making jelly!

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Last Fri. I picked a bushel of muscadines (white and black). Made juice and Sat. morning I made a 'batch' of jelly with the black ones. Jelly was VERY runny (same thing happened last year). I followed the Sur-jel instructions to the "letter". So when I made the white juice into jelly, I added one and a half pkgs. of Sur-jel ( recipe calls for only one box) and it was much better but still not real firm. I have made jelly for may years and alway followed the rules and had really good luck. I am wondering, if anyone else thinks it is the Sur-jel? Any one else have this problem?

Question: If I use two full pkgs. of Sur-jel will it be like rubber? I want this to be for gifts and I don't want it to be "grape syrup".

-- Debbie T in N.C. (rdtyner@mindspring.com), September 12, 2001

Answers

How was the humidity at the time you made the jelly? I live in the south and find that on rainy days my jelly almost never sets, even when I follow the recipe to the letter. Sometimes, no matter what you do, it just won;t jell, that's when we use it for pancake syrup!

-- Bear (BarelyKnow@aol.com), September 12, 2001.

Alton Brown of Good Eats on the Food channel just did jams & jellies last night. Great show with lotsa food science. Apparently pectin needs an acid to jell---like lemon juice, vinegar or slightly unripe fruit. Was your fruit very ripe, or did you leave out the acid source? That can cause a lack of jelling.

-- Julia (charmer24@juno.com), September 13, 2001.

I, too had this same problem. Earlier last week I used dark muscadines to make jelly..I keep Sure=jel and I also had another brand ??Harvest something? I think it came from Wal-Mart. I used the sure-jel on first batch..ended up with syrup..can't remember about the humidity..but I do live in Fl. so it is usually high. Yesterday I attempted again with Wal-mart pectin..it turned out great.It was also raining while I made it .. all this makes me think that first flop may have been the sure-jel..just not sure.

-- Sandi (msjazt@aol.com), September 13, 2001.

I figured out that what I was doing wrong, was not boiling long enough. I was too impatient and didn't bring it to the right stage.

-- trendle ellwood (trendlespin@msn.com), September 13, 2001.

Not only do you need acid, but the sugar is also important. Do not use less sugar than is called for. The Sure-Jell may have been old. I bought some last year that did that to me and I used a package from a different store and it was fine.

-- Patricia Ramsey (woolspin@aol.com), September 13, 2001.


If it doesn't gel within two weeks you can recook it with a fresh batch of sure-jell and re-hot h2o bath it. I've done this and it works. I had to recook one batch 3 times-no it wasn't like rubber- pretty darn good.

-- Mitzi Giles (Egiles2@prodigy.net), September 13, 2001.

Mitzi's right. You need to wait awhile. I made grape jelly this year, and it took a week to jell. You may get jelly yet.

-- Katherine (KyKatherine@Yahoo.com), September 13, 2001.

You didn't add water when you were juicing the berries, right? Maybe if you boil the juice down some it would help? Also boil a little bit longer when your actually making the jelly and it will gel better. My black berry is always really thick and that's what I always make sure of.

-- Kellie Duncan (kashaa@swbell.net), September 15, 2001.

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