Blackberry Jam/Jelly
- Thread starter sojourner
- Start date
Artaxerxes
Look out, he's got a gnu!
For blackberrys only I believe you need the jam sugar, they've naff all pectin.
If your doing blackberry and apple aou don't need it.
If your doing blackberry and apple aou don't need it.
I made blackberry and raspberry jelly this week, using normal sugar. If you don't have any pectin, a squirt of lemon and the seeds will also help to get a set. Be patient - you sometimes have to boil it for bloody ages (I use the wooden spoon method to test for setting point as even a temperature gauge is not absolutely reliable). All sorts of things affect a set - humidity, air pressure...so your thermometer says setting point is reached but the bloody mix stays resolutely runny.
Be warned though...once you start on this jelly lark you won't be keen on seeds and skins anymore...and the clarity of a good jelly really is beautiful.
Be warned though...once you start on this jelly lark you won't be keen on seeds and skins anymore...and the clarity of a good jelly really is beautiful.
danny la rouge
More like *fanny* la rouge!
This.
And if you’re doing jelly, don’t be tempted to push the pulp through the gauze. It’ll go cloudy. Leave it to do its thing. (I’m impatient enough to have succumbed more than one year).
Here in dry east anglia, optimum branmble picking time has prematurely been and gone. All the remaining plump berries are sadly shrivelled on the canes and by the time autumn rains trigger another flush of ripening, it will be too late in the season and the berries taste bitter. In my NW youth, we would pick until mid October...especially those vicious Himalayan varieties. Its all about apples now.
maomao
普費斯
The side of the street ones are just ripening in East London and being a giant there's always a layer available for me long after everyone else has had theirs.
I admit to being corrupted by hybrid cultivars, maomao...with NO thorns and extra large berries from my allotment. The slashing prickly monsters which grow in my wood require far too much blood and effort...although I have a few experiemntal rubus varieties on the go such as wineberries, tayberries, cloudberries and salmonberries (but grown for the blossom as much as the fruit).
maomao
普費斯
I've got raspberries in the garden now but my wife has been refusing to let me grow blackberries 'because they grow everywhere'. The domesticated cultivars are tastier though so I'll try and get a few canes going when I've finished my assassination of her ugly pointless goji berry bush.
Totally! It is raspberries which 'grow everywhere' while blackberries are a perfectly mannerly, reliable, easily trained fruit. One good variety will occupy a square foot of ground (you may have to chop the odd sucker), can be grown perfectly well on a fence or wires in a nice, flat 2D habit, while pruning is an easy delight. pm me if you decide to plant a bare-root plant (and anytime between now and March is ideal) because some cultivars have picking issues. Agree about goji bushes...waste of space.
eta - by grow everywhere, you don't just mean in your garden do you? Doh!
StoneRoad
heckling from the back!
Tend to make jelly from Raspberries & Blackberries and Jam from strawberries. The seeds from the former can aggravate my IBS.
I cook very gently.
Strain the pulp overnight, and don't be tempted to squeeze (or dilute) - including when cooking !
I use half ordinary and half jam sugar.
Never used a thermometer, but test on a chilled saucer, after a rolling boil for 10 to 15 minutes. The hint to me is something changes in the boiling sound when stirring.
(take it off the heat while testing ...)
Leave to cool a little before bottling (hot jars), cover with a film lid.
Label when cold (I usually have to clean dribbles from being clumsy when filling the jars.)
I cook very gently.
Strain the pulp overnight, and don't be tempted to squeeze (or dilute) - including when cooking !
I use half ordinary and half jam sugar.
Never used a thermometer, but test on a chilled saucer, after a rolling boil for 10 to 15 minutes. The hint to me is something changes in the boiling sound when stirring.
(take it off the heat while testing ...)
Leave to cool a little before bottling (hot jars), cover with a film lid.
Label when cold (I usually have to clean dribbles from being clumsy when filling the jars.)
