Make Simple and Fresh Strawberry Jam

There is something incredibly satisfying about opening up a jar of strawberry jam in the dead of winter and tasting that summertime goodness. It is an even more satisfying feeling when you made that jam yourself. Scroll down to Step 1 to learn how you can make some delicious strawberry jam to enjoy anytime the mood strikes you.

Ingredients

  • 10 cups whole strawberries, or 6 cups crushed strawberries
  • 4 cups sugar
  • 1 package of pectin

Steps

Making the Jam

  1. Clean Strawberries Once you have selected the berries you are going to use--whether you picked them yourself or bought them at the store--place them into a colander and cool water over them, stirring the berries around and making sure they are thoroughly rinsed. You don’t want any bacteria that may have been on the berries lingering in your jam.
    • You can also use frozen strawberries if you don’t have access to fresh strawberries.
  2. Hull Strawberries and crush your strawberries. Use a knife or spoon to cut or scoop the stems and leaves off of the top of the berries. Your goal is to remove any lingering bits of green. Once all of the berries have been hulled, pour the berries into a large mixing bowl. Use a large wooden spoon to crush the berries so that they turn into a clumpy mush. Crushing the berries releases the little bit of pectin that they contain naturally.
    • You should have about six cups of crushed berries after the mushing process.
    • You can also chop the strawberries up into quarters rather than crushing them.
  3. Mix ¼ cup of sugar with one and a half packages of dried pectin. Pectin is what helps the jam become thick--it occurs naturally in fruit and most store-bought pectin comes from apples. Mix the sugar and pectin together. Pour the crushed strawberries into a large cooking pot and add the pectin-sugar mixture.[1]
    • If you don’t want to use pectin, you will have to use about seven cups of sugar in your recipe. Your jam might be a little runnier than normal jams.
  4. Turn the stove on to medium-high heat. Stir the berries and the pectin mixture. Continue to stir it every so often so that it doesn’t burn while it comes to a boil. When the mixture is boiling, add the rest of the sugar (about four cups) and stir.
  5. Boil the mixture hard for one minute. Once the mixture has been boiling on high for a minute, remove it from the heat. Skim off any foam that has formed on the top of the jam mixture. The foam is just jam that is stuffed full of air so you can leave it on the mixture if you want--it is harmless.[2]
    • Scoop the foam off and put it in a bowl if you want to use it later. You can actually recover the foam, making it back into jam that you can use right away.
  6. Test whether or not your jam thickens up. Let a spoon sit in ice cold water for several minutes. Once the spoon as chilled, scoop a spoonful of the jam ‘juice’--the liquid part of the jam--and let it cool off to room temperature on the spoon. When it is room temperature, check its consistency. If it has thickened up nicely, you are good to go.[3]
    • If it is still pretty watery, add ¼ of a package of pectin and bring the mixture back to a boil for another minute.

Sterilizing the Jars

  1. Sterilize the jars. It is important to make sure that your jars are very clean because if they contain any bacteria, that bacteria can cause your jam to go bad while it sits in your pantry. You can actually put your jars into a dishwasher to sterilize them. If your dishwasher has a ‘sanitize’ cycle, even better. Keep the jars in the dishwasher on ‘hot dry’ until you need to use them. Making sure they remain hot will ensure that they don’t shatter when you pour the hot jam into them.[4]
    • If you don’t have a dishwasher, you can use hot, soapy water to wash your jars. After you’ve scrubbed them up, rinse them with hot water and then place them in a pot of boiling water for 10 minutes. Leave them in hot (but not boiling) water until you are ready to use them.
  2. Bring a pot of water to high heat. The water should be very hot but not quite boiling. Once it has reached this level of heat, place your jar lids into the boiling water. Doing this will sanitize the lids, which is just as important as sanitizing the jars. Imagine opening your jar of jam in the middle of winter as a special treat, only to find that the jam has gone completely bad. It would be very upsetting.
  3. Retrieve the lids when you are ready to use them. Use extra caution when taking the lids out of the water--they will be very hot. Use tongs or a ‘magnetic can lifter’ to get the lids out safely. You can purchase a magnetic lifter at any kitchen supply store or online.

Canning the Jam

  1. Pour or scoop the jam into the jars. Fill the jars up to about a fourth of an inch from the top of each jar. Make sure that you wipe up any spilled jam on the sides or around the mouth of the jar. Place the lid on top of each jar, put the ring around the lid, and tighten until you can’t tighten it anymore.
  2. Bring a large pot of water to boil. There should be enough water in the pot that when the jars on placed in the water, there will still be about two inches of water left above the jars. Place a washcloth on the bottom of the pot so that when you do put the jars in, they don’t clink around against the bottom of the pot.
    • If you have one, use a canner for the rest of this Part. Bring the water in your canner to a boil. Make sure that there will be at least one to two inches of water above the jars when you put them into the canner.
  3. Place the jars in the pot. Whether you are using a regular pot or a canner, you will need to let the jars boil for roughly 10 minutes. However, the altitude you are making jam at will affect how long you need to process your jars. Follow these basic processing times[5]:
    • {{safesubst:#invoke:convert|convert}}: boil your jars for five minutes.
    • {{safesubst:#invoke:convert|convert}}: boil your jars for 10 minutes.
    • Above {{safesubst:#invoke:convert|convert}}: boil your jars for 15 minutes.
  4. Remove the jars from the boiling water. Use tongs to get the jars out of the water without burning yourself. Put the jars in a cool, draftless spot to cool down overnight. The next day, either remove the rings or loosen them so that they don’t rust into place (forcing you to smash your glass jars to get at your delicious jam).
  5. Check to make sure that your lids have sealed properly. Before you put your jam away in the pantry, you will want to make sure that the lids are sealed properly so that you don’t go to open a jar only to find that your jam has gone bad. Press down in the center of the lid. If the center doesn’t move, you’re good to go. If it makes a popping noise and the center pops up and down, the lid has not properly sealed. You will need to refrigerate your jam and use it up.
  6. Finished.



Tips

  • You can add four tablespoons of lemon juice to increase the acidity of your jam, which in turn will make it thicken up more quickly.
  • If you are planning on using your jam right away, you don't need to seal the jars. Instead, just put your jars in the refrigerator and enjoy.

Things You'll Need

  • Knife
  • Wooden spoon
  • Tongs or magnetic lid lifter
  • 8 jars with lids and rings
  • One canner or a large pot for boiling water
  • Washcloth
  • Large or medium-sized pot

Related Articles

References

  1. ↑ http://www.pickyourown.org/strawberryjam.htm
  2. ↑ http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ina-garten/fresh-strawberry-jam-recipe.html
  3. ↑ http://www.pickyourown.org/strawberryjam.htm
  4. ↑ http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ina-garten/fresh-strawberry-jam-recipe.html
  5. ↑ http://www.pickyourown.org/strawberryjam.htm
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