North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

["Stephen Sadler" <Docshiva@Docshiva.org>]

I think 3 and a half cups might be right - the Goldilocks solution, but also
the ratio I find in Putting Food By.  I've given up on jelly thermometers.
At this point I can clearly see when something reaches the gel point, but
before that I found the sheet test or putting a spoonful in the fridge to be
more dependable.  I love the idea of using temperature - I just don't think
I get an accurate reading in all that roiling fruit and sugar, especially
with the small batches I often put up. It's probably me, not the tools. I
never go wrong by eye.  It's clearly not genetic - growing up we had many
plum trees, and all the plum jam my mother intended turned out to be syrup -
really delicious syrup that I miss, but never jelly or jam.  
My latest small batch jam was blueberry pineapple.  New combination for me,
but terribly good.

I'm glad yours is good, wish there was a way to correct the flavor - lemon,
mentioned earlier, or rose hip syrup, maybe, but it might make it too thin.


~ Stephen  

-----Original Message-----
From: nafex-bounces@lists.ibiblio.org
[mailto:nafex-bounces@lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of Ginda Fisher
Sent: Friday, July 02, 2010 3:36 PM
To: North American Fruit Explorers
Subject: Re: [NAFEX] currant preserves and plant productivity.

In past years I've used 3 cups of sugar to a quart of juice.  That made
delicious jelly, but the texture was never right.  This year I tried using 4
cups of sugar for a quart of juice, and it jelled beautifully, but it's a
little sweet for my tastes.  It's hard to tell when to stop cooking, and the
texture problems might be from over or under cooking, not from the amount of
sugar.  I have a completely useless jelly thermometer.  Maybe if I had an
accurate jelly thermometer I'd have better results.

Anyhow, next year I will go back to using 3 cups of sugar.  

This jelly isn't bad, by the way, it's just not as wonderful in flavor as
what I've made in the past.