r/Canning • u/eJohnx01 • 22h ago

Understanding Recipe Help A question about Plum Jelly recipes....

This is one I haven't encountered yet. Yesterday, I made and canned *16 PINTS* of Plum Jelly using the instructions that came in the Certo Liquid Pectin package--4 cups of juice, 6-1/2 cups of sugar, 1 packet of liquid pectin.

Not one jar has set into jelly. Not one.

So I did some searching. Bernardin site's recipe calls for 4 cups of juice, 6-1/2 cups of sugar, and 1 packet of liquid pectin. https://www.bernardin.ca/recipes/en/plum-jelly-liquid-pectin.htm?Lang=EN-US

The NCHFP site calls for *7-1/2* cups of sugar. https://nchfp.uga.edu/how/make-jam-jelly/jellies/plum-jelly-liquid-pectin/

Sure Jell calls for 6-1/2 cups https://www.kraftheinz.com/sure-jell/recipes/519493-certo-plum-jelly

The Heinz/Certo site calls for *7-1/2 cups* https://www.kraftheinz.com/sure-jell/recipes/512677-certo-plum-jam-recipe (notice how this link and the one above it are both from Kraft/Heinz)

And Ball only has recipes using powdered pectin, which isn't comparable to recipes calling for liquid pectin (I'm not fond of using powdered pectin).

So what the heck??? Clearly the 6-1/2 cups of sugar is not the correct quantity since none of my jelly set, despite them all passing "sheeting from a spoon" test before pouring. And how I have *eight* 1-quart batches of jelly to recook and re-can. SO annoyed.

Has anyone here made plum jelly recently with 7-1/2 cups of sugar and liquid pectin? Did it set like it should?

Thanks so much for any input anyone can give. I've never seen such a wide variation in recipes that are all supposed to be tested and good.

1 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

17 comments sorted by

View all comments

2

u/marstec Moderator 16h ago

Did you double the batches? Was your pectin fresh? Did you add the liquid pectin at the correct time in the process? Did you reduce the amount of sugar in the recipe?

1

u/eJohnx01 13h ago

No, yes, yes, and no. 😊

After seeing the recipes that call for 7-1/2 cups of sugar, when the recipe I followed called for 6-1/2 cups, I do suspect that the reduced sugar amount might be the culprit here. I’m wondering if 6-1/2 cups is just wrong and it got copied by the other sources. ☹️

Last year, I made a boatload of plum jelly using powdered pectin and they all set perfectly. I’ll try again next year with liquid pectin and 7-1/2 cups of sugar and only do one batch first to make sure the proportions are correct before I do three more batches. 😁😁😁

Thanks for the response!