Help! Bramble Jelly Woe!

shewhoguards

After raiding the hill behind my house for fruit, I now have a lot of bramble jelly in my fridge.

Or I WOULD have - it's still liquid! And it's been there for hours already. Help?

nesssie1702

What is it you're trying to do with it?

If you're looking to make a jelly, you might need to get it to set with some gelatin (or agar agar if you're vegetarian)

If you're looking to make a jam/jellied jam, then you'll need to reheat it with some sugar and pectin (either in the form of other fruit or packaged), bring it to the boil and do the usual jam tests in terms of how well it's setting.

Isabelle

shewhoguards wrote: »

After raiding the hill behind my house for fruit, I now have a lot of bramble jelly in my fridge.

Or I WOULD have - it's still liquid! And it's been there for hours already. Help?

How much fruit to sugar did you use? Did you use preserving sugaror ordinary sugar?
It sounds like you didn't cook it for long enough. You need to put it back in the pan, bring it back to boiling point and keep testing it every couple of minutes. You need a cold saucer, drop a small amount of jelly on the saucer, it should set more or less instantly if it's ready. Good luckl, let me know how you get on.

Isabelle (just about to start making bramble jelly!).:rolleyes:

shewhoguards

I used preserving sugar, and I'm trying to get it to a jam.

I did use lemon juice and apples, but clearly not enough. Tesco had no pectin, so I'll try boiling again with more lemon juice.

shewhoguards

Gaaaah. I added more sugar. I added more lemon juice. If I add any more it'll start TASTING lemony. I boiled.

Been boiling now over an hour, still no joy.

Help?

hardpressed

I've never used pectin or lemon juice in blackberry jelly, just cooked the blackberries in a tiny amount of water till they're really soft give them a mash with the potato masher the put the whole lot in a jelly bag , square of muslin or an old tea cloth and hung up over a bowl to drip overnight. Then measure the juice and add 1lb of granulated sugar to 1pint of juice and bring to the boil, and keep it gently boiling till it's reduced by about half, keep checking until you get a good set.

mawerm

I, too, am having problems achieving a set, after about 30 mins of rolling boil. I don't want to boil away the flavour... I was wondering why I shouldn't use gelatine to set a jam-type jelly? I am more or less resigned to reboiling the whole 16 blessed jars tomorrow - but I would just like to know why!

Agapanthus

I never make bramble jelly on its own, but always with apple. Blackberries are low in pectin - and it's pectin that makes the jelly set. Apples are high in pectin.

I'd make up some apple jelly, add it to the bramble and reheat to mix it in well. Apple doesn't have a lot of flavour, so it'll still taste of blackberries.

Alternatively, see if you can buy some pectin in your local health food shop.

I wouldn't add gelatin - that's a different kind of jelly.

For future reference, there's a test you can use on your strained jelly before adding the sugar. Put some of the strained liquid in a saucer and add some methylated spirits. If there's sufficient pectin it'll go into stringy clots. If not, add pectin. (Throw the stuff in the saucer away afterwards!) You can buy special jam sugar that contains pectin.

dronid

Yes it's important to note that you're making a preserve rather than a dessert. Gelatin would make a jelly - the kind you used to have with ice cream. Preserves like jam require a good proportion of sugar to stop them going off and should set. As others have said you'll need to either add pectin in the form of another, high pectin fruit or use pectin itself. You can't really boil away the flavour - Jam reaches temperatures that are scary and you can still taste the fruit. It also reaches a 'set' periodicaly through the process, if you miss it you have to keep going until it sets again. What recipie are you using?

champys

shewhoguards wrote: »

After raiding the hill behind my house for fruit, I now have a lot of bramble jelly in my fridge.

Or I WOULD have - it's still liquid! And it's been there for hours already. Help?

My tried-and-tested method is to measure the juice (or strained liquid) you are using, and set aside the equivalent of 1 kg of sugar per 1 litre of juice. (note I don't use a jelly bag but a steam contraption to extract the juice, but the end result should be pretty much the same).

Next, I don't add the sugar to the juice just yet, but reduce, reduce, reduce the juice on a medium simmer first until it is about 60% of the volume it was before. Then add the reserved sugar and some lemon juice (approx 2 tbs per litre initial juice) and boil up to make it into jelly.