About a month ago I found a great deal on canning supplies. My 2013 goal is to eat healthier including planting a garden full of produce and making my own foods.

My friend Leslie was all on board for canning and found a
. Unfortunately, we didn’t have the exact ingredients needed for that particular recipe and the
we found wasn’t exactly the most easiest to follow.

So, for our first ever strawberry jam experience (which turned out fabulously might I add), we felt a little lost.

I am going to break down every step of our process that was a combination of the two recipes we fell upon.

Supplies Needed for Jamming:

Canning jars, lids and ring

Canning pot with rack

Funnel

Magnetic wand

Jar lifter

Jar wrench

4-5 quart pan to cook in

Crockpot

Casserole dish

Water

Measuring cups

Utensil to mix with

Ingredients for Jam:

Strawberries; we purchased 3 containers (approximately 6 pounds)

1.75oz (49 grams) box of pectin

1/4 cup lemon juice

7 cups sugar

Process:

First things first – wash all of your canning materials (ie: the jars, lids, rings, funnel).

Ensuring they are clean, they apparently need to be sterilized and hot when you get to the actual physical canning process. So… this is what we did (based on recipe #1):

• Put the lids and rings in a crockpot with 2 inches of water and turn to high.
• Place the clean jars in a casserole dish (or lasagna pan) with 4 inches of water surrounding the jars. Place in the oven at 250 degrees.

Clean your strawberries and remove the tops.

The recipe called for 5 cups of strawberries. We used approximately two and three quarters of the containers we bought and ended up with 6 full jars and one half jar (pint sized). Next time I think I would use all three containers we purchased (which was approximately 6 pounds).

After the strawberries have been cleaned and the tops have been removed, add into your 4-5 quart pan and heat until the juice starts bubbling.

At this time, carefully (I say carefully because there was some splashage and owies occurring) smash your strawberries while they continue to heat. Smash them until the consistency is something you desire, but do not over do it. Remember, they will continue to thin out as the remainder of the cooking process occurs.

The plus side of using a quart pan is that you can see how many quarts you have cooked (so you don’t need to actually removed the heated strawberries to measure out 5 cups). 5 cups should reach just above the 1 quart line (1.25 quarts = 5 cups)

When you have your desired consistency, add 1/4 cup of lemon juice and stir.

Add the pectin and stir again.

Bring the mixture to a boil and let boil for 3 minutes.

Remove from heat and stir for 5 minutes.

At this time, remove any foam that remains on the top layer. (Fortunately, after stirring off the heat for 5 minutes we had no foam so we didn’t have to worry about removing it.)

At this time, I filled our canning pot with water and set on medium heat to being warming.

Using your jar lifter, remove the jar(s) from the casserole dish. Hubby laid out a towel on the counter and took out all 7 pint jars and set them on the towel.

Using your canning funnel, fill your jars, leaving 1/4 inch of space between the jam and the rim of the jar.

Wipe the top of the jars to ensure there is no jam on the rim of the jar.

Using your magnetic wand, lift out a lid and place on top of the filled jars. BEWARE: The jars, lids and rings are going to be hot!

Still using your magnetic wand, lift out a ring and place on the jar.

Using the jar wrench, tighten the lid on the jar.

Using the jar lifter, place the jars onto the canning rack.

Place the canning rack with the filled, sealed jars, into the canning pot.

Ensure the water is 1-2 inches above the jars, adding more water to the pot if necessary to fully immerse the jars.

Bring the water to a boil.

When the water begins to boil, let the jars boil for 10 minutes.

After the 10 minutes, use your jar lifter to remove the jars from the canning pot and let them sit for 5 minutes.

After 5 minutes of sitting, place the jars in a place where they will be undisturbed for 12-24 hours. (We placed ours on the top shelf of the pantry to ensure they would be undisturbed.)

After 12-24 hours, push on the leads. If they bow into the jar at all, place that jar in the fridge and use within 3 weeks. If they do not bow into the jar, they can be stored in a dark cool place up to one year.

(PS: None of our 7 jars had bowing. Not even the half full jar!)

I have to tell you. Hubby grabbed a jar after 16ish hours of sitting undisturbed and placed it in the fridge. We (hubby, Buggy and I) tried a small sample this evening and oh my! I dislike strawberries, but this jam is the most delicious thing I have ever tasted. I am proud to announce that our first learning experience at making homemade strawberry jam was a SUCCESS!

Now, what other kind of jam can I make!?