Next Stop: Ridgeville SC 3/13/17
Okay I have a pressure canner and been successful with
canning salmon, beef, and chicken. I now
think I have this canning thing under control so why not make some strawberry
jam…I done my research and talked with my tech support (my daughter Christina)
and figured this will be easy.
The first part getting the strawberries was fun and easy with a trip to a local berry farm. I visited Hickory Bluff Berry Farm where my daughter-in-law Karen works with her parents Kathy and Walter who own and operate Hickory Bluff Berry Farm. I always enjoy visiting the farm the last time I visited I assisted with sorting and packing some of the best broccoli I have ever had…yes it was fresh out the field. If you have not had fresh cut broccoli you are missing a treat. Back to the strawberries I was there early in the morning for their first picking of the season. Like the broccoli there is nothing better than strawberries fresh from the patch. Being the great people they are they let me help with the sorting and packing of the strawberries but in turn they had to listened to some of my stories from the road. A great day at the farm.
They offer U-pick your own strawberries or if you are in a rush they have some freshly picked and packaged available. Strawberries are the first in with blackberries and blueberries to follow as we get into spring and summer. They also have local honey and jams along with other farm produce as the seasons come in.
The next step process the berries and make the jam. I followed the well established process of cleaning, mashing,
and cooking the strawberries then sealed them with a boiling water bath. The resulting jam was very good with lots of
flavor but it was more of a syrup than a jam.
Back to my tech support and more reading. It appears I did not
understand what a rolling boil looked like and did not get the jam up to the required
220 degrees. I needed a larger sauce pan
to allow a more violent boiling without over flow. The second batch turned out great with it
setting to a preserve as required. The first
batch is not a lost its just a matter of recooking the batch and resealing it
in a boiling water bath. I opted to
recook the first batch in small batches as I needed the jam and place the
reprocessed jam in the refrigerator in lieu of resealing it. I started with 5 pounds of strawberries and
made 4 pints and 8 half pints of jam with berries left to allow some snacking
of the sweet berry.
The Heart of Operations at Hickory Bluff Berry Farm
Some fun for the little one's when they are not picking berries
No I was not out there picking my own someone had to take the pictures
Time to sort and pack the berries
Andy put that camera down and get back to work
Kathy admiring the variety of the berries
Mother Nature is amazing
The crew hard at work
Now it is time to start the jam...clean the berries
Prepare for the mashing
Now they are ready for the stove Lemon juice and pectin added
4 cups of berries 1/4 cup lemon juice and pectin per the package
Bring to a boil and add sugar all at once.
Looks like a lot of sugar, that is because it is a lot.
7 cups of the sweet stuff
Processed and sealed cooling down.
It may seem like a lot of work and it was time consuming
but just hanging out at the farm with Walter, Kathy, and Karen
was a joy in itself...but the end product was the icing on the cake.
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