Concord grape jelly
Sunday, October 3, 2010 at 5:32PM
Grape jelly is magical. Jelly itself is one of those miracles of science that bolsters kitchen empowerment to new heights. And, as it turns out, I have enough to say about jelly to make this blog post feel like the Hip Girl’s Guide to Grape Jelly.
I’m not going to lie, though. Jelly is sort of the primadonna of the canning scene. It’s the only kind of sweet spread for which I actually pull out the thermometer. It’s totally worth it though.
The scoop on jelly
There are a few quirks to work out, but jelly making is really not as fussy as people make it out to be. This was my first commercial-pectin-less attempt at jelly. (Which leads me to the understanding that apples are truly the magical ones in this equation.)
I’m not going to post the basic recipe here since I followed Linda’s specs and direction almost to a ‘T’; I don’t have room to reproduce those two pages. Buy or borrow her book.
I will mention places where I needed help or how things ended up a bit different than she instructed. I’ll make a future post on shaking this recipe up by adding honey and lavender, reducing sugar and still arriving at jelly.
Your jelly success will depend on a number of variables:
1. Preserving pan
Use the heaviest-bottomed and widest-based pan you’ve got. You want the jelly to have even access to the heat so a wider cook space spreads the juice out and allows it to cook more evenly. Don’t use non-stick. I used my self-gifted, birthday preserving pot (which I think needs a post of its own one of these days).
2. Your fruit
Your grapes should be firm. Eat the mushier, broken open ones as you wash and prepare them. Your apple should be slightly underripe (or, at least, super firm and crisp). A couple unripe, never-gonna-ripen crabapples would work fine here, too.;)
3. Sugar
I use organic sugar because that’s what I want to eat. I don’t care about the guarantee of making perfect-looking/setting foods all the time. I have a lot of success with this product from Wholesome Sweeteners.
4. Your thermometer
You could also swap out a decent digital thermometer for a good bit of patience (needed for interpreting doneness from the way cooked syrup drips off a frozen spoon). More on the spoon test later.
Equipment and inputs
I started with about 3.5 lbs of concord grapes, an impulse buy on an afternoon detour through the farmers’ market, which yielded about 3.5 cups of juice the next day. I ended up with two sealed pints of jelly, spread out into two half-pints and four quarter-pints, and about a quarter-pint for the fridge. I like having fridge leftovers because it’ll show you what your jelly is up to inside the sealed jars (without you actually having to pop one open to see).
;)
Added pectin: mashed grapes simmering with a finely-sliced apple After simmering the mashed fruit and apple slices, I set my metal strainer over a glass bowl and left it on the counter for a couple hours to drip. Then I moved the whole contraption into the fridge for the night since it seemed like quite a bit more juice lurked in the pulp.
On day two I used a (clean, damp) muslin produce bag to strain the tartrate crystals out of the juice before cooking it. (This crystal formation is why grape jelly is a two-day project. You don’t want these little cream of tartar crystals chunking up your jelly.) It worked beautifully and turned my produce bag into a hippie.
Reaching the gel stage
I hate measuring temperatures. Marisa swears by her digital thermometer with a submerge-able wire (which pretty much eliminates half the troubles I have with thermometers). I have the poke-stick kind, one that my mom used to use to inspect food in restaurants (it’s pretty fancy). But, even with the most high-tech equipment, you’re still not guaranteed success. It’s hard to get an accurate reading from an inch-deep liquid no matter how much money your thermometer costs.
1. I wear my fancy gloves whenever I encounter a temperature-reading-required recipe. Even if you don’t accidentally touch the boiling liquid, the steam is sure to get you while you’re sticking your hand into the bubbling pot to get a reading. Lesson already learned here.
2. Stirring will help you maintain consistent heating, but don’t stir so much that the juice won’t have a chance to boil long enough at temperature. Stirring is a tricky part of jellying. The better preserving pan you have, the less likely the sugar will scorch the bottom, and the less you’ll need to stir it.
3. Different areas of your pan will simultaneously be at different temperatures, which is thoroughly frustrating and confusing. You want the magic number 220 for the whole pan. You’ll get all sorts of numbers as you move the poke-stick into different areas of the pot. I measured temperatures in five or so areas of the pan and I got temps between 214-221 in one sweep. It’s unavoidable that there will be a range of temps, even in a Le Creuset enameled cast iron pan. Glove on, I kept at it.
Once my juice reached a boil, my batch took about 12 additional minutes for all areas to reach 220. I pulled it off the heat and grabbed my frozen spoons to make sure it was going to gel.
Spoons
Linda has an excellent section on all the different ways to check for gelling (in the book I mentioned previously).
Unlike the case with jams (larger, spread out, dark bubbles), you don’t really see much physical change in the syrup at the time it’s gelled, so if you’re not sure your thermometer (and arm/fingers/hand) is up to the task of precision, then a frozen spoon can help you out. Pop 4 or 5 regular spoons in the freezer on a plate before you start your jelly.
