It can seem like witchcraft: you start with a pile of fresh fruit, wave a wand over a bubbling, boiling cauldron and then everything comes together into a glistening, jewel-toned, spreadable jam.
As fruit ripens, enzymes in the fruit start to break pectin down into pectic acid, which is why very ripe fruit is both softer and more difficult to jam without adding extra pectin . *We can't stress enough, for acid to be a positive, you really need the right conditions—the last thing we want is pectin to go cower under a blanket for the next twelve hours.
The gel point usually corresponds to a specific temperature: the sweet spot tends to be 220°F . The concentration of sugar at this point is about 65% and the pH is pretty acidic, somewhere between 3.1 and 3.6.After all this excitement, you'd think there'd be some elaborate process for determining the gel point. But there's no need to pull out the pH strips or the thermometer, because pinpointing the gel point requires one simple blunt instrument: a spoon.
If, on the other hand, the jam is rock solid, that means you've gone too far and cooked it too long. You can try adding a little water to thin it out, but bear in mind that after overcooking a jam, you can't really get those fresh fruit flavors back.Let's say you have landed a gorgeous flat of apricots from a neighbor's tree and you want to turn them into jam without a recipe.
To figure out if more is needed, start tasting. If the mixture still tastes mostly sweet, not tart or sour at all, add a little more of the lemon juice .
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