It took me an hour to hull and quarter the 8 quarts of strawberries yesterday morning. Actually quite a few had to be cut into eighths they were so large. Happily I only had to discard two or three damaged or over ripe berries from the entire flat.
I ended up with 28 cups of strawberry chunks to which I added 21 cups (almost 10 pounds!) of sugar. That mix sat for the balance of the day with me stirring it occasionally to get the sugar all dissolved. It's really amazing how much liquid that sugar pulled out of the berries!
After dinner, I brought the mix to a boil over medium heat, stirring constantly to assure it didn't burn on the bottom of the pot. Then I added one and three-quarter cups of lemon juice and brought the mix to a boil again over high heat for five minutes. This required lots of rapid stirring and a little scooping to keep the foam that was being produced from overflowing the pot like Mt. Etna.
When five minutes was up, I removed the mix from the heat and it has been sitting and will continue to sit until after dinner tonight. Then I will heat it again and bring it to a boil before ladling it into pint jars and put them through a water bath. I've got 30 pint jars that I'll be washing for the canning process. I don't think I'll need them all, but I will likely get two dozen filled with home made strawberry jam.
Since I already had the jars and lids needed for this process, the cost will be just what I paid for the strawberries ($26), sugar ($4.50) and lemon juice ($2.00) plus my time and effort (priceless--or maybe worthless). That will come to about $1.50 per pint. Well worth the effort, if you ask me.
2 comments:
Great minds think alike! I just made Strawberry jam last week w/ my waterbath canner. I noticed you did yours differently - did you add pectin to yours? And I never used lemon juice before. Would love to try another method.
(I use the strawberries, sugar and that Pectin stuff you buy at the grocery store.)
You can't beat homemade. We made grape and apple jelly last year and you should have heard the whining when we ran out.
We were going to pick strawberries today, but alas it is pouring and expected to continue through the weekend.
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