2025 Fashion On The Ration Challenge

PipneyJane

After all that, I don’t think the damn jelly has set.  I would swear it set on the jelly funnel - there was a lump - but it’s not set in the jars.  

I had it on a rolling boil, boiled it for over 10 minutes and it was definitely at set point on the thermometer.  I tried the flake test and it blobbed on the spoon.  So why isn’t the damn stuff setting?  (Rhetorical question.)

Arrrgghhh!!!!!!

- Pip

Gem-gem

PipneyJane said:

After all that, I don’t think the damn jelly has set.  I would swear it set on the jelly funnel - there was a lump - but it’s not set in the jars.  

I had it on a rolling boil, boiled it for over 10 minutes and it was definitely at set point on the thermometer.  I tried the flake test and it blobbed on the spoon.  So why isn’t the damn stuff setting?  (Rhetorical question.)

Arrrgghhh!!!!!!

- Pip

Pip, I had exactly the same problem with my redcurrant jelly and damson jam. The strange thing is that each had a small jar at the end and they have set. Next week, I'm going to have to reboil both. 

Weirdly, the gooseberry jam that I made on the same day as the damson jam has set beautifully. 

Cherryfudge

I've had the same with marrow jam that set the first time I made it, but not subsequently. I'm just using it up on porridge, where it doesn't matter. Frustrating, though, after all the hard work.

CapricornLass

I've found that some jams will require much longer than 10 mins - 20 or even 30 mins.  I thought apple was supposed to be quite good for setting though.  Do you think its something to do with the quantities of jam you were boiling?

Using redcurrant juice is supposed to help and my mum said that using preserving sugar instead of ordinary granulated worked for her. 

Gem-gem

I tend to start at 15-20 minutes then test. 

weenancyinAmerica

My father always said that his best achievement during the war was helping liberate the Santo Tomas prison in Manila. He was with the first group in. He was always very angry with the Japanese - wouldn't even even buy a Japanese made TV set until he didn't have a choice any more - but several of his best friends were Japanese, including several who had been interned in camps here in the US. He had been at Pearl Harbor also (in an Army base there); lost several of his platoon mates that day.

kiwisavings

Pip, I hope that your crab apple jam thickened up as it's a bit of a faff redoing everything. Also, hoping that the rabbit hole of 1940s Youtube clips was enjoyable 

Great discussion on the jam making - I always find it's a bit much in the summer heat!

It's winter here in Kiwiland and the other week I decided to make a couple of jars of plum jam from some frozen black doris plums from the summer. I added some lemon juice and lemon zest and cooked it for about 15 minutes (until it hit 220 degrees). I think I cooked for a bit too long as it set a bit thickly, but it's super yummy  and we are making our way through it pretty quickly. I used the boil in water in a saucepan method for the lids and dried the inside of the lids with a clean paper towel.

I also made a couple of jars of lemon curd as we have plenty of lemons (and limes) on our trees. It's surprising how much money you can save by just doing a little bit of preserving.

Laura_Elsewhere

@PipneyJane - are you absolutely sure they were crab apples? When I first moved here I happily picked lots of small sour apples from a nearby tree and was baffled as to why the resulting jelly refused to set. Eventually I discovered the tree was an eating-apple that ripened very late (end of October, beginning of November), and so in August it had what seemed like crab-apples but were in fact just very early-development eaters, and bvecause they were so early in their development they had very little pectin in the skins or seeds. 

Annoyingly, they're not very nice eaters, and not much cop for cooking either, so I just enjoy the blossom and the look of the heavy crop of apples!  

PipneyJane

Laura_Elsewhere said:

@PipneyJane - are you absolutely sure they were crab apples? When I first moved here I happily picked lots of small sour apples from a nearby tree and was baffled as to why the resulting jelly refused to set. Eventually I discovered the tree was an eating-apple that ripened very late (end of October, beginning of November), and so in August it had what seemed like crab-apples but were in fact just very early-development eaters, and bvecause they were so early in their development they had very little pectin in the skins or seeds. 

Annoyingly, they're not very nice eaters, and not much cop for cooking either, so I just enjoy the blossom and the look of the heavy crop of apples!  

Hmm…. Good question.  Yes, I think so, but as they were foraged from the side of a road we only travel 3 or 4 times a year, who knows?  They had that cell denseness that crab apples have, and many had some redness on the peel - but not all - so I can only assume they were crab apples.  (Anyone live near the Stonehenge Inn?  I foraged them from trees near the round-about the inn is on.)

I think it was my fear of over boiling kicking in again.  Another boil may do the trick.  They have a very light set, so a reboil could fix it.  Also, I didn’t re-read this thread before I started (and I probably should have).  Can;t do the reboil this week, as I still have to make the Crab Apple Chilli Cheese.  (I suspect that I’ll be freezing the pulp, once puréed.  No time left)

- Pip

maryb

If you have a digital cooking thermometer, boiling until it reaches 104.5 C is pretty foolproof even for strawberry jam