I prefer muslin over cheesecloth. That or the flour sack towels are great.
I make my juice with a steam juicer now, not having to strain the juice like that other than strain grape juice.

Is it me, or does Raglady seem like a huge expense to invest in jelly making even at the box, not case, price?

I have a couple of the over-bowl frames with their washable, reusable jelly straining bags, one of those I own is MANY years old. I think they are less than $10 complete at the hardware store, and I could buy replacement bags for just a few dollars if needed.

My jelly isn't cloudy and there are no seeds or pulp, I don't know if it would win prizes but it pleases anyone I've made it for :) With two of the frames/bags I can cook and strain juice for 3-4 batches of jelly at once and that's as much as I need.

Years ago I used to make cheesecloth bags (that I hung from upper cabinet knobs to drip!) but that was cheesecloth from the canning section of the hardware store too - minimal investment.

Here is a link that might be useful: Raglady Grade 90 cheesecloth

Agree with Linda Lou. Wife is our jelly expert and she uses muslin - she says cotton, not permaprest. Cheesecloth works of course and you can use any grade you want. It just depends on how clear you want it to be.

Of course you an also buy ready-made jelly bags.

Dave

For large batches I like muslin.

For smaller batches I use the large urn-size organic coffee filters. I actually prefer them as they can just go into the compost pile - no laundering.

Carol

Everyone, thanks for the responses. (Morz8, yes, I DO think that Raglady for cheesecloth is exceptionally expensive. Ouch!) I'm going to try to go the muslin route and I'm also going to try to do some "steam juicing" in the oven. I just can't justify the additional expense and equipment storage with purchasing one. Hopefully, this will work!
Thanks again, Amy

None of us thought to mention it, but an old pillowcase tied up and hung can work beautifully as a jelly bag.

Carol