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jams and fruit pectin

13 years ago

Hello I am new at this. I just made my first 2 batches of strawberry jam (more like strawberry soup) my daughter syrene and I were so disappointed after all the reading,book and supply buying we did. I followed the ball recipe for strawberry jam, maybe the strawberries were too ripe, we used sure pectin the second batch did get kind of thick but we have 4 pints of soup. Do you think 7 cups of suger is a bit much? To me the jam was very sweet aren't there jams that call for less sugar and the same 1.75 box of pectin. It is very hard to find fruit pectin in new york. City. I've checked pathmark,ace hardware, most health food stores (except whole foods that's tomorrows mission) hardware stores in the lower east side, keyfood,walgreens, trader joes my list can go on. Ace will order it for me for $5 a box. I did find it at walmart in NJ next time I will buy them out, any how I don't want sugarfree recipes just if I use less sugar am I ok, like using 5 cups instead of 7 and when can I try to recan the 4 pints, today, its been 2 days now do I use another box of pectin oooh please help, yoshi

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Comments (4)

digdirt2
13 years ago
Wife is the jam expert in out house and she reports that the very best powdered pectin she has discovered is the Ball No-Sugar pectin. It allows you to just sweeten to taste so this year she has cut all of ours to 1 cup of sugar rather than the 4-7 called for in the recipes. Everything has set up exceptionally well.

But for future reference, she tells me that strawberry is one of the most difficult fruits to work with and I think others here have said similar things. Too ripe strawberries almost seems to guarantee you a poor or no set. They really need to be under-ripe to work well on their own. When mixed with other fruits, no problems.

You and your daughter now have some great strawberry syrup for pancakes this winter though. ;)

Dave

PS: DW says any pectin is better than Sure-Jell in her opinion
readinglady
13 years ago
Commercial pectin is not 100% reliable, but I have also found some jams do require more cooking time than the directions call for. It can be hard to know these things when you're just beginning.

Overripe fruit will definitely cause problems because it doesn't have much natural pectin and strawberries tend to be low anyway.

With regular pectin (not the reduced-sugar Dave mentioned) you do have to use the amount of sugar called for. If you reduce the sugar the jam won't set. (Not that yours did anyway, but you see what I mean.)

Using 25% underripe berries will assist in setting.

Since it's difficult for you to find pectin, consider buying in bulk. There's an example at the link below, but pectin is available online at several suppliers and you may find a better price elsewhere.

If you end up paying $5.00 a box, even with shipping bulk pectin is a savings.

Carol

Here is a link that might be useful: Bulk Pectin
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The processing time doesn't affect the set, so regardless of whether it's 10 minutes or 20, the set will be consistent. However, 20 minutes is totally unnecessary and I have no idea why that recipe says that. The cooking time will probably not make these preserves stiff as the acid-pectin ratio with strawberries makes a stiff set difficult to achieve. You'd really have to cook the he** out of that preserve for that to happen. However, if it is overcooked, the flavor may be caramelized and the preserves may move to the browner end of the spectrum. I looked at the recipe and instructions. If the preserves do foam, it will be during the initial cooking. All the instructions say to do after the preserves have rested is re-heat to "hot" and that's what I'd do. If there is any foaming at that point it would be minimal (some small flecks) but generally if it's been well-skimmed, you won't see any. Carol
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It isn't just that it may not set properly; it's that by the time the mixture has been cooked down to the proper set point the preserve has lost a lot of its fresh flavor. You have basically 7 cups of product in the original recipe (fruit and sugar). Doubling would be 14 cups and 3 1/2 quarts of product is just a lot to deal with. As mentioned also, both the raspberries and the peaches are on the lower end of natural pectin, so even optimally this will fall naturally on the softer-set end of the spectrum. Carol
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yoshi4696
Original Author
13 years ago
Thank you Dave
So now I have lots of peaches and I will try the no sugar pectin and add sugar to tast. 7 cups of sugar made me feel a little crazy. I thought u could only use the no sugar pectin wih sugar free sweetners like splenda but I will try it and use just less sugar, I did buy the liquid and powder no suger ball and sure pectin. Carol put up a great website for bulk pectin and I will puchase some of this too. Thank you.
Yoshi
yoshi4696
Original Author
13 years ago
Hello Carol
Thank you for the info
I went to the web site and found a lot of wonderful things I will buy the gel-ez regular pectin sounds good.you were right my strawberries were very ripe so when I get the pectin I will try it with berries that are not so ripe. I have some peaches and I will try today with tthe liquid pectin that I have or maybe I will try with just lemons and see, this time I will try a small batch first
Thanks again
Yoshi

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