Blackberry Jam???

I've always loved fresh jam, but never knew exactly how it was made. I vaguely remember making freezer jam with my dad when I was younger, but I didn't really want a ton of jam in my freezer (That thing is entirely too small to fill it with jam. lol)

Now that I have a ditch full of blackberry bushes, I figured it was time to learn how to make blackberry jam.

So, join me in my homemade jam making adventure. My first thought was, How do I make jam? I know the basics of a jam recipe is fruit (and LOTS of it), sugar and something to make it gel up? I don't know if that's the correct term or not. lol

After a considerable amount of research, which I do a lot of regularly, I found that there are recipes that use added pectin and recipes that activate the natural pectin found in the fruit. As someone who is trying to get back to making things from scratch, I knew that I didn't want to be adding pectin. In my search for a recipe I also found a canning debate as well, but I had already decided that I wanted to can my jam. So, at this point I just needed to find a recipe that met my criteria: 1) no added pectin

2) canned jam

In my search I found a few recipes that met my criteria. The first was a low-sugar recipe, that I will keep on hand when I need to make a jam with low or no sugar later on. I also found a wonderful recipe on another blog, that after reading through the recipe and instructions I decided this was the one I was using.

Let's get into it...

The recipe I followed had only 2 ingredients: blackberries and sugar, and you use equal parts of each.

I have been harvesting berries from my ditch line for roughly 2 weeks now, and currently have 2 1/2 gallon size freezer bags full of frozen berries. I took one of the bags out of the freezer today to thaw. Once they were mostly thawed, I dumped them into my largest pot and started mashing. (The picture to the right is what I ended up with) I forgot that I had to measure them, so then I had to scoop them into my largest measuring cup (which really wasn't big enough, lol). I ended up with roughly 6 cups of mashed blackberries, which now meant that I needed to measure out the sugar. After measuring out the sugar, I turned the burner to high and started stirring.

According to the recipe you need to bring the mashed berries to a boil and stir for 3 minutes. During this boil the berries were foaming. Foaming is completely normal, as there is air in the fruit that is released while cooking. Next you add in the sugar. The recipe tells you to continue stirring while adding the sugar slowly, so it doesn't clump. You will continue to boil the mixture on high for 3 minutes stirring constantly. Now you take the mashed berry mixture off the stove and whisk for 3 minutes. This whisking process releases the natural pectin in the berries. (This is important if you're not planning on adding store-bought pectin, also called Sure-Jell.)

I had already prepped my canning jars by hand washing each one, then put the lids into a boiling pot of water to sterilize. I did this so it would be easier to just put the jam into the jars and cap them when I was done. Which it was. I ladled the jam into each jar, then wiped the rims and put the lids on each jar. Everything I've read about home canning says to only hand tighten the lids, and I never understood why until I had to open one. So make sure you just hand tighten the lids. Now, we wait!

I let my jars sit overnight on a cooling rack. I heard all of the jars "ping" within an hour, which meant they had sealed. However, I still left them sitting because I needed to make sure that the jam set up completely.

I have to say making jam wasn't nearly as hard as I thought it was going to be. I actually had fun making blackberry jam. The next thing I'm making is blackberry wine, and some blackberry cobbler for my sister who requested it. Those adventures will be coming soon. lol