Adventures in canning: Strawberry Jam

Last Saturday AM we went strawberry picking at Tougas Family Farm with little E’s playgroup friends.

Mike and the other dads strawberry picking

Now, little E still refuses to eat strawberries (he does like squeezing them to make bright red juice in an attempt to make the worst stains possible) but he is happy enough to be outside, plus this being  “family” farm it had a playground and such activities for kids.  I, on the other hand, was quite excited about the strawberries themselves and was well-prepared.  Having bought a canning kit a few weeks ago and two canning books, I fully intended to get as many strawberries as possible.  In fact we gathered 9 1/2 pounds, but since the price per pound drops from $2.99 to 2.19 when you pick 10lb or more, we sent Mike back to get a few extra berries.

 

About 10lb of strawberries

 

 

Since you should can as freshly as possible, I made the jam the same day (also, those strawberries were getting crushed under their own weight).  I made two batches and we still had strawberries left over (in fact, we still have strawberries left over).  I made two different recipes:  first the basic strawberry jam recipe from the Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving followed by the strawberry-balsamic jam from Well-Preserved.  (I didn’t set out to make two batches, but there were still so many berries after the first batch I went ahead and made the second).

 

There were a few glitches:  I had to run out and buy different sized jars because canning recipes have to be followed exactly, including the use of pint size jars vs. half pints, etc.  I suppose pint sized jars of jam is a bit big, though I honestly think we could go through it pretty quickly.  I wasn’t sure what was meant by the instruction to “hull” the strawberry, so I cut off the stem end.  Somehow I don’t think I did that right.  (Do strawberry hullers actually work, whatever it is that they do?  Preparing the berries did take some time).  My saucepan wasn’t really big enough for the batch of jam I made (nor could I use my stockpot as I think it smells chicken-y no matter how much it’s cleaned) so there was a bit of bubbling over, though not too bad.  The canner, meanwhile, was so big it nearly took up one half of my stovetop.  I didn’t realize how long  it would take the water to boil and ended up being annoyed as I waited for ages for it to heat up.  (And then was even more annoyed when it turned out I had accidentally turned the burner off).

 

I had rolled my eyes at “low sugar” recipes until I measured out the amount of sugar needed for one batch of jam (that’s about one cup per jar, fyi). 

7 cups of sugar

  It also took me a while to get the hang of filling the jar up to the required level of headspace (the amount of space you have to leave at the top of the jar when you fill it up; to take into account the expansion of the jar’s contents that occurs while processing for 10 minutes or however long in rapidly boiling water).  I realized later that my canning kit had a headspace measurer, which worked better than dangling my tape measure next to the jar to try to get a reading.  With each jar, though, the process went much faster.  All in all, however, I was busy in the kitchen for about 4 hours.

I think I even heard the seals on the jars forming (the lids seal and become hollowed inwards so you know they are securely sealed, just as the jars you buy in stores only have pop-up lids after you open them).  It was funny to be watching TV and hearing little popping sounds from time to time.  Though maybe it was just something falling apart elsewhere in the house.

Finally, a few words about the individual recipes:

The Strawberry Jam recipe from the Complete Book of Home Preserving was a great beginner’s recipe.  In fact it’s the first recipe in the book and notes that it is an extra-detailed recipe as it’s for beginners.  And it did have lots of helpful detail–for example, measuring out all the sugar beforehand so you can dump it in to the bubbling berries all at once (I can imagine it would be hard to keep track of seven cups of sugar as well!).  The recipe was simple–just strawberries, pectin, sugar, and lemon juice and the results were great.  Of course, this is mainly a function of having good berries.  I wondered how similar this would taste to store-bought jam but I really do think it was better.  I think the flavor was quite complex, I almost taste an herb/spice quality which surely has to do with the fact that the strawberries were perfectly ripe when harvested and the jam was made immediately after so no flavor was lost.  Note I got slightly less than the 8 cup yield, so the last jar went into the fridge to enjoy immediately.

The second recipe was a bit more “gourmet” perhaps.  (As is the nature of all the recipes in Well-Preserved.  There’s not a lot of recipes in there, but the ones that there are are very elegant).  The nice thing was it didn’t use pectin (as I didn’t have any left).  Also the use of balsamic vinegar sounded like it would make a rather refined product.  Due to the lack of pectin, I think, this recipe was required to be cooked for about 40 minutes before canning.  You then add the strawberries to a jar with a slotted spoon, ultimately leaving you with a fair amount of strawberry syrup which you can preserve as well.  All in all, I got 2 pint jars of jam and one of syrup.  (The recipe was meant to give you 6 cups; and you could use 8 or 16 oz containers.  I wonder if I would have had a better yield using smaller jars?)

I’m looking forward to going to more “pick your owns” this summer.  Cherries are next, followed by raspberries, blueberries, and pecks of peaches and bushels of apples!

Strawberry jam

Strawberry balsamic jam

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