Jammin’ part 2
I woke up this morning feeling like I had been run over by a truck. Lately I’ve been doing a lot of running (since I’m training for the Seattle 1/2 Marathon), and before that I was biking a lot (see PastryPowered.com), but I rarely feel like THAT the day after training.
I stayed in PJs until noon. That’s not to say I didn’t *do* anything. Among other things, I scrubbed the jelly from the kitchen floor. Later in the day I went shopping for the other equipment and supplies I needed.
My sister came over and we had dinner, then got started on today’s project.
First we checked which jars from last night solidified. Interestingly enough, the ones with the brown sugar set really well. We had 3 of those jars. 1 jar of the non-brown sugar also set enough that we were satisfied. The rest of the jars (7 of them) were too watery. I poured them out into a tupperware container and put the jars into the dishwasher.
The first batch was made with her juice from last year – 16.5 cups of it to be exact. We brought that to boiling in her stockpot and added 10.5 cups of sugar. Once that was all melted we put in 3/4 cup more sugar and 3 boxes of pectin (slowly so it would all melt), followed by enough butter to fix the foam. Three batches was enough to fill almost 11 of the pint mason jars (which seem to not quite hold a pint).
The second batch was 2/3 green grapes and 1/3 red, “low” sugar recipe. Again we did the triple batch in the stockpot. Again we got almost 11 jars.
At this point we sent D.H. out for more jars, pectin and sugar.
While he was scouring the neighboring grocery stores for low or no sugar pectin, I followed the SurJell directions for mixing up more pectin and water and boiling it for 1 minute, but I used the Fruitjell – because I didn’t want to add any more sugar than I already had. We took 1 cup of the jelly from last night and boiled it with 1 additional tablespoon of the pectin mixture. Then I put that in a small jar I happened to have around.
Finally, we had enough juice for another batch – 2/3 green/1/3 red. My sister went home and I got started on my first solo batch. This time I used Ball FruitJell No Sugar Needed Pectin, but to the specifications on their recipe (4 cups of juice per package). This batch surprised me (at first) by only making almost 6 jars, but then I realized it was juice only and not all that extra sugar adding to bulk.
Now we wait another 24 hours before disturbing the jelly.
