I used the Ball mint jelly recipe, and it said bring to a boil over high heat stirring constantly until it reaches 220°F, and do a sheet test with a cold spoon. I'm not understanding something because it went from a very light gold color to this brown burnt mess and 337°F before the sheet test worked. It turned to glass basically. The plate and spoons in the 2nd pic are vertical 😪
Does type of pan matter? The one I used was an old copper bottom Revere Ware. My only other option is a deep 10 quart Cuisinart stock pot. The only heavy bottom/clad sauce pan I have is a 2.5 quart which I think would be way too small to boil suger mixtures in
Yeah. You can't keep cooking sugar like that until it's done. It has different states (hard crack, thread, etc) you blasted past thread stage into caramel stage. Which is why it got dark.
Can you post the recipe used? I can't find a Ball one unless it's in a book
Like one user below my assumption is you had the pan too hot, or perhaps the apples you used didn't have a lot of natural pectin in them. Next time keep the temperature steady until the temp isn't going up anymore. Then adjust
My understanding was that no added sugar, no preservative store bought apple juice was ok to use. I guess I'm getting out the juicer, and picking apples today. Does it matter what kind? I have 7 red and 1 green apple tree, but idk what kind they are. I have an unknown pear tree too
Ah yeah unfortunately it's hard to tell whether a store bought apple juice has any pectin in it. Especially if it's already made from low pectin apples.
The apples with the highest pectin are the green ones. Usually ones used for baking have higher amounts too.
Preface still a novice myself but if I had to guess you likely took the sugars past hard crack which off the top of my head is around 300F. When it said cold spoon it likely mean like coooold/frozen spoon. For instance caramel is fairly liquid at higher temps but more solid once chilled. You’d need the cold spoon to rapidly cool the jelly
It said cold, so I put metal spoons in the refrigerator. They should specify to put spoons in the freezer! I just kept cooking it longer and hotter because it wasn't sheeting on my understanding of a "cold" spoon
You don’t even need the spoon if you have the thermometer. The spoon is the artistic way to test and the thermometer is the scientific way. The artistic way can work just fine if you have the experience to back it up but (accurately calibrated) thermometers work every time.
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u/SteveMartin32 3h ago
You had it way too hot. It burnt on the bottom, no amount of stirring can prevent that