The Preserver's Year

[Deleted User]

Hi Threepenny bit I use 1lb granulated sugar to 1lb rhubarb and the juice of 1 lemon per 1lb of rhubarb.  I pop the lemon halves that have been  juiced in the pan to cook with the jam but take them out before bottling it up.  For the ginger this year I used some frozen minced ginger bars I got from Morrisons and put in 1 bar for each lb of fruit and it's the nicest rhubarb and ginger jam I've ever made. It's a fairly soft set but we don't mind that.

I started work at 8 this morning and I've got 7 jars of plum (from our tree)jam and 2 jars of greengage (from DD's tree) jam cooling down on the table, I've cooked three bags of potatoes and skinned them and they'll be sliced and dehydrated when they're cool.  I've 3 lbs of home grown ripe tomatoes soaking in boiling water and will skin and core them and make another batch of chutney and we've a picking of home grown runner beans which I'll process and dehydrate later on, phew!

purpleivy

I keep getting messages for this, but can't work out how to stop them!

PipneyJane

Wraithlady said:

PipneyJane said:

Wraithlady said:

MIL has also offered us the rosehips from her large climbing rose bush - so rose hip syrup may well have to be added to the list! 

Do you have a reliable Rosehip Syrup recipe that you could share, @Wraithlady?  My roses are heaving with hips.  While my plan is to make rosehip jelly, the last batch I made lasted us for years.  (We don't eat a lot of jam.)  An alternative would be useful.

- Pip

Yes, sure.
The one I use is the River Cottage one:
1 kg rosehips
1.25 - 1.5 litres water
500g sugar (approximately)
(If you have more or less rosehips, just adjust accordingly)
Rinse and chop the rosehips, either by hand or in a food processor
Put in a pan with the water and bring to boil, then simmer for 15-20 minutes.
Mash the pulp with a potato masher or a wooden spoon (just mildly, you don't need it pureeing!) then strain through a jelly bag or muslin cloth, leaving for a good few hours or overnight.
(Hugh then strains it again, I don't bother)
For each 500ml of juice, add 350g sugar and heat slowly in a pan until the sugar has dissolved, then bring to boil and boil for 3-4 minutes (if it's too thin, let it boil for longer, it should be fairly, well, syrupy)
Pour into sterilised bottles and refrigerate once opened.

there are recipes which require you to re-boil the pulp and then combine the two strainings but unless you're trying to maximise output, I've never bothered with.

Thank you, @Wraithlady.  I am not certain I will try it this year - it depends on how many hips are harvested - but I will save the recipe.

- Pip

PipneyJane

purpleivy said:

I keep getting messages for this, but can't work out how to stop them!

@purpleivy - you have two choices.  In your preferences, you can choose to receive an email for EVERY POST or none at all on your bookmarked posts.  Alternatively, you can unbookmark a thread and hope that you'll be able to find it again if you need it/want it.  (There are no daily digest emails now, so you don't get one per active thread that you've bookmarked.)

Personally, I turned off the email option then saved a link to the tab listing all my bookmarks.  

- Pip

threepenny_bit

PositiveBalance said:

If it's any help @threepenny_bit, I just made 16 jars of rhubarb and ginger jam using this recipe:  https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/rhubarb-ginger-jam and it is being very well received.

Reports are that it is a well-balanced recipe and that you can taste both the rhubarb and the ginger but that neither overpowers the other

Thanks so much PositiveBalance! Will have a go  
I found a big 4lb bag of frozen strawberries in the freezer, by the time I rinsed the ice off them they looked a little dilapidated! I made a jam with them and lemon juice and zest; not a recipe I had seen before but gave it a go and it is sweet with a little lemon after taste and really nice. 

AltosRule

Can I make a plea for help from the combined wisdom of experienced fruit bottlers? I tried bottling plums at the weekend using the River Cottage Handbook recipe for spiced plums. I used the oven method and screw band jars, and have ended up with air space down to the shoulders of the jars, if that makes sense. They have definitely sealed properly but I'm wondering if I did something wrong and if they will keep ok.

I found the description a bit unclear so what I did was to pack the jars with fruit, fill them with syrup to the top and then put the flat lids on top but not the screw bands. Was this wrong? I know for the water bath method you should put the screw bands on, tight less a quarter turn, but Pam the Jam says "do not fasten with screw bands" for the oven method so I left them off completely until I took the jars out of the oven.

I'm still really proud of my 3 jars and definitely want to get better at doing this....all help much appreciated to help this bottling novice along!

PipneyJane

AltosRule said:

Can I make a plea for help from the combined wisdom of experienced fruit bottlers? I tried bottling plums at the weekend using the River Cottage Handbook recipe for spiced plums. I used the oven method and screw band jars, and have ended up with air space down to the shoulders of the jars, if that makes sense. They have definitely sealed properly but I'm wondering if I did something wrong and if they will keep ok.

