber band makes the jar less slippery in your hands or if somehow it equalizes the pressure in the jar, but putting a wide rubber bank around the lid AND around the jar can often do the trick when all else fails.
The rubber bands give you something to grip, that’s why it works. But where rubber bands come from is still a mystery!
My magical ability to open jars as a kid must have disappeared as an adult–for years I’ve been handing jars off to my husband and sons to open! And I have no memory that even my dad would pass them to me–really? Anyway, nowadays I use those rubber grippers, but also find that tapping the lid against a counter top loosens the vacuum seal.
If the jar has a vacuum seal, you can put the point of a butter knife under the rim of the lid and twist it a little. It will break the seal. Sometimes a old fashioned bottle opener will work.
Thanks, Rhonda! I’ll have to try that next time!