In a jam!

[rkh_noble]

It's been a long time since I made any jam, but yesterday I made small batches of gooseberry jam and plum jam, neither of which has set properly.

I followed recipes (scaled down) and mainly used "preserving sugar" which was recommended on the pack for both these fruits, as supposedly they ought to contain enough pectin. I had to add a bit of granulated as I didn't have quite enough preserving sugar even for the small amounts of jam I was making.

I used a thermometer to check they reached over 220 F, but should I have let them boil at this temp for longer?

Any advice about the best way to rescue these jams very gratefully received!

Thanks

Ruth

[perkin]

I would imagine it's due to not using enough preserving sugar.
Anyway, I'd reboil them and do the wrinkle test before you put it back in the jars.
Oh and don't forget to re-sterilise the jars before using them.

[taff]

oh dear, thanks for that link perkin, not for the wrinkle test, but for the blog that led to another blog that led to printables for jam jars, that led to me thinking i might as well do my own and for the inspiration

[OverWyreGrower]

Also check out Jam World - for info on setting/pectin.

Strange that yours didn't set, as both plums and gooseberries are high-pectin fruit. I would say they need to boil at setting point for about 10mins before turning off and cooling/jarring up.

[rkh_noble]

Thanks, I didn't boil them for anything like 10 mins (was worried about over-cooking!) so that's obviously the problem!

[OverWyreGrower]

You might not even need to do a 10min boil.... just get them to temp, and do a plate/wrinkle test. As soon as they are ready, you can stop the boil....

[rkh_noble]

Thanks. Good to know I can reboil it. The other sugar I used was granulated cane sugar, as far as I know that shouldn't have caused any probs (I know beet sugar can) and it was only a small proportion of the overall sugar content anyway.

[OverWyreGrower]

I've used a mixture of jam sugar and normal sugar before and it's been fine. If you're using high pectin fruit, it shouldn't matter anyway

[Alison]

I never use jam sugar and have had no problems with gooseberry jam in the past. Maybe you had a bit too much water in your fruit and it just needs boiling a bit more. In lower pectin fruit I still don't use jam sugar, just add the juice of a lemon and it works fine.