I love berry jam. Don’t you? It goes good on everything, in my humble opinion.
This is where I found my berries.
Early this year I bought a few blueberry bushes because I eat a ton of blueberries. They’re my favorite.
I’d always heard or read, can’t remember which for sure, that, like strawberries, it would take a year or so to start getting any berries.
Apparently, that’s not true. I was happy to see that these bushes were going to produce lots of berries. They didn’t produce a lot at one time, but as they matured, I harvested them and put them in the freezer.
Then one day I was out walking around the yard and found a mulberry tree. My husband had been hacking at it with a machete for quite a few years trying to kill it. Of course, we all know you can’t kill a mulberry tree, at least where I live. They grow like weeds.
There’s been a large mulberry tree on the property for years and I never got a berry from it. The birds ate them all before I could get to them. There’s always been purple bird poop on everything, every year.
But, this year, this tree, which is now a bush, continued to survive. And not only did it survive, it was covered in mulberries. Beautiful, ripe, purple berries, that tasted awesome. I couldn’t believe the birds hadn’t noticed this bush!!
So I started picking berries daily. I only got about 1/2 cup of a mix of the two at a time. I collected them, washed them and let them set out to dry overnight and then put them in jars in the freezer the next morning.
Me and My granddaughter discovered frozen berries make a great summer snack. Note to self for next year.
I decided when I got to 5-6 cups of berries I’d make some berry jam. It did’t take too long to collect about 5 cups. That seemed to be the magic number, because at about 5 cups both bushes finished their production.
I’m not complaining, I’m totally happy with what I got from them. Beside the 5 cups worth, I also got to eat some too.
Now it’s time to make some berry jam.
I found a non-pectin berry jam recipe on the Farmer’s Almanac web site. This is what I loosely followed. I’ve looked but I can’t seem to find the same recipe again to post a link.
I say loosely because that recipe used a different kind of berry and didn’t add lemon juice. I wasn’t sure about the acidity level of berries, so I figured it was better to be safe than sorry.
This is one of the books I use for my canning.
I have several, but this happened to be the one I used.
It has a chart that lists the acidity levels for several different types of foods.
If the acidity level is high you can water bath can your jam for preservation instead of pressure canning.
But if the acidity levels are lower you need to use a pressure canner to be sure you kill any kind of nasty bug that may make you sick.
As you can see, lemons and limes are at the low end of the pH levels which you would expect, and the berries are kind of in the middle.
There probably wouldn’t have been a problem, but since I had lemon juice, I decided I’d go ahead and use it.
Since I had the time I still decided to not use the pectin.
All I had to do was cook it a little longer. Actually, I probably cooked it a bit too long, cause it’s really, REALLY thick. But I’m okay with that.
It’s the first time I’ve made jam without the pectin. I wanted to make sure it got thick enough. I’ll call it an experiment instead of a mistake.
So I started with the 5 cups of berries I had been picking and freezing over the past month or so. It was a mix of mulberries and blueberries.
I poured them into a stock pot and heated them on low until the blueberries began to break and the mulberries got mushy.
Then I added the 3-3/4 cups of sugar. The recipe I found said 3/4 cup of sugar for every cup of berries. That seemed easy enough to remember and it’s less sugar than some of the recipes I’ve got for jam. I cooked this slow and stirred a lot so the sugar didn’t burn at the bottom. It won’t take long to melt.
Then I mashed them with a potato masher. You can mash these down as much as you want. I like the larger chunks so I didn’t worry too much about it. I knew the blueberries would cook down to pretty much juice, but the mulberries, which are sweeter, didn’t break down so much.
The recipe I read said without using the pectin you needed to cook it about 1/2 hour to 45 mins. I decided to go about mid way and cook them about 40 min on low. Next time I’ll probably just cook them about 25 min, maybe 30.
Make sure you stir a lot. I couldn’t get my burner down low enough, in my opinion, so stirred it almost constantly.
Now it’s time to can the berry jam.
I began by boiling water in the water bath canner. Then I put the jars in the canner while the water boiled to sterilize them.
Once the water boiled and the jars were sterilized, I filled each one.
While I fillied the jars, I boiled the canning lids. I’ve heard recently that that is a step that you don’t have to do anymore.
I’m not sure if there are new lids that don’t require boiling or if Ball just changed the rules. But since my lids are older, I’ll continue to boil them until it get new ones that read that it’s not necessary.
Once your finished filling the jars, you want to make sure the rims are clean. This will ensure there is nothing to obstruct the sealing process.
Then add the lids and rings. You don’t want to crank down the rings. Just finger tight. When you add them to the canner you want about an inch or 2 of water to cover your jars.
I waited until the water was at a rolling boil, then I lowered the jars into the canner. You can add them sooner, but you don’t want to start your timer until your water is at a rolling boil.
Then I processed them in the boiling water for 15 min.
Now they’re done.
Now you can turn off the heat, and raise your rack.
The best part about this is hearing the lids seal. They’ll begin to ping one at a time. In my opinion, this is the best part. Makes me smile every time.
Now you just wait for them to cool and you have preserved berry jam.
I put one of them in the fridge without processing it, so I could have some berry jam to eat now. I wanted to try it out. Then I labeled the rest and put them in the pantry.
If you have the equipment canning your own jam is really easy. Do your research and be sure to follow the best safety rules when canning. They are listed in all the canning books. Don’t be afraid to it a try. It’s really not as scary as it sounds.
If you have canned your own jam, let me know what kind. I’d love to hear what you’ve been preserving. Add your pictures to the comments.
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Until next time –
Health, Wealth & Blessings ~ Tracey