StoneRoad
heckling from the back!
Years ago, I gave my aunt a few jars of my jelly, and she entered one in their village show. Because I didn't live in the village I was disqualified ... a couple of years later, I was staying with her as my mam was in hospital. So, I picked local berries and made jelly at her house ... I won second. It would have been First, but a few 'hairs' off the berries (the remains of the stamens) were visible. Nothing wrong with the set or flavour, maybe I should have used a finer cloth, or a second straining.
Artaxerxes
Look out, he's got a gnu!
It's far earlier than it used to be last few years. Not to bad this year but I think it was last year the crop was past it by end of July.
StoneRoad
heckling from the back!
I live much further north now compared to my youth, and most of my berries are still green at present.
October half term up here is often known as Blackberry week, but in recent years the bulk have come, ripened and gone. I reckon to pick later crops until the first frosts, which turns the fruit sour. Not sure how bad the weevils will be this year, a few years ago there were so many grubs that picking was a waste of time.
October half term up here is often known as Blackberry week, but in recent years the bulk have come, ripened and gone. I reckon to pick later crops until the first frosts, which turns the fruit sour. Not sure how bad the weevils will be this year, a few years ago there were so many grubs that picking was a waste of time.
Artaxerxes
Look out, he's got a gnu!
Would limes to the same job as lemons ??
You'd need more of it.
friedaweed
Me and me girl named Jane
Yes but put the pips in as well. You get a lot of pectin released from the pips in citrus fruits.Would limes to the same job as lemons ??
Gaia
Urban's Village Idiot
Granny B always used to come first in the Little Waltham village show with her crab-apple and rose-hip jelly. The committee (which was run by the local WI (of which she was a past Chair)) had to politely ask her to stop entering to give someone else a chance! I never got on at all with her, but fuck me she was the best cook I've ever known! Unlike Mum's mum, who used to leave porridge on the stove until the pan burnt! In her latter years, she basically subsisted on plastic 'ham' & cheese sarnies, Pringles, Heinz tomato soup and Mr. Kipling. Thankfully, my uncle and aunt lived just down the road in Horsforth (she was in Cookridge) so they were able to keep an eye on her. Got her Wiltshire farm foods in the end.
Biddlybee
making knots with sticks
Sorry love, I've had a good few days without kids, so not been on here much.
Wouldn't have been much help though, I've not used blackberries for years and.never made a jelly
raspberry jam every time for me.How did it all go?
maomao
普費斯
Well that was hard work. Took three big tubs (one of which my daughter managed to break practising her drumming) and it took over two hours to fill one of them but I think we've got enough for jam. Would have had no chance without me being so tall. Clearly would have been better two weeks ago but it's only this week I've got the big one on her own and I couldn't have done it with the buggy. Anyway on the bus home to have lunch and then we'll make jam. Results to follow.
It is deffo earlier now. Was proper slim pickings last year, what with the eternal sunshine, but this year is an absolute bonanza. We've been picking for the last few weeks and there are still tons coming through. Can't stop picking!! There's a few bushes round our way that are giving off the most HUGE berries, like, fucking MASSIVE
Every time we go out, we fill two or three tubs within 10 minutes. Can't believe it.Ah no worries loveSorry love, I've had a good few days without kids, so not been on here much.
Wouldn't have been much help though, I've not used blackberries for years and.never made a jelly
How did it all go?
I went with jam sugar for both in the end. The jam took longer than I thought to reach setting point, and I did the 'cold saucer' test for it. The jelly set much faster than I thought it would haha, and tbh, both jam and jelly are much firmer in the jars than I thought they would be (or would have preferred), but I'll be doing another lot soon so have learned valuable lessons! One of which is not to bother putting lemon pips in a teeny tiny muslin bag because it will get lost in the jam and you will have to explain to everyone you give a jar of the jam to that there may be a wee bag of pips in there somewhere 
Anyhoo - both taste absolutely fucking astonishing. Very pleased with myself
I made 6.5 jars of the jam, and 3.5 of the jelly. I used a jelly bag with a stand - it said to wait 8 hours. I didn't. I did 2 hours then strained the bag PS, hope you enjoyed your kid-free time!
