Yesterday, the grapes looked like this. I didn't want the birds to get ALL of them. So I picked a tub full. Today I cleaned up 5 pounds of grapes, de-stemmed and washed. I tried to choose the darkest and bluest. Then I smashed 'em, cooked 'em, added a bit of water, filtered out seeds and skins, then added some sugar and pectin, boiled... canned. OK, technically this is jelly, not jam. So maybe the title should be "We be jellin" LOL. I had to do some research and calculating. The recipe was from a Sure-Jell (low sugar pectin) package insert and called for "1 package'. But I only had Ball low sugar pectin in a big container. So I looked up the Sure-Jell package weight - 49 grams - and weighed out that much Ball pectin. These aren't cooled yet, but the residue in the pot was nicely gelled. The Sure-Jell instructions say you can't substitute another brand (of course it does) but the store is out and I don't want to drive 30 miles. These are "Buffalo" grapes, similar to Concord but with shorter season so they produce here. I never water or fertilize them, aiming for the local "terroir" LOL. I do need to get into them and prune out the blackberry vines, invading from the neighbor's yard. Them's thorny! This is a tasty, richly flavored jelly. If I feel ambitious, I could make another batch next week.
Mmmm I love grapes and would happily scoff all that jelly. I'd do it to just help you make room for the next batch of course.
Amazing! I'm hoping to make jelly from all the wild grapes around here once I get all my other canning done. Hope the birds leave me some!
Logan, it's not too difficult. It took me a couple of hours not quick. It's nice to open a jar in January or February and have a taste of summer on some toast. Plus, no high fructose corn syrup or chemically modified petrochemical sweeteners...
Looks good Daniel. I have never tried either of those brands. Until this year I always used Certo because that's what my mom used. But it took so much sugar it was crazy. So I took a year off (last year) looking for something without dextrose, sugar, GMOs, etc. This year I found Pomana's Universal Pectin. It was so good! You can use no sugar if you want. But because I was using raspberries I did use some. Plus lemon juice. But I liked it so much I will be using it going forward.
That's great, i can get pectin and a preserving sugar here but never used them, I've just used ordinary sugar.
Is there a difference? I don't remember ever seeing that over here. I have pickling salt for pickling (obviously) but I didn't know about preserving sugar. Hmmm....learn something new every day!
We use that geleisuiker for jamming as well, Loggie. Our brand is van Gilse. This company also makes a product without the pectin added. That can de a challenge getting the combination of pectin and sugar right, as each fruit type has a different amount in it. Also the level of ripeness is a factor. The already mixed geleisuiker removes that guesswork and then one can tailor the cooking time for correct thickness. We keep a plate in the fridge for determining this. You take the cold plate out of the fridge, drop a drop of jam onto it and wait a few seconds. Press against the edge of the jam drop and look for wrinkling as you push your finger further. this technique will let you determine what the thickness will be in the jar, once the jam has cooled off. When we open the jam for use we determine the quality and record it and the jam type, the date, how much fruit was used (weight) and how much geleisuiker. We also note how many jars the weight the fruit fruit used made. We save this to use as a reference the following season. It is handy to not have to do the calculations all over again.
I did the same thing this year with Pamona's. It uses calcium water as a reactor for the pectin so I wanted to be sure it thickened. Everything over here has recipes with it, but I still wanted to be sure.
That's great Sjoerd, there's a apple pectin in a bottle, but i can't load the picture it's too large no matter what i do, it's from Sainsbury's.
Better safe than sorry, aye Willow. We use different tricks to make some fruits jam to the correct thickness. Like Loggie, we have used apple pectin, but in the form of not-yet-ripe green apples. We have also used small amounts of rhubarb, especially in strawberry jam. Lemon juice we also add. Is that brand Certa, Loggie? Or is the type you are speaking of in powder or tablet form? We also sometimes use a powder that comes in small sachets.
