Jam Ramblings

Having come full circle from learning to properly and safely make jams and jellies this past spring to having just taught a class to new MFP trainees on the subject, this seems like a good time to reflect on my canning (and other) experiences this year.

First of all, even after my 10-week training to become a master food preserver I was unclear about pectin, the primary thickening agent in jams and jellies. There are at most four basic ingredients in jams: fruit, sugar, acid and pectin. The first three are pretty obvious, so in preparation for my first teaching experience, I concentrated my effort on the last. After hours researching the subject, I’m certainly more informed, but still far from being an expert.

I began my study with a strong bias towards Pomona Pectin, which is used by most of today’s artisan jam makers. This low-sugar pectin has been around for about 30 years and to this day the company is family-owned and operated. It’s economical by comparison to some of the other pectins on the market and is about as natural as you can get short of making your own pectin from organic apples. This brings up a good point…during my first year of jam making, I was told time and again that pectin is a natural product. It turns out that statement is only partially true. Pectin, found in fruits and some vegetables, is natural. By the time it is processed into a fine powder and sold for jams, jellies, and a wide range of other products, it’s no longer quite so “natural”. Without a doubt, it contains pesticides and many brands contain other additives, including preservatives.

After all of my reading, I have a decent understanding of the science of pectin and why it is critical to follow the recipes that come with each product. Also, I’m now clear on the difference between high-sugar and low-sugar pectins. With that understanding has come a better appreciation for the part sugar plays in jam making. Initially, I was told that sugar was necessary for its preserving qualities. This turns out to be another partially true statement. It is actually the water bath processing that preserves the jam and makes it shelf-stable, not the sugar. If it were the sugar then low- and no-sugar jams would not be shelf-stable. However, as I’ve discovered first hand, sugar does play a big role once the jam is opened. Once opened full-sugar jam lasts for years in the refrigerator. At least, that’s been my personal experience. Not so with low- or no-sugar jam…the lower the sugar content, the shorter the life once opened. I had a opened jar of jam mold in less than a month.

Another half-truth I heard more than once: the quantity of sugar required by the recipe should never be altered. It turns out that this is true when working with high methoxyl (high-sugar) pectins, which require sugar to gel. However, it is not true for their sister low methoxyl pectins. Low-sugar pectin requires calcium to gel rather than sugar allowing the jam maker to reduce the amount of sugar to a range from below 50% to zero.

Sugar preserves color. This is an absolute! The strawberry jams I made for the class were made using different pectin brands. I ended up with about eight different products I took to the class for a tasting. Up to that point, I had not opened or tasted any of the jams. I lined up the jams from the highest sugar to the no-sugar product that contained Splenda. The contrast between jams was shocking. The full-sugar product was a beautiful glossy red as compared to the red-brown (almost a mauve) color of the low-sugar jams as compared to a very artificial looking pink-red color of the Splenda jam. A couple of people in the class took one look at the jam and declared the low-sugar products unappetizing…I had to agree! As for the taste, I believe the consensus was the fruity low-sugar product, despite the color, was the best. Since returning home with eight opened jars of jam, we have been eating them each morning in a race to beat the mold. Seen individually, the low-sugar jams are a very pretty pale (with brown tinges) color and have a very fruit-forward taste. I will avoid serving them along side a full-sugar jam, but then that’s not really a problem, because I refuse to make the latter. This photo shows the amount of sugar required for a classic or full-sugar jam (7/8 of a cup).

I can’t say that I’ve reached a definitive conclusion on which brand or type of pectin is best and the one and only I’ll be using in the future. I still have a half dozen unopened boxes of Pomona, so I’m not giving up on it. I am giving up and giving away my unused boxes of full sugar pectin. Surprisingly, I’ve found a Ball product to be very equivalent to the Pomona. It’s packaged in a jar that makes 22 half-pint jars of jam, it’s slightly more economical than Pomona, may be made in small batches from 2-10 jars at a time, and offers a great website with a flexible-batch calculator and plenty of recipes. Next year my jamming will include both Ball and Pomona and I’ll choose my favorite after I’ve made another couple hundred jars of jam.

As for other things I’ve learned during my 2014 jam journey…I love jelly! I love its clear, semi-transparency. I love how it shimmers and jiggles. And, most of all I love its intense taste. Next year will include jellies of every fruit and if I get that top-of-the-line dehydrator that’s on my Christmas list, there will be fruit leathers made from the pulp from all of my jellies. My technical savvy has also been expanded this year and I’ve learned to make a slide presentation using PowerPoint and been forced to go a bit beyond the basics with Word. All good skills. I’m sure this brings a smile to my truly technical savvy readers as my skills are still remedial, but I may get through 2015 without having to call on them for help.

One last thing I’ve learned…if I’m ever to get back to quilting, I’ll need to learn to say no. My involvement as an MFP this past six months has consumed my time. That combined with the disaster we’ve experienced in the cabin (my quilting studio) this past fall has kept me out of fabric stores (that’s probably a good thing), kept me from ordering must-have quilting books (also good), and kept me from finishing about a dozen projects that were promised by yearend (not so good). This week it’s back to the studio and my studio cat, Ernie. I still have a few weeks before the year ends and maybe I’ll be able to get one of those quilts in the queue completed and have something to report in the first StixChix blog post in months.