Strawberry Jam: Tips, Tricks, and Stats

May is one of my favorite times of the year. Because May means strawberries. More than strawberries, strawberries that you pick yourself from Lyon Farm near Durham. If you've never been there, you cannot imagine the deliciousness that is Lyon Farm.

One year my sisters were flying in for a family event in May. I kept telling them that I had to go and get some strawberries for their visit, and they kept telling me not to worry about it. Well when they got here and were served fresh (not cooked) strawberry pie and strawberries and whipped cream on pancakes and waffles, they too were converted to Lyon Farms strawberries.

This year I was in Utah over the big berry picking weekend, and when I got back the weather got strange and I got busy. When I realized that the best of the berry season had already gone, that my best berry picker got married and left us, and that my second best berry picker was still recovering from surgery, I did the unthinkable. I went to Lyon Farms and bought my berries already picked. But we had been out of strawberry freezer jam for 2 weeks already, and things were getting ugly.

The first order of business was to make a pie. As Soon As Possible.

I like the recipe with cream cheese on top of the crust. Yum, yum, yum.

Then I started the long task of making the jam. Some years the kids help a lot, but I did most of it after bedtime this year so it was just me and endless episodes of the Gilmore Girls. (Season 2)

Every year I tell myself that I will remember how many batches of freezer jam I made so that I will know the next year if it was enough. And of course I never remember. So this year I am recording it here, in my blog. And unless my blog falls in an empty forest between now and then, I'll be able to look back here and remember that I made...

13 batches of strawberry freezer jam!

So I know that most of you aren't making jam for a house full of jam snobs like I am, who will only eat strawberry freezer jam on their toast, sandwiches, and occasionally even pancakes. But just in case you're making more than a batch or two, here are some things I've learned to speed the process.

Usually I dump my buckets of berries (not all at once) into a sink full of cold water to clean the berries & cap them. This year my berries were more fragile and I was afraid that soaking in the water would kill too many of them, so I washed them a few at a time. Then I cap them using a grapefruit spoon, which removes the cap without taking too much of the berry. Unless you're an 8 year old, in which case it removes the cap and half of the berry as well.

As I wash the berries I set aside the nicest berries and those in the best shape for putting in pies and on angel food cake and any other yummy desserts we can think of. The others go in a bowl destined for the blender. I blend up most of the berries, and then about 1/4 I process in the (slower) food processer instead so that I can mix those chunks in with my blended berry puree. That way I save time but still have some chunks in my jam.

I never use the stove when I'm making jam. (Or pudding, or white sauce, or anything that requires boiling something that would scorch easily.) I use the microwave instead. Here's how I do my jam.

Bowl #1--I mix the 3 cups of sugar (I always use the pink sure gel boxes because they use less sugar and I'm all about making this jam as close to healthy as possible.) and the package of pectin in this dry bowl.

Bowl #2 (a big glass bowl)--I put the mixed sugar/pectin in here, then add 1 c water and stir well. Then I put the bowl in the microwave and cook for about 5 minutes, stopping to stir 3 times. By the end of 5-6 minutes in my microwave it has started boiling, and I boil it for 1 minute. While this is boiling I measure my pureed berries into bowl #3 and I mix a new batch of sugar & pectin in bowl #1.

Bowl #3--I measure 4 cups of my berry puree into this bowl, and then as soon as my boiled sugar/pectin mix is done boiling I dump it in here and stir it in--now it's jam! As soon as I've dumped the boiled sugar mix in the pureed berries, I transfer the new sugar/pectin mix into this (hot) glass bowl, mix in a cup of water, and put it back in the microwave to start cooking again. Then I pour the hot jam into freezer containers, measure 4 more cups of puree into bowl #3, measure more sugar and pectin into bowl #1, go back and stir the cooking sugar/pectin in the microwave, and on and on and on.

I find when I make my jam in an assembly line like this I'm able to make a lot more batches in the same amount of time as just a few made one at a time using the stove.
In the end the island is covered with freezer containers full of jam and my feet and back hurt. But in a good way. ;)

This year I learned a New Fact about jam making. I went back to Lyon Farms and bought some more berries, which were even more fragile because it was even later in the season. I came home, washed them and capped them and blended them and then I was beat. I just couldn't bring myself to actually make the jam. So I put my pureed berries in the fridge and went to bed.

The next day I started up my berry making assembly line and made another 5-6 batches and left them on the island that night. (For those of you who haven't made freezer jam, it has to sit out for 24 hours before it goes into the freezer, for some reason.) The next day when I was ready to put it in the freezer I noticed that the jam in the containers was frothy looking. I thought I must not have cooked one batch right, but when I looked more closely, every container from the night before was frothy looking. When I called the sure-gel hotline I was told that one of the things that could cause a lot of bubbles in my jam was letting the berries sit too long. So I guess my fragile berries did a little fermenting in the fridge overnight before I turned them into jam. Who knows--this could turn out to be the best jam yet!

The other day at the pool I met someone new in our neighborhood. You know, the nurse who was worried about Rachel's sub-orbital bones being fractured. When she heard that I have 6 children and that 3 of them are triplets, she said that she thought I was a goddess. Truly. And she was very serious. So here you have it. Strawberry jam tricks from a goddess...Enjoy!