When the jelly doesn't set
It’s bound to happen.
I made no-sugar, no-added-pectin apple jelly before leaving last week and decided to wait it out and see if it might gel in my absence. I got home a couple days ago from a week-long, mother-daughter R & R trip to find a whole lot of honey apple syrup.
This is a two-part blog post, first a recipe and second what to do if the recipe (or any jelly) doesn’t work out as planned.
Part I: The jelly challenge
My jelly craze combined with a series of jelly successes lured me in. A recipe that reads “15 apples and 3 cups of honey” seemed like the perfect match of simplicity and challenge: no pectin and no sugar. Of course I had to try it.
I love this book, Preserving Summer’s Bounty (from Rodale), but their honey apple jelly recipe is bunk. I’m rewriting it to reflect reality.
Honey Apple Jelly (no sugar, no store-bought pectin)
yield ~3 half-pints
1. Place in a preserving pot:
7 whole apples cut into quarters (skins, cores and all)
enough water to half cover the apples
2. Simmer apples, covered over med-low heat until they’re soft, which will be about 15-20 minutes.
3. Set up your jelly drip system and allow your apples to drip/strain for 6-8 hours. Don’t squeeze the bag because it’ll make your jelly cloudy.
I had to move my operation to another counter so we could make dinner.4. Measure the volume of juice you end up with and pour no more than 3 cups into the preserving pan.
5. Add 1/2 cup honey for every cup juice, so if you have 3 cups juice, add:
1.5 cups honey
and cook the juice/honey mix over med-low heat to dissolve the honey.
6. Raise heat to med-high and bring juice to a boil. Honey is a big foamer in the jelly process, so resign yourself to skimming. Honey also emits a ton of moisture, which requires you to cook the mixture longer in order for it to come to temperature. This mixture will need to boil hard for probably twice the amount of time you usually would cook a jelly, i.e. instead of 10-12 min, you’ll boil it for about 20-24 min.
Also, since there’s no sugar in it you don’t run the risk of scorching the bottom of the pan, and hence don’t need to stir more than a few times. The honey needs to be for the most part undisturbed here or else it won’t come to temp consistently throughout the pan (and won’t set).
7. Pour hot jelly into hot, sterilized jars. Seal properly with two-piece lids and process in boiling water for 5 minutes.
Part II: Why didn’t it set and what you should do about it
Why mine didn’t set was not a great jelly mystery at all. I wasn’t surprised, and I should’ve followed my instincts. It seemed like too big of a batch to begin with (and by this I mean double the amounts I’ve drawn out above). If your pectin-less jelly recipe yield predicts more than 3 half pints, you should definitely halve the recipe.
This is WAY too much jelly to cook in one batch, especially without sugar.There might be other reasons why your jelly didn’t set (especially if you’re using a jelly recipe besides the one above). Revist this post to see what kinds of things affect jelly’s gelling progress.
How to gel a syrupy jelly-failure
At this point, decide if jelly is that important to you. In this case I actually wanted to keep half of my gigantor batch in syrup form. Syrup is great in cocktails, over pancakes, dropped in tea or used in baking recipes, etc.
For the jelly-evangelicals (pardon the pun) out there, all you’ll really be losing upon the recook is a little volume and however many lids you used in the first run. I would not re-use lids here (or ever). Since you’re taking the time to re-cook and reprocess, a failed seal would be a real bummer.
Here’s how to re-cook your syrup and turn it into jelly.
1. Open your sealed syrup jars and pour them into your preserving pan.
2. Slice one apple thinly (core and seeds included) and drop that into the pan.
3. Bring mixture to a simmer (not boil) for about 10 minutes (or until the apple has softened). I’d recommend med-low to low heat for this. You don’t want to boil the jelly here.
4. Remove pan from heat and let the mixture cool for about 5 min before straining out the apples and seed debris. A wire mesh strainer should be fine here, but you can add a layer of (dampened) cheesecloth for a finer sieve if need be.
5. Return the syrup to your preserving pan, set heat at med-high and bring to a rolling boil for about 5 minutes. Time may vary here, but it’s not going to be much longer than this. Use a thermometer to gauge gelling around the pan, all your readings should be at or above 220F.
6. Remove pan from heat. Pour hot jelly into hot, sterilized jars and process for 5 min in a boiling waterbath canner.
Lessons learned
1. Recooking your failed jelly will not take nearly as long as the first go-round. And cooking it for too long makes dense, chewy jelly because the moisture has evaporated in some mysterious scientific phase change operation.
2. A poke-stick thermometer, even a fancy-pants digital one is annoying (and dangerous). I accidentally killed mine in this jelly run by getting syrup inside the back case after so much hovering over scalding steam during the batch’s slow progression to 220F.
I actually ended up overcooking the jelly in the re-cook because I was tinkering with my broken thermometer. I’m buying the one Marisa has (the one with the cord that sits in the jelly).
