North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Don Yellman <don.yellman@webformation.com>]

Mark and Piper wrote:
> I was looking through a catalog today and saw a steam extractor for fruit
> processing. I make jam currently by boining fruit and sugar on the stove.
> What I have been making seems to lose alot of fruit essence due to steam
> boiling off. I was wondering if a steam extractor for fruit juice would
> retain much of the flavor I now boil away in my kitchen. I would be
> interested in hearing from someone that has experience making jam with steam
> extracted juice and with the traditional boil method on the stovetop.
> -Mark Lee, Seattle
>
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Mark:

What is the objective of all this boiling of fruit and sugar on the stove?  
Are you trying to make jam without the use of added pectin?  And what types 
of fruit are you using for jam making, i.e. grapes, blackberries, 
raspberries, blueberries?

We use a steam juicer for high-volume fruits like Concord grapes, and can use 
some of that juice, which is primarily used for drinking, as the base for 
grape jam or jelly.  But the steamer/juicer does add some water to the juice 
from the condensing steam.  For fruits like blackberries, we heat the 
unsweetened fruit to boiling directly on the stove, then run it through a 
jelly cone, a perforated aluminum cone utilizing a wooden pestle.  The juice 
thus produced is returned to a pan together with sugar and pectin for final 
heating before hot-packing in sterilized jars and lids.  For fruits like red 
raspberries with smaller, less objectionable seeds, we run only a portion of 
the berries through the jelly cone, leaving some of the seeds in the jelly 
for authenticity.

Traditional Sure-Jell and Certo pectin required large amounts of sugar to 
ensure jelling, usually more in volume than the fruit juice itself.  But now, 
low sugar pectins are widely sold, and we favor the Pomona's brand which 
gives us a consistently good jell with very low amounts of sugar -- less than 
half what would be used with ordinary pectin.  Pomona's pectin works by 
utilizing calcium as a catalyst to citrus peel pectin.  However, the use of 
at least a moderate amount of sugar is recommended because of sugar's natural 
preservative properties.  A long boil of the juice is not necessary, other 
than to ensure that the product is well sterilized before packing.

It is possible to make jelly by boiling pure juice and large amounts of sugar until the 
juice "sheets" on a spoon, but this technique is very time consuming and 
energy wasting, and has not been used by most jellymakers for about 50 years.  Use of 
pectin makes the process a lot easier and faster, and produces a better product.

Don Yellman, Great Falls, VA