Fixes for Jelling Problems

4 Comments

1. My attempts to make jelly from Meyers lemons lately have not helped. My recipe is 4 1/2 juice. 7 tbs of pectin and 3 cups of sugar. Any suggestions.

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   1. Hello Mark,

      Thanks for choosing Pomona’s Pectin! With the information given, your jelly will not jell with Pomona’s Pectin for two reasons 1. lemon juice is too acid to jell if you do not cut it with water and 2. the sugar content being too high.

      In order to make this jelly work, here is what we would suggest:
      Ingredients
      2 cups Meyer Lemon Juice
      2 cups water
      3 teaspoons calcium water
      1 1/2 cups of sugar
      4 teaspoons Pomona’s Pectin

      Instructions

      Before you begin, prepare calcium water.
      To do this, combine ½ teaspoon calcium powder (in the small packet in your box of Pomona’s pectin) with ½ cup water in a small, clear jar with a lid. Shake well.
      Extra calcium water should be stored in the refrigerator for future use.

      Wash jars, lids, and bands. Place jars in canner, fill canner 2/3 full with water, bring to a boil. Turn off heat, cover, and keep jars in hot canner water until ready to use. Place lids in water in a small sauce pan; cover and heat to a low boil. Turn off heat and keep lids in hot water until ready to use.
      Measure lemon juice into sauce pan.

      Add water and calcium water, and mix well.

      Measure sugar or room temperature honey into a bowl. Thoroughly mix pectin powder into sweetener. Set aside.

      Bring fruit mixture to a full boil. Add pectin-sweetener mixture, stirring vigorously for 1 to 2 minutes to dissolve the pectin while the jam comes back up to a boil. Once the jam returns to a full boil, remove it from the heat.

      Fill hot jars to ¼” of top. Wipe rims clean. Screw on 2-piece lids. Put filled jars in boiling water to cover. Boil 10 minutes (add 1 minute more for every 1,000 ft. above sea level). Remove from water. Let jars cool. Check seals; lids should be sucked down. Eat within 1 year. Lasts 3 weeks once opened.

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2. I made apricot jam , followed all the instructions and it hardened like concrete. Any solutions

   Reply

   1. Hello Connie,

      If your jam or jelly is too thick, the first question to ask is: Is it spreadable? The Pomona’s jell could be stiffer or firmer than you are used to, but it should be spreadable. If it’s not spreadable, then something went wrong.

      The most usual cause for a too firm or rubbery texture with Pomona’s is that you used less fruit than the recipe called for. Our recipes are calculated for mashed fruit. So if you use pieces of fruit or whole berries, you are actually using less fruit than if it were mashed, or cooked to a mash and then measured, and you will get a firmer jell. Or you may have used more pectin than the recipe called for. For example, if you used Tablespoons of pectin rather than teaspoons.

      Cooking can also affect the amount of fruit you are working with. For example, if you cook the fruit mixture for too long before adding pectin, you could reduce the fruit volume and make the pectin amount too high for the fruit you have left.

      It is less likely that your jam would be too firm from overcooking after adding the pectin. Usually if you cook jam made with Pomona’s for too long after adding the pectin, it will de-activate the pectin and you will get a poor jell.

      All of this being said, the typical Pomona’s jell is more like a fruit spread than a gloppy high-sugar jam. If you prefer a softer set, you can always use less pectin than called for in our recipes. We would suggest you experiment by using ¼ to ½ teaspoon less pectin than the recipe calls for, or perhaps up to a teaspoon less for recipes that call for 4 teaspoons of pectin. You would keep the calcium water amount the same.

      To fix up this batch, you will empty jars into sauce pan. Add the additional juice, water or mashed fruit (to decide how much to use, you will need to determine how firm your jam is. If you’d say it. is 25% more firm than you would like, you will add 25% of the fruit/juice called for in the recipe (probably 1 cup, if you were using a 4 cup recipe)). Stir to combine. Bring the mixture to a full boil. Stir for 1 minute. When mixture returns to a full boil, remove from the heat. Fill into clean, hot jars and process according to the Recipe sheet that comes with Pomona’s Pectin.

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