Glad you are enjoying your jamming. sojourner. There is plenty of time to experiment with other fruits - I (used to) make a good 'hedgerow' jelly using rowans, crabs, wild plums, blackberries, damsons, cranberries, bilberries...pretty much anything which can be separated from it's juice. Crab-apple jelly is particularly beautiful if you can get hold of John Downie or Everest crabs - a lovely clear pink/blush colour. Also, stacking the jars on a shelf is a really great feeling of being prepared for the apocalypse/earth mother incarnate sort of thing. Highly satisfying. Do you label them in your best writing?
My eldest made me an apple press last year so I am gearing up for apple juicing. I still haven't come up with a really good method of crushing the apples before pressing - bashing them in the bottom of a massive plastic trug with a landscaper's bar breaks them up alright but is outrageously hard work, I need some sort of drill attachment with 3 or 4 blades - like a giant blender. Will be nagging metal working offspring to crack on with it if he expects to get either apple juice, ketchup or cider.
My eldest made me an apple press last year so I am gearing up for apple juicing. I still haven't come up with a really good method of crushing the apples before pressing - bashing them in the bottom of a massive plastic trug with a landscaper's bar breaks them up alright but is outrageously hard work, I need some sort of drill attachment with 3 or 4 blades - like a giant blender. Will be nagging metal working offspring to crack on with it if he expects to get either apple juice, ketchup or cider.
Biddlybee
making knots with sticks
Excellent! Homemade jam tastes so different. And the sense of achievement, even when it's a few jars is great 
Ooh there are so many flavour combinations out there
I'm not sure I've ever even had a jelly, I presume it's all the flavour, but really smooth?
You can stick plain or printed paper to glass jars/bottles using milk btw, then they come off easily when you've finished
Ooh there are so many flavour combinations out there
I'm not sure I've ever even had a jelly, I presume it's all the flavour, but really smooth?
You can stick plain or printed paper to glass jars/bottles using milk btw, then they come off easily when you've finished
campanula - there were some cherry plums but they went off/birds had them before I got organised enough to harvest them sadly. As the blackberries are so plentiful, they're the ones I'm making jam from (and infusing brandy with, mmm). My labels are shoddy tbh They just say JAM in biro, nowt special
Biddlybee - a real sense of achievement, yes! And yep, the jelly has no big fruit bits but tastes to fucking die for, mate. Soooo good. My mother used to make it when I was a kid so I'm double-pleased that I managed to make it for myself
Nice tip on the labels, ta
They just say JAM in biro, nowt special Biddlybee - a real sense of achievement, yes! And yep, the jelly has no big fruit bits but tastes to fucking die for, mate. Soooo good. My mother used to make it when I was a kid so I'm double-pleased that I managed to make it for myself
Nice tip on the labels, ta
I used this for the jelly btw and although it only looks small, I fitted 1.3kg of blackberries in the bag
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Tala-10A00137-Jam-Straining-Set/dp/B002BX4ER4
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Tala-10A00137-Jam-Straining-Set/dp/B002BX4ER4
I use old bits of net curtain/muslin.fine cotton, old tights. I suspend 2 bamboo canes across a couple of kitchen chairs with the gauze pegged or tied in place over my preserving pan (so it looks like giant hammock), then leave everything overnight.
Ketchup making today so vinegar fumes are wafting through the house.
Ketchup making today so vinegar fumes are wafting through the house.
I seem to remember my mother using tights. My Nan used to get her American Tan tights every xmas (they weren't fond of each other
) and she used them for that Cos I was only making small amounts, and for my first time, I wanted a proper bit of kit, and this was just the job.
