Chaos season... I mean canning season begins

Last year was my first ever canning year. I learned a lot, like patience, grasshopper, patience, also get it fast because the goods are going quick. I could kick myself for our laziness with cherries last year. Anyhow! Canning.

Our jam last year was runny, mostly because I didn't want to use TONS of sugar to make the jam "set" right. I found upon sleuthing Sure-Jell "pink" allows you to make jam using little to NO sugar! WOO HOO. Only the "no" sugar option is reserved for Splenda. YUCK! Regardless we were still able to use 1/2 the sugar the normal pectin calls for to "set" the jam.

Our reciepe:

8 cups of mashed strawberries
4 cups of (organic, fair trade, sugar)
1 package of Sure-jell pink box pectin
Sprinkle of Fruit Fresh (instead of lemon juice, helps the fruit stay color or keep from browning.)

From there we followed all the directions at Pick Your Own. This website has all the pictures and step by step instructions. We fudged on the recipe a little, it should be 6 cups of strawberries to 4 cups of sugar, but that was too sweet for us.

Which brings me to my most recent discovery. The Sure-Jell pectin from above is close to $3 per box. Which in the long run is expensive. So I tried to search out low to no sugar pectin in bulk. I discovered Pomona's Universal Pectin.

According to some forums I searched this is THE pectin to use. If you do a lot of canning (jam/jelly) this is the cheapest solution in the long run. It comes in 1 oz. 1/2 lb. and 1 lb. boxes. But here is the kick! It is so strong that 1 oz will make 2-4 batches of jam depending on the size batch of jam your making. The Sure-Jell (1 oz. package ) will make 1 batch of the above recipe. The only down side is you must weigh it out, because it is in bulk. It won't be an issue for me because I have a kitchen scale.

I bought some of the Pomona's Pectin for future batches of jam, I'll review it after I try it OK?



Our 36 lb. of Strawberries ended up in 15 pints of Jam and 18 lb. of vacuum sealed for freezer and future use. We plant to go back up and get more for right now eating and possibly more jam... gifts maybe?