Grape jam from wild grapes

[gottadance]

OMG - so delicious. I have all of these wild river grapes growing all over the place, so I decided to make some river grape jam. The flavor was so good - but it didn't set up right. I followed the directions exactly, but it didn't gel. Rats. I'm going to use the jam as a glaze instead.

[HappyMama]

OMG - so delicious. I have all of these wild river grapes growing all over the place, so I decided to make some river grape jam. The flavor was so good - but it didn't set up right. I followed the directions exactly, but it didn't gel. Rats. I'm going to use the jam as a glaze instead.

Mmmm sounds delicious.

Did you happen to use pomona pectin in? Or you can use honey and just keep cooking down until it sets. You can also make your own pectin from apples and add that to it to set. Hope that helps.

[gottadance]

Mmmm sounds delicious.

Did you happen to use pomona pectin in? Or you can use honey and just keep cooking down until it sets. You can also make your own pectin from apples and add that to it to set. Hope that helps.

I used a half a box of store bought pectin for two pints of jam - which is what the recipe said. I know the woman who made the cookbook, so I'm going to contact her to see what might've happened. I followed directions to a tea. And the flavor was so robust and delicious, I would've loved to have that as jam. My grams suggested just cooking it some more and adding more pectin until it seems like it's getting thicker. I don't want to add honey because of the sweetness - it's already pretty sweet.

How do you make your own pectin?

[ladytoysdream]

My suggestion is to make another batch of jam, but tweak the recipe to get it thicker. And then after it cools down and sets up and is thicker, to mix the jam from both batches to get the consistency you want. Try 1 jar at a time from each batch, not all of them at once.

Did you make jam or jelly ? Jelly is just the liquid thickened. Jam has bits and pieces of the fruit mixed in.

My recent adventure with grape jelly was the opposite of yours. I had never made grape jelly before , but have made lots of other kinds of jam in the past. I bought some concord grapes through a food co op from a orchard about a hour from me.
100 pounds of them. All I wanted was some grape juice
I decided grape jelly would be one of my projects. It took me by myself 4 days to conquer those grapes.
So my first batch was WAY too thick. Stand the spoon up in the jar and it stands upright....and does not fall over......sigh
I followed the directions exactly from the sure jell powder box.
Second batch, I used about 1/2 the sugar amount, and the batch looked runny but did set up almost perfect. The same day I made a batch of raspberry jam, and that turned out perfect.

I have NOW done a lot of reading about grape jelly making. The only conclusion I can make, is I over cooked the first batch. I just could not get that roiling boil to happen correctly. Second batch I used a smaller pot with a nice shiny bottom. Almost perfect batch. So maybe I can blame the pot. Maybe less sugar is the answer. I know I like it that way.

I do know that with too thick a batch, you can add a little juice to it, a few drops at a time, to cut the thickness down. Most jam / jelly recipes call for making one batch at a time. Not to double a recipe.

Another thing is to consider your elevation. I have to add about 5 extra minutes to the water bath time. Always water bath. Any jar that does not seal goes into the refrig to be used. Got to have one to taste test

Sometime soon, I am going to take my too thick jam and work with it. Then put it into pints and gift it to the kids to help me use it up faster. I am not going to reprocess it or boil it. Just put it into the jars and into the frig.

Let us know how you make out with yours