It appears to be a BWB recipe as it is.

6. When the jam is ready, pour it into sterilized jars and process according to the manufacturer�s instructions.

Standard jam processing is BWB for 10 minutes at sea level

I guess I should have read the whole thing! Now I feel pretty special. =)

The recipe came from a blog post and the writer was going on and on about how this is her favorite freezer jam recipe. She said how happy it made her to know she had this in her freezer etc etc. I just assumed when I read "While you are waiting for the jam in the freezer to cool" that it was a freezer recipe.

Thanks pixie!

That recipe sounds luscious. The "jam in the freezer" thing is just a speedy way to check the set so you know if it's ready to bottle up, but it just goes to show how easy it is to mis-read instructions. All of us do it at one time or another.

Regarding the other question, fresh lemon juice is fine for this recipe. Bottled is not required.

Carol

Yea, I can't wait to try it. I'm going to make some this week, of course I'm going to save the peach skin and pits in the freezer until I have enough for peach syrup. I'm going to skip the maraschino liqueur though. I might substitute a little brandy.

I'm a little leery of the Blue Chair recipes since she doesn't mention anything about acidity as a safety measure. Could dead-ripe peaches and sweet (instead of sour) cherries end up over 4.6 pH? Is 5 oz of lemon juice enough to acidify 5 lb of fruit?

I assume the recipes have been tested for acidity, since she sells the jam, but again the book doesn't mention it, doesn't credit any food safety experts, and her processing methods (she does add the disclaimer to process "in accordance with manufacturer's directions" if you don't want to follow her oven-processing directions) don't meet USDA recommendations. So I take everything in that book with a grain of salt unless it's a really high-acid fruit.

FWIW peaches and cherries are both well below 4.0 in acidity. so even if the fruit is dead ripe, I don't see how you can be any where near the 4.6 pH required for BWB. I assumed the lemon juice is to help in set, especially since there is no added pectin to this recipe. JMO.

Peaches range up to around 4.0 - 4.1, but I don't know if really ripe ones could be higher, and "cherries" (unspecified whether sweet or sour) can be up to 4.5 according to this chart, so I was concerned with half the mix being sweet cherries.

Here is a link that might be useful: pH of common foods

I bought her book but haven't looked seriously at it barring the introduction and the oven method.

I see the risk of the oven method with full-sugar traditional preserves as one of jar breakage, not safety. Jams are inherently safe; processing is meant to extend shelf life and prevent mold, not because they're prone to risky forms of spoilage.

The exceptions would be such low-acid fruits as figs, mangoes and cantaloupe. And while there is risk with those if the levels of added acid are insufficient, I'm guessing it's quite low because to set a preserve you have to cook to about 68% sugar; at that level any remaining water is pretty well bound up by the sugar, which discourages the growth of micro-organisms.

In the case of peaches and cherries, I see no risk unless a preserver is really really determined to make peach-cherry slop. Both fruits are naturally low in pectin at the firm-ripe level. At its optimum this will be a loosely set preserve. With dead-ripe fruit it won't set; you could firm it up by cooking it to death, essentially boiling out the water and evaporating into a viscous taffy, but it wouldn't be a gel.

So purely hypothetically if you used dead-ripe windfall fruit (i.e. bruised - which also raises pH) you might have a risk, but it would be miniscule.

If it disturbs your comfort level, though, you could always add a pinch or two of powdered citric acid, ascorbic acid (which would assist in preservation of the light color), or some of the acid blend wineshops sell. That wouldn't change the liquid ratio and could also be beneficial to cut some of the sweetness.

The best resource I know of to explore issues of pH and the properties of preserves of all types is The Jamlady Cookbook. She has a scientific bent and tells you everything the layperson might want to know about the art of jam-making.

Carol

Thanks Carol, I was just bringing up the oven-canning method as an example of the author's attitude toward safety. There are some fig and cantaloupe recipes in the book, not sure about mango.

Since this recipe (in fact, all of the ones in this book) doesn't use pectin, would this combo be a loose set?

I was just reading in Putting Food By about borderline acid foods (like tomatoes and even surprisingly, some jams) that were improperly handled (blemished fruit, not strict sanitary measures) that have developed botulism toxin. Apparently molds got in and lowered the acidity enough that the spores that weren't killed in processing were able to develop into the toxin. So I really wondered about the safety of those cherries.

