Guest Post: On the Making of Jam

[mizkit]

All y’all know I like to make jams and things and although I can’t find a post talking about it, I did an experiment with my last batch of peach jam where I used about 30% less sugar because the stuff I’d made was So Sweet and So Stiff and because it had been years and years since I’d made jam and I’d *thought* that looked like an *awful* lot of

Comments

[6_penny]

Low methodoxyl pectin (aka low methoxyl pectin or LM Pectin) is a good alternative. It is used for low sugar jelling. My father used it for years. It is a powder that is combined with a bit of a calcium/water solution to set. minimizes the use of sugar.
If the jam is just a bit runny, I have noticed that with a few months on the shelf it actually sets up in the jar. Of course you can also call it fruit syrup and use on waffles, pancakes and various desserts!
Pomona's Universal pectin is the one that I have used, but I think that there are several brands.

[cainle_bean]

I have cook books that date back to the 40's at least. I wonder what they say about jams and jellies.

Hmmm now I have to check that out.

I know the ones I made this past year were too sweet for me.

[desperance]

It never occurs to me to use pectin; not sure if that makes me hardcore or just missing-a-trick. Where I know I'm purely ignorant, though, is in re your mention of slow cookers. I have a slow cooker, but again: it's never occurred to me to use it for jam-making. Am I missing a trick?

[mizkit]

No, no, the slow cookers are totally unrelated to the jam. It's just I mentioned a while ago that I had a slow cooker and, like everybody who had one, never used it, only then about 3409870 people said "I use mine all the time!" So they're, er, more hardcore than I am. Or something. :)

Look, it made sense in my head at the time. :)

[desperance]

I love how things make sense in other people's heads. *hugs you, just 'cos you have a head that isn't mine*

Also, I have a slow cooker. Of course I do: we had a wedding. It's a fine slow cooker, and, um. Apparently I mostly prefer to cook things the old-fashioned way, where I can stir them and feel how things are going and adjust the heat and so forth. But it's great for making stocks overnight; I do that almost weekly. And I keep expecting to find other things it's really good for. I'm very open-minded that way. (One could probably cook haggis in it, if haggis were legal provender in the US [tragically, proper haggis contains items not recognised as foodstuffs; I believe there are haggis-smugglers working across the Canadian border, and I want to meet one]; I know one can cook Christmas pudding in it, for I have done so...)

[mizkit]

You like to cook, whereas I cook because if I wait for Ted to get home to cook so we can eat we would never eat. A slow cooker is, therefore, of use to me, as long as I remember to use it. :)

*hugs you too*!

[rhienelleth]

Are you going to perhaps post the scanned 1969 sheet? I have always added less sugar than the pectin box states, but I would be really interested in what the ratio used to be.

[coraline73]

I never thought of making jam without added pectin being 'hardcore'. Although the one I make most often are bramble jelly and elderberry jelly, and in both cases I out some apple in, which helps it set.

My strawberry jam didn't set despite my having used jam sugar 9which they add pectin to)

I don't own a slow cooker.