Seedless Blackberry Jam
This recipe is easily scaleable in either direction. You need ½ cup of sugar for each whole cup of juice/pulp. My amounts will yeald around 4 pints.
Servings: 4 pints
Equipment
Ingredients
- 20 cups fresh blackberries [about 6 pounds]
- 3 cups granulated sugar [see notes]
- 2 large lemons, juiced
Instructions
- Wash berries and pick through to remove any debris or damamged berries.
- Put the berries in a large heavy pot, big enough to hold them with some room left over. Set the burner on medium. The water on the berries from washing should be enough to keep them from sticking.
- As the berries heat, mash with a potato masher to help them break down more quickly. Keep stirring to prevent sticking. You need to get up to a simmer.
- When the fruit has mostly liquified, turn off the heat.
- Placing a mesh strainer over a bowl big enough to hold it, ladle in the berries, about 1/4 at a time swirl with the back of a ladle to help push them through the mesh. Keep adding more berries [no need to empty the strainer], and pushing with the ladle, until you end up with a very thick bunch of seeds, with little new liquid dripping through. This does take a bit of patience, but it's not difficult.
- Scrape the bottom of the strainer into the pot so you don't miss any juice/pulp. Discard the seeds.
- Measure the resulting juice/pulp. Measure out half as much sugar and add to the pot with the juice.
- Cook over medium heat, until it comes up to a boil. Lower the heat slightly, and stirring very often let the mixture simmer.
- Check the temperature every 10 minutes, stirring at least that often. If you feel any sticking, lower the heat a bit and stir a little more frequently. You wnat to get to a temperature of 218℉. As you get up to around 215℉, its's not a bad idea to turn the heat up slightly and just keep stirring until it gets up to 218℉. Don't walk away.
- When you get to 218℉, turn off the heat, stir again, making sure to get in the corners and all over the surface of the bottom.
- This jam is easily canned [see notes], or can be stored in the refrigerator for several months. Sometimes people freeze jam like this, but I never have so I can't guarantee what the result would be.
Notes
Do not measure the sugar until after you have determined how much juice and pulp you're going to extract from the berries. You will want 1 cup of sugar for every two cups of juice. So, if you want to make a very small batch, you will need 1 cup of juice/pulp and 1/2 cup of sugar, scaling up for larger amounts.
Canning - jam is about the easiest and safest thing in the world to can. I'll refer you to my recipe for Blueberry Preserves for detailed directions on canning.