I’m not crazy about the firmness of my re-cooked jelly. I like a really loose set. Next time I won’t overcook it on the re-cook.My recooked jelly set super-firmly, and as with everything, there were a number of factors involved.
3. Quince is apparently like straight-up gelatin. Using either scraps/cores or chunks of the actual fruit (in a jam) will thicken your spread more than you expect. Be prepared.
I don’t recommend using quince on the recook. A single apple should suffice.4. Use Pomona’s Pectin for honey-only or other no-sugar jelly recipes. Otherwise you end up cooking the hell out of the fruit juice, so much so that the jelly end-result ends up tasting like honey, just in a different form.
This episode of my jelly-novella is coming to a close. I wish you all well; go forth and gel!
Canning, Fruit, Preserved Foods: Sweet, Recipes
Reader Comments (17)
Very nice article and photographs. Thank you.
You are a life saver! I made Crab apple jelly using pectin and mine turned out like syrup also. I followed the directions but obviously I did something wrong. We are using a little on toast in the morning but I like the idea of over pancakes. Never thought of that.
I am sure your wings are fluttering today lol.
Good problem- Nice problem solving and rescue! I have yet to make a clear jelly. Must try!
What about my watermelon "jelly" that actually used powdered pectin but never gelled? Can I use the apple trick? TYIA
Hey Teruska, I'd say go for it with the apple trick. The added pectin in your first attempt probably got overcooked, so you need what the apple's got to give! Let me know how it goes!
Thanks for this post! I just made my third batch of jelly ever and once again it didn't jell. So I re boiled it and it set! :) Yay! I can't tell you how happy I am and with strawberry season coming on here in FL I'm ready to make some Strawberry Jam! I'm going to give the Ball No sugar pectin a try.
I also have jars of unset crab apple jelly this morning BUT the jelly left in the bottom of the pan did set so I will leave it longer. Think I over boil it reading your article! Did add more pectin this year as the first batch had to be reboiled too!
I can always blame the weather here in the UK!!!
Hi there.
I am wondering if one can make not just jelly from apples but jam or preserves. I searched Pinterest and really couldn't find any satisfactory recipes. If you could help with my question, much appreciated. Thank you!
Rebecca - I was wondering the same thing. I guess we could can apple pie filling... but I can not find anything else. And I still have tons of apples. 16 Quarts apple butter, 20 Quarts apple sauce, and now 20 pints and 1/2 pints of apple jelly...
Yes you can make apple preserves like pear preserves. Just peel and remov the seeds, Slice are chunk the apples and cook inthe syrup along with the juice sugar and pectin.
hi. I am new to jam. I just rebioled my watermelon jam because it was like water, i added 2 small jello mixes and 1 tbls pectin and it STILL isnt setting, can i process it again?
Michele,
I'm sorry I can't really help answer your question as I don't know the protocols of recooking a jam with added commercial pectin and commercial products like jello. My instinct is to scrap the recipe you used, use the current product in the capacity of a syrup (lots of ideas for what to do with syrup noted by searching "syrup" on this blog) and try another type of recipe in the future. Sorry I'm not much help.
I will try your method and pray my little jars will gel the second time around. My trees just keep blessing me so I have to do something with them. Thanks for the pictures and the little dialogue underneath, it sure helps.
Ugh - I SO wish I'd found your blog before I made a super ginormous batch of apple jelly! *weary laugh* My recipe promised 12 half pint jars out of apple scraps (peels & cores) that I'd saved in my freezer (leftover from making applesauce). I got 12 half-pint jars alright...of thin syrup. :/ I'l use them on pancakes and such but next time I'll remember to keep it SMALL! :-D
So, at the end of the recipe for no-sugar no store-bought pectin you recommend a store-bought pectin. does that mean this recipe as written is not good after all?
We have bees and apples so I thought this would be a perfect experiment.
HELP HELP. I AM TRYING TO MAKE MUSDINE JELLO
I HAVE THE JUICE READY TO COOK AND TRIED A SMALL AMOUNT LAST NITE
THIS MORNING THE SAME NOT JELL
CAN I REDO IT AGAIN
HOW MANY TIMES CAN I REDO A COOKING
Hi Les,
The point of this post was to share the various factors that could have made that recipe that was written in the book (not here in the post) go better, so the recipe as written above reflects my changes in reducing it so it will work. The Pomona's Pectin method is ideal for folks who don't want to use any sugar and don't want to cook the juice for a long time. Long cooking will be necessary if you follow the recipe as written since honey has more liquid than sugar and none of the pectin bonding power. The jelly comes out fine, but will just taste like honey since all the apple flavor has been cooked out.
Bobbie Jo,
I'm sorry you're having issues with muscadine jelly (not Jello I'm guessing). A set sometimes takes up to 5 days to establish when you are not using added pectin products, so I recommend you to give it time and see if a gel was reached. My wild grape jelly appeared to be syrup the first few days after I made it, but it did in fact reach a nice firm set when I left it alone.