If you are ever in the mood to share those jam recipes, I would very much appreciate being on the ping list.
Ive wanted to learn/try canning for EVER and finally have the time and plan to start this year. Also, if you have any canning tips I would love to hear them.
Thank you, FRiend!
I use Pomona’s Universal Pectin. You can make triple recipes and the jam still sets. This makes a batch that comes out to 7 pints, exactly a canner load.
The basic recipe is:
12 cups crushed fruit
3-4 Cups sugar (to cut the tartness)
Then follow the recipe from Pomona’s for the correct amount of pectin for each kind of fruit.
I ALWAYS mix the pectin with the sugar and slowly pour it in the fruit while stirring continuously. That way the pectin does not clump.
I check my set by taking a teaspoon and putting a little jam in the freezer to cool it quickly and see what the set is like.
One thing I learned the hard way is to not over process the jams.
I put the hot jam in hot jars (I do exactly what the canning book tells you not to. This doesn’t mean that I am advising you to do the same as I can’t do that. However....... I’ve NEVER had a jar crack on me that way. Anyway, I put my jars in the oven and set it to 200 and NO higher. It gets the jars hot enough that there is no cracking from thermal shock but not too hot to be dangerous. I use a towel to take the jars out of the oven.)
So I fill the hot jars with the hot jam, put the lid on and process for only 5 more minutes. Any longer and the jam is likely to come out runny. I’m not sure why but I’ve noticed that over processing does something to the set.
For the blueberry jam, I add 2 teaspoons of cinnamon, putting it in the sugar/pectin mixture. Blueberry jam with cinnamon it is is out of this world and makes better pb&j sandwiches than grape jelly, and doesn’t get those annoying crystals in it. It’s AWESOME.
If you have any more questions, never hesitate to ask. I can so much that it’s very likely I left something out that I take for granted but someone else will not think of.
And peach jam does real well with cinnamon too, and I’ve heard the key to good peach pie (and I would presume jam) is also a little nutmeg. I never tried the nutmeg but imagine it would work well.