My First Failure

So during the blizzard our area experienced I decided to make some jelly. Ok make that a lot of jelly! I found grapefruit on sale for very cheap and had picked up some blueberries on sale last week, I saved them knowing this snow was coming.

I made the blueberry jam the same way I made the strawberry and blackberry too.

The grapefruit was also very easy. It was a bit time consuming juicing 10 pounds of grapefruit! However 10 pounds of grapefruit yielded 12 half pint (8 oz.) jars.

Here are the basic steps.

First, cut in half and juice the fruit.


I then strained the juice since some of the small seeds got through.

To finish it I added 5 cups of sugar. I know this seems like a lot but it did make 12 jars where before it was just 6. Also grapefruit tend to be bitter so a little more sugar wouldn't hurt. I also added 1/4 cup lemon juice (basically 1 lemon) and the pectin.

I also made the blueberry but this is the only picture I took.

Here are the finished jars all ready for lids and rings. That would be 19 jars total, MANY more than I have done at once to date!

And this is where the failure happened! So I did my little trick to test for jelliness and everything was great. I was so excited to use my pressure canner and the thought of processing all 19 jars at the same time was almost too much to bear!

I know I read that you can pressure can jellies. In some of the recipes I have read they said you could. Anyway while I am usually all about researching and looking stuff up before proceeding I was just too into it and excited about the whole new gadget that I did not.

Had I done a bit of research I would have read that it is NOT a good idea to pressure can jelly and jams because the temperature gets too hot and it will affect how the pectin gels. So after diligently letting the canner get up to pressure and process for the correct amount of time I took out the jars, let them cool overnight, and went to put them away the next morning. This is when I saw that it was runny! My jelly.....not set....what the heck happened?! The overage that I put in the fridge to use right away came out perfect so where was the problem?

That is when I googled a bit and read to not pressure can. OOPS! I also read that you can "fix the problem" and still come out with good jelly in the end although it will be darker than before.

Today I redid the jelly and processed in the pressure canner pot but used the water boiling method. It was still exciting that I could fit 12 jars in at once!! They are currently cooling and we will see what I am left with in the morning. If all else fails I will have lots of syrup!

So the lesson learned today is : DO NOT PRESSURE CAN JELLY, IT WILL NOT SET PROPERLY!!

Sometimes you have to learn the hard way and I can safely say I won't make that mistake again!