Return the pot to the stove and bring the mixture back to a boil and boil it for 1 minute. Test to see if the jelly is setting.
Remove air bubbles, wipe the rims clean and add the lids finger tight and process in a water bath canner for 10 minutes or according to your altitude. Without Adding Pectin Pour the soft jam or jelly into a medium-sized pot and add 2 tablespoons of lemon juice for each quart of jelly you measured.
Wipe the rims, add lids finger tight, and process in a water bath canner for 10 minutes or according to your altitude. Notes Process jams and jellies in a water bath canner: feet 5 minutes to feet 10 minutes Above feet 15 minutes. Recommended Products As an Amazon Associate and member of other affiliate programs, I earn from qualifying purchases.
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Sometimes after you have canned your jam, jelly or other preserves and let it cool, you open a jar, only to find it hasn't set properly an d is too runny! If your jam or jelly turns out too soft or runny, don't despair, and don't throw it away!
It can be fixed! Here's how! If the jam is too thick, before you put it in the jars, just heat 1 or 2 cups of grape juice or any other fruit juice of similar or neutral taste, like apple or white grape to boiling. Then, gradually pour and stir it in until you reach the desired consistency, then continue canning!
Or click here for a PDF version that prints nicely! If you want this page in metric units, click here! And Google has a great conversion calculator that will convert from any units to any units. It takes 3 ingredients for jams and jellies to set: pectin, sugar and acidity. The amount of pectin that is naturally occurring in the fruit varies from one type of fruit to another and by ripeness counter intuitively, unripe contains more pectin.
See this page for more about pectin in fruit. It takes the right balance, and sufficient amounts of each of pectin, sugar and acidity to result in a firm jam or jelly. And beyond the balance of those ingredients, there are two conditions that must be met: the right amount of heat for the right amount of time.
WHEN you add the sugar depends on the type of pectin you use. Follow your recipe, adding the ingredients in the order as directed. Here's a simple rule of thumb: When using powdered pectin for cooked jam, add it to the strained juice or chopped fruit BEFORE heating.
Next, bring the mixture to a full rolling boil a boil that cannot be stirred down. Enter the spoon: Before you start your jam, set a plate with a few metal spoons in the freezer. Then, when the foam has subsided and the bubbles have slowed, place a small dollop of jam onto one of the freezing-cold spoons and let it sit in the freezer for 5 minutes.
When you pull it out, the jam should feel neither warm nor cold. If the jam has properly gelled, it will hold its shape pretty well when you tilt the spoon, neither running off too fast like a liquid, nor seizing up and not moving at all.
If the jam is still too runny, just keep cooking it and performing the frozen-spoon test every 5 minutes until you achieve the consistency you want I used to keep 15 spoons in the freezer when I was first learning how to make jam—what can I say, I like to be prepared. If, on the other hand, the jam is rock solid, that means you've gone too far and cooked it too long. You can try adding a little water to thin it out, but bear in mind that after overcooking a jam, you can't really get those fresh fruit flavors back.
Let's say you have landed a gorgeous flat of apricots from a neighbor's tree and you want to turn them into jam without a recipe. How do you apply what we've just learned to making great jam? One thing to keep in mind right away is not to try to cram too much fruit into your jam pot.
The mixture needs room to bubble up while it's heating in order for the water to evaporate and the pectin web to form. I try to fill the pot less than half full of the jam mixture —that's all the fruit and sugar and lemon juice mixed together and you'll want to mix them together before dumping them into your jam pot if you're using copper; read about why in my installment on jamming gear.
Just as an example, my pot is about inches across, 4. There is some pretty easy math that will help you figure out how much sugar to add. First, you'll need to weigh your fruit after it's been cleaned of cores, stems, pits, and anything else not going into the jam.
I usually add somewhere between 40 and 70 percent of the weight of the fruit, depending on what kind of fruit it is. If it's a low-acid, low-pectin fruit like ripe strawberries, then I'm going to have to add more sugar, closer to the percent level. If the fruit is higher in pectin and has more natural acid—such as perfectly ripe blueberries with a handful of greener ones thrown in—then I'd add less sugar, closer to the percent level.
Let's say our prepped apricots, now halved and pitted, weigh 6 pounds and are perfectly ripe. I'll often go for about 45 percent sugar same for plums; whereas, with dark red cherries and tender peaches, I'd do a little more, about 60 percent. Almost all fruit contains some acid, but I always add lemon juice or another acid to a jam mixture, just to be sure the acidity is high enough and because I like the flavor. There's no great rule of thumb for how much acid to add to a jam, but you can get it right by adding it bit by bit and tasting along the way.
I generally add one ounce of fresh-squeezed lemon juice for every two pounds of fruit when jamming higher-acid fruit like tart plums , and about two ounces for lower-acid fruit like sweet strawberries. So for my six pounds of apricots, since they're on the more tart side, I'd probably end up adding around three ounces of lemon juice.
Remember: We can always add more acid but we can't take it away, so it's good to hold back a little and then add more as needed. To figure out if more is needed, start tasting. If the mixture still tastes mostly sweet, not tart or sour at all, add a little more of the lemon juice it's just like making lemonade: you know when it tastes right, perfectly balanced between sweet and tart.
One more note: If you add lemon juice towards the end of the process, you'll be introducing additional water, which can set you back a little in the pectin-web-making process. The solution then is to cook the jam a little more to get out that extra water from the lemon juice.
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