When you think it’s finished, pull the pot completely from the heat, grab your plate of spoons and dip one of the spoons in to scoop up a little of the jelly. Place plate back in freezer for a few minutes. When you tip the spoon over, you’ll see what your jelly will be like at room-temp and in the fridge after opening. If it’s super runny, just cook the jelly a bit longer and retest by repeating these steps.
What jelly?
Waiting on the upwards of four days (maybe even a week) to see if your jelly sets is perhaps the craziest part of all this. Not knowing if you have syrup or jelly after two days of work might do you in. Whatever you do, don’t shake, invert or even touch the jars once you’ve processed them in the boiling waterbath. Leave them alone and forget about the jelly for at least 3 days, the processed jars could take up to a week. Checking before then will make you depressed and could even break up the gelled bonds. Checking the fridge jar is your best bet because it will set faster (since it wasn’t processed in boiling water).
If you’re open to either result (grape syrup is arguably a more versatile ingredient to have on hand) then jelly making won’t be nearly as stressful.;)
When the gel of jelly happens though, you forget all about the work you’ve done up to this point. If it doesn’t happen, use it as syrup added to baked goods, cocktails or re-cook it (and add another apple if you’d like) and try again.
Reader Comments (14)
Wait, you're not supposed to move the jars at all for 2-4 days? No WONDER I got plum ginger syrup.
Very exciting! I love grape jelly, and the apples definitely make it easier to get a good set. Yours looks yummy; I couldn't find Concord so made do with Coronation grapes this year, but Concords are really the most heavenly.
What a great post! Well done on going through all of the steps here, I am very impressed. I add apple jelly to my mixture instead of fresh apples (insipred by Christine Ferber) at the end of my process. I love the pot you use, it is called the Bouillabaisse if I recognize it properly. I use a copper pan, but the Soup Pot is a great shape to use for evaporating the water quickly. I use my soup pot to make all of my chutneys!
WOW, so impressed! That apple trick is really cool.
So much good information here, Kate. Talk to me about organic sugar, would you? I switched to organic sugar just this summer. From what you say, it sounds like it can affect the set of a mixture. Is that your experience? I've had some trouble with setting since I switched, but I'm not sure I could make the connection.
any thoughts on homemade citrus pectin? I always have lots leftover from Meyer Lemon marmalade making. It has a very low citrus flavor profile but is cloudy?
Do you think it would clear, anyone tried it? Maybe there's a reason no one talks about it?
Hey Julia,
I've reposted your comment to my discussions section on the Facebook page here. I hope we get some answers!
Personally, I haven't much experience with homemade citrus pectin. The Meyer lemon marmalade recipe I use, doesn't generate extra pectin, but I made an orange vanilla jelly last week using homemade valencia orange pith pectin. I am having a go at another batch tomorrow since I botched the pectin process initially. :)
Hey! I just stumbled upon this post, I realize it's several years old but it sparked my interest. I just made a batch of clover jelly, well I should say syrup! Can't decide to keep as syrup or redo. But when I place it in the fridge, it hardens! Thoughts?
Missy, did you wait 5 days at room temp to asses if it set? If not your syrup will likely be jelly after all if it firmed up in the fridge now. If it's just a firmer syrup in the fridge then that's not likely a jelly set, just a syrup. Clover syrup sounds like a great thing to have on hand too!
Well, I must have done several things wrong, such as, using store bought pectin, moving the jars, and my tears in general may have effected things. I re-cooked the "jelly" according to a websites' directions but even the second go around produced a syrupy set of non-solid stuff. O me. I picked three bushels of grapes and made 20 jars of non-jelly. I guess we will go the apple pectin route if I ever make jelly again.
Goopy in New York
Oh Goopy (Patricia), I'm so sorry. Well that grape syrup is going to taste delicious in club soda, something you couldn't do with jelly :) Syrup also spreads really nicely on top of a layer of peanut butter or butter on a sandwich! I do hope you'll venture the way of jelly again at least once more, cutting your batch down and trying the apple pectin route (check out Linda Ziedrich's Jam's & Jellies book!)
all my best,
Kate
I have made18 pints of crab apple jelly, none of which has set,despite wrinkling on a cold plate. I used jam sugar and read my thermometer carefully. I got all the batches up to 221 or 222. I suspect the problem may have been making too big a batch at a time - 4 pints of juice to 4lbs sugar - maybe not all of the batch reached the correct temperature. What is the maximum amount of juice / failed jelly would you recommend per thinly sliced apple when I reboil? I did this on my Rayburn - always difficult to avoid hot and cooler spots.
Hi Mary,
I'm sorry you're having trouble. I do think your batch size is a bit too large to get the temperature completely even throughout and to get enough evaporation to achieve a set.
I would not exceed 2 pints' worth juice/syrup per apple.
Wish j would have seen this before I made my jelly. Just followed a recipe to a T, so hopefully it worked!