Pump up the Jam

The recipe said jam; the results were more like jelly.  Dad suggested it could be easily salvaged by calling it an ice cream topping, but I haven't yet tested that application myself.

As you might already know, we ran into a glut of berries while I was visiting Dad.  We were going to take down some trees that needed cuttin', but as Dad sagely pointed out, berries are in season now, and we can cut the trees any time we want.

What choice did we have?  We went berry picking.  Dad's yard can provide more than enough for a pie every couple days at the season's peak, but we went to the pros.  When we arrived at the farm, we chose the divide and conquer method.  Dad took black raspberries, I took red.  When both flats were full (a total of about 27 pounds of berries), we collaborated on a smaller flat of gooseberries (8 pounds).  Gooseberries are weird.  Beware the thorns.

We left most of the harvest with a friend for freezing and pies later in the year, but at Dad's suggestion, I scooped out enough red raspberries (8 cups, or 4 pints) to make a batch of jam.  I wanted to try making it anyway; the flavor was his choice.

According to the ancient and reliable tome in Dad's kitchen cupboard, this is what you need to make jam:

8 C raspberries, washed and drained
7 C sugar
3 oz pectin
jars, new lids, clean rings

I was concerned about things the book mentioned like "canners" and "boilers" and "not poisoning people," but my aunt assured me that all I really need to do is wash the jars well, and boil the lids and rings.  Don't reuse lids.

Start by mashing your clean berries.  The book I had suggested running half of them through a strainer to remove some of the seeds, but I'm lazy and don't mind the seeds.  Red raspberries are plump and have a big hollow inside, so they mash very easily and rapidly lose volume.  By the time I had no recognizable fruits left, I was down to about 4 C of fruit without removing anything.

They looked a little more red than this, but the shots with flash just got glare from that puddle of juice in the middle, so I stopped trying.

Put the berries in a big pot on the stove.  Remember, you're going to add 7 C sugar to this and get the whole mess boiling, so if you pull out a pot and think, "Hmm, some sugar will be absorbed, and there's only 4 cups of fruit, so this one's probably big enough," get a bigger pot.  I didn't get a bigger pot, and I think that may have caused some of my trouble.  More on that later.

Berries, sugar, and an inch or so of room at the top of the pot.  Not quite enough room.

While I cooked the berries, I had a shallow pan on a back burner slowly boiling lids and rings.  Mix all the berries and sugar together well and cook it until it boils.  Boil it hard for a minute, stirring constantly.  This is where I had trouble.  Sugar-berry slurry doesn't boil like water; water bubbles, but berries foam.  When the pot was on the burner, the foam dome rapidly rose until I lifted the pot (we had reached a point where turning the heat down didn't help enough), but then it wasn't really boiling, was it?  I juggled for a minute or so, letting the pot heat until I could tell it was about to boil over, then lifting until the foam sank back, stirring the whole time.  You'll understand why there are no pictures of this phase of the operation.

After you've boiled a minute, remove the pot from heat and stir in the pectin.  There will still be a lot of foam; skim this off with a big spoon and discard it (not the spoon--you can keep that, but wash it soon, ok?).

I have no idea whether foam is good for anything.

Now you can start filling jars.  If you're working alone, fill one jar at a time.  Use a funnel if you have it.  When the jam level is just below the jar threads, remove the funnel, get a lid from your shallow boiling pan (don't use your fingers.  It will hurt.) and slap it on top.  Then crank on a lid and push the jar to the back of the counter.  I saw something that said I should push down the button on the lids, so I did.  Later, somebody told me I wasn't supposed to do that, because they'll snap down on their own as they cool.  I've never done this before, so I told Dad to stick all the jars in the freezer after they had cooled and use them soon after thawing.  Three buttons popped back up before they went to the freezer.  Oops.

this place looks seedy.

I mentioned earlier that the result was pretty runny.  I'm used to jam you can scoop up in fat wedges on your knife, and this stuff almost requires a spoon to get it out of the jar (almost).  I think it's because of my boiling biff.  If I had been using a bigger pot, I could have kept it directly on the heat the whole time, and it might have thickened better.

A final word: that pot of jam is hot, and it will stick to you.  Keep kids securely locked in their cages during this operation.