The Prepping Thread - A Newer Beginning ;)

Muppet_194

Hi all, long time lurker/reader here, hope you dont mind me jumping in. 

Ive been picking blackberries and tucking them in the freezer for pies or crumbles some time, but as Im trying not to use my oven too often I bet I will never use them up. Can I use pre frozen berries for jam making?? 

DigForVictory

I do! Some plants ripen over time so I stash them in the freezer til I’ve a jam batches worth. (I use fresh apples or goosegogs for pectin.) 

littlemoney

Si_Clist said:

Funny old world, innit.  The chattering classes go to Waitrose and buy blackberries in plastic packs at £7.50 a kilo.  We wander about within a mile of home and pick them for free.  This year's seen a bumper crop hereabouts so over the last 11 days we've picked exactly 88lb between us.  That's 40 kilo, so at Waitrose's price we've got £300 worth.  And ours are organic ... 

(The answer to your question is we bottle some, make 20 jars of bramble jam, and make syrup from the rest)

Blackberries are very small here due to the lack of rain. Need a lot just to make 8 oz.

Auntycaz

Blackberries are also very small here too due to the lack of rain. I usually pick mine in the bushes surrounding waitrose car park as it is my nearest local store and I also cannot understand why people walk past them fresh from the bush to buy them in plastic tubs instore. They always bring back memories of holidays spent in our caravan at humberston as my mum always made a couple of bramble and apple pies to take with us along with lots of other premade items as the camp shop was so expensive.

DawnW

@Muppet_194 I often use frozen berries for jam making. Also other fruit, eg I save oranges and other citrus that have remained uneaten in the fruit bowl until I have enough for a batch of marmalade. I mix them all together too, makes a lovely mixed fruit marmalade - oranges, tangerines and similar, lemons, grapefruit, limes, they all work. It takes longer to set, and the set is a bit softer than traditional seville orange marmalade, but it tastes lovely.

I would note though, when using frozen berries, that it is a good idea to up the quantity of fruit to sugar a bit above the usual 50:50 ratio.

GaleSF63

Si_Clist said:

Funny old world, innit.  The chattering classes go to Waitrose and buy blackberries in plastic packs at £7.50 a kilo.  We wander about within a mile of home and pick them for free.  This year's seen a bumper crop hereabouts so over the last 11 days we've picked exactly 88lb between us.  That's 40 kilo, so at Waitrose's price we've got £300 worth.  And ours are organic ... 

(The answer to your question is we bottle some, make 20 jars of bramble jam, and make syrup from the rest)

The house I grew up in (city council house) had blackberries all the way down the side of the garden and we had fresh blackberries or crumbles all summer and my mother bottled some and made bramble and hedgerow jam (we went foraging as well). Consequently I've never been able to bring myself to buy blackberries having never quite got rid of the instinctive feeling that they aren't something you pay for!
The idea of walking past them in the Waitrose car park to buy them inside made me laugh!

Si_Clist

Auntycaz said:

... They always bring back memories of holidays spent in our caravan at humberston ...

Hmmm.  In the 1960s my Auntie Cath had a bungalow shanty in the Fitties Camp at Humberstone.  Stayed there a few times, picked blackberries there, and started a lifelong aversion to Elsan toilets there ...

maryb

Not sure if the same applies to jam but I often freeze Seville oranges if I haven't got time to make marmalade during the three weeks in January they are in the shops.  I allow 10% extra weight of fruit and it works fine

Living_proof

 @Auntycaz  @Si-Clist We often park at Humberston and walk into Cleethorpes and back, stopping for a beverage en route. Always a lovely walk on a crisp, bright winter day. Some of the Fitties residences are very posh these days. 

Auntycaz

Si_Clist said:

Auntycaz said:

... They always bring back memories of holidays spent in our caravan at humberston ...

Hmmm.  In the 1960s my Auntie Cath had a bungalow shanty in the Fitties Camp at Humberstone.  Stayed there a few times, picked blackberries there, and started a lifelong aversion to Elsan toilets there ... complete with gas lights

Our caravan was on the fitties camp.  We went there in the school holidays and most weekends. This was in the 1960's too. It was very basic then wasn't it. Our caravan had gaslights as there was no electricity and we had a little portable tv which ran off a car battery.