I'm going to look for The Jamlady Cookbook - in fact, may even trade Blue Chair for it if Barnes and Noble has it. Thanks for the reference.

To the OP - carry on! Sorry for the "detour" (if not a hijack).

I know you aren't supposed to double jam recipes unless you really know what you are doing, but would it be okay to halve this recipe for WBC? I have access to the most beautiful rainier cherries you have ever seen, but they aren't cheap!

Sure, it's fine to halve a jam recipe. You'll reach the set point more quickly, so just be sure everything's ready when you begin.

Re the botulism issues, I was just reading a horticultural study listing the pH of selected Heirloom tomatoes. Several (primarily paste types) were up in the 4.8-4.9 pH range, which moves way beyond borderline. Which is why, I suppose, those who object to adding citric acid or lemon juice to their tomatoes, might re-assess their position.

By the same token, we have had previous discussions about applesauce recipes, some of which call for added lemon juice and some of which do not. I'd argue for lemon juice if you're working with windfalls because several studies have shown bruising results in a significant elevation of pH. So the point about mold in jam is in that regard well-taken, though again, given the high sugar concentration compared to something like an applesauce, I see it as less likely.

I think, though, if you used dead-ripe fruit + used paraffin or just open-kettle canned without processing, there is a risk, depending upon the fruit and even, perhaps, the area of the country. West of the Rockies there're elevated levels of botulism in the soil. The question would be just how high that risk would be. It would be interesting (not that I'm planning on taking the risk) just to know the likelihood.

Carol

Carol - I'm growing some OP (heirloom?) Speckled Romans as well as (other) heirlooms such as German Johnson, Brandywine, Cherokee Purple. I'd like a link to that study if it's available online (though I always add lemon or lime juice, or vinegar, to tomato products which so far have been limited to Annie's Salsa and Ellie Topp's Tomato Basil sauce).

Now back to your regularly-scheduled jam post ;-) - BTW, IMHO it's not worth it to get a pot of water boiling to BWB 3 jars of jam, which is what half this recipe would yield. Maybe less depending on how set you like it. I'd refrigerate or freeze it if I only had a lb of Raniers (which are horribly expensive here!).

Hopefully one of you more experienced ladies can help me out then, as I really do have a freezer jam recipe that I'd like to can. :-)

I have found 2 recipes, one for a freezer jam and the other under a water bath canning section. They are almost identical except for sugar amount and size of jello pkg. What are the concerns with canning a freezer recipe? I really like the lower sugar in the freezer one, but want to make sure I'm not poisoning myself (or others) by canning it and giving it as gifts.

I don't know if it matters, but here are the recipes I'm looking at. :-) Freezer Recipe - Cherry Rhubarb Jam: 4 c rhubarb, 1 1/2 c sugar, 3 oz pkg cherry gelatin, 1 can cherry pie filling, 1/8 t almond extract. Canning Recipe - Rhubarb Blueberry Jam: 5 c rhubarb, 1 c water, 5 c sugar, 1 can blueberry pie filling, 6 oz pkg raspberry gelatin.

Thanks! Hope I'm not entering this conversation too late. :-)

I'd start a new thread. You can't BWB gelatin products - would be better to use fresh fruit (I'm not sure about re-canning canned pie filling) and powdered pectin but since I've never canned rhubarb I don't have any recipes for you. You'd generally use a lot more sugar with fresh fruit instead of the pie filling.

Neither of those are canning recipes but essentially a thickened fruit spread. You're not going to have pectin chains forming with this kind of recipe and no commercial pectin, so it's not really "jam" at all. (Though that doesn't necessarily mean it won't be good, just in a different category.)

I only know of one tested canned recipe that calls for gelatin. People tend not to think that gelatin is protein-based (i.e. beef) and therefore affects acidity. The pie filling is also heavily thickened, probably with a commercial modified cornstarch product similar to ClearJel, so that means there could also be density issues.

Beyond that, a lot of these recipes break down with the application of heat, so once jarred up and canned, there's no telling what the consistency would be.

These just aren't designed for anything but refrigeration.

On the other hand, these could be made in small batches any time during the year with frozen fruit, canned pie filling (commercial or home-canned) and gelatin.

Carol