Home Made Jams

[poppyjr]

Last year I had a problem with my Quince and Apple Jam, to enable it to set I used some lemon juice and half jam sugar/granulated sugar. It set really well but after a couple of months it shrank down the jar and went really hard jelly. Please help I do not want this to happen this year. My quinces are awaiting !

[Old_Geezer]

Doesn't one need to add pectin ?

[poppyjr]

I think the jam sugar has pectin, thinking that may be the problem.

[Old_Geezer]

I sort of recall (just) your previous thread. I'm no expert, but if it shrunk after a few months it sounds like it needs a pectin top-up to me.

[237SJ]

Sounds like too much pectin. I would use just the lemon juice and normal sugar.

[jomifl]

There is more than enough pectin in apples and quinces, I used to add apples to other fruits to provide pectin. I don't understand what you mean by 'shrank down the jar' ...did it dry out?

[Clanad]

We make lotsa apple jellies here in the U.S. and without fail they all need quite a bit of extra pectin. I've never understood the resistnace to pectin anyway, since it's completely natural and derived primarily from apples. I've found the "jam sugars" that contain pectin to be unreliable as to the percentage of pectin quantity and often produce differing results.

We use more than the recommended amounts, depending on the base fruite form which we're preserves, jams and jellies.

Marmalades require a lot of pectin, but even apple jellies (not jams, so much) require at least one box and maybe a little more for a recipe that calls for 8 cups of fruit and 8 cups of standard sugar.

I've found that the technique of reserving 1 cup of sugar and mixing the pectin into that before adding it to the boiling fruit/sugar mixture works best... but that's for us at an altitude of between 4,000 to 7,000 feet above sea level, since the temperature to produce boiling at those altitudes is quite a bit lower than sea level... we use a candy thermometer consistently.

[jomifl]

We make lots of marmalade and jam here in France and we hardly ever need pectin. Some very juicy fruits don't contain enough natural pectin but most others kinds do. My experiences with jam makers who have to use lots of pectin is that they do not cook the jam long enough to release the pectin and do not adjust the acidity which is required for the chemistry of setting to work.

[237SJ]

I don`t use any pectin when I make marmalade. I use Delia Smith`s system where I put pips and spare pith into a muslin bag and hang it over the inside of the pan so that the pectin is absorbed into the mix.

[jomifl]

237, that's the method Mrs. jom uses and and it works every time...no pectin needed for marmalade.

[atalanta]

Sounds to me as if the jar wasn't airtight. You need an airtight seal.