I found the description a bit unclear so what I did was to pack the jars with fruit, fill them with syrup to the top and then put the flat lids on top but not the screw bands. Was this wrong? I know for the water bath method you should put the screw bands on, tight less a quarter turn, but Pam the Jam says "do not fasten with screw bands" for the oven method so I left them off completely until I took the jars out of the oven.

I'm still really proud of my 3 jars and definitely want to get better at doing this....all help much appreciated to help this bottling novice along!

What do you mean by "oven method"?  I'm not sure I understand, @AltosRule.  (I'm not familiar with the River Cottage Handbook.)

Cheers

- Pip

AltosRule

Hi @PipneyJane , sorry for the delay in replying, been out all day and am just catching up.

The RC handbook gives 2 methods for bottling fruit, a water bath method and an oven method. I don't have a pan big enough to easily do the water bath so tried the oven. The book says to heat the oven to 150deg C, and stand the fruit-packed jars on a folded tea towel in a baking tray filled with water to 3cm deep. Then it says to fill the jars with boiling syrup and cover with the jar tops, but not to fasten with the screw clips. I'm not sure if this meant not to put the screw clips on at all, or put them on but not to tighten them - which is what I did. It then gives a time chart for different fruits which for halved plums was 50-60mins. After the prescribed time you take them out and seal with the screw clip.

I've definitely got a good seal but I'm a bit taken aback at seeing so much air space in the jars. I'm guessing the contents maybe boiled over too much in the oven and too much liquid escaped out of the jars? My syrup was hot but not boiling when I put it in the jars, might that have been part of the problem do you think?

Any thoughts or suggestions gratefully received! I do have a pressure cooker pan so I could try the water bath if I can't get the oven method to work but I'm a bit nervous about all the boiling water as the pan wouldn't have much working space.

PipneyJane

Hi @AltosRule.  Thank you for explaining the methodology.  All my preserving books say to put the bands on, so I think you did the right thing there.  (What I do, is put them on tightly and then loosen by a full turn, before sterilising.)

I’ve just checked all my “special” preserving jars and I’d say that having an inch gap is about right.  One reason why there may be a bigger than expected air gap is because the fruit continues cooking during the sterilisation process.  (It may just have softened up and compressed down a bit.). How full were the jars before you put them in the oven?  Was the fruit fully covered by syrup?  Do you have a jam funnel?  (That would help with the messy business of filling them up.)

You mentioned not using boiling syrup.  Having the syrup boiling is part of the sterilisation process because it influences the time it takes to get the jars hot enough to sterilise them.  (The purpose of “sterilising” bottled fruit is to drive out the air, creating a vacuum so that bugs can’t get in and grow.  It should also sterilise the contents of the jar BUT different methods are more/less successful at doing that so the contents of the jar must be taken into account when picking a sterilisation method, e.g. you have to pressure-cook jars of chicken stock, because there’s nothing in them - like vinegar - to create a hostile environment to bugs.)

Whether to use your pressure cooker, is another question.  It depends on the size, the quantity and what you’re making as to whether that’s feasible.   I have a 10 litre pressure cooker, that I’ve used once or twice as a “pressure canner”, but you can use yours - lid off - for the water bath method.  It takes 3 or 4 jars of preserves, depending on their diameter.  (Line the bottom with a folded up tea towel, then use another, folded tea towel to pad between the jars.).    It’s the thickest based pan I own, so it doubles as my jam making and chutney making pan.

- Pip


PS:  If you want to follow an American recipe for “pressure canning”, your pressure cooker must reach 15lb of pressure.  

AltosRule

Hi @PipneyJane, that's very helpful, thanks! I packed the jars as tightly as I could and I'd halved the plums so they would fit better, but inevitably there were gaps. Perhaps next time I should halve them again for a tighter result. They were completely covered in syrup, I don't have a jam funnel but a measuring jug and a steady hand did the trick for filling the jars. They did puff up while they cooked in the jars and then collapsed down when they cooled, so perhaps that was another factor.

I think I would need to get hold of some tongs if I was going to use my pressure cooker pan - it's a 5 litre high dome so I think it would fit 2 or 3 bottles in, but there wouldn't be much space around them to pick them up safely. I can see this becoming a hobby where I could very easily collect equipment!

Oh, one other question if I can ask...the RC handbook says that if you're using the water bath method for plums you should fill the pan with warm water (38 deg C) then bring it to a simmer (88 deg C) over 25 minutes, then maintain the temperature for 20 minutes. Is your method like this? I'm not sure how crucial these timings are or how high I'd have to have the hob turned up to follow the instructions - I guess I can only try!

Thank you again.