Here's my question. I followed the WSU-Clark County Extension recipe, which called for heating the sugar/Clearjel/water mixture over medium-high heat "until thick and bubbly". As it heated up, the mixture definitely got thick, REALLY REALLY thick, but never bubbly. I got worried about it scorching, so gave up waiting for the bubbly part, added the lemon juice and continued with the recipe.

Should the mixture actually have gotten bubbly? Or is the fact that it got super-thick sufficient?

I only made 2 quarts for this initial trial and will be baking a pie later this week to test sweetness, viscocity, etc. before doing any more. But I'm curious as to whether my experience is normal with Clearjel (and perhaps one of many reasons that so many of you don't use it).

If it's very thick, that's enough.

Carol

So we switched to just canning the pie fillings without any thickener. That way we can add our thickener of choice at making the pie time.

Dave

Also, for those who can pie filling without thickener, do you follow the identical recipe but exclude the clearjel? Or do you just can the berries themselves and use them later to make filling? (And if the latter, do you can in water or light syrup?)

I've got multitudes of canning recipes for blueberries, just trying to figure out which will yield the best pies if I don't specifically follow the pie filling recipe that calls for clearjel.

Use the pie filling directions and leave out the cleal jel. Results in more fruit per pint which ends up being just right amount per pint for us. Then add your favorite thickener when you heat up the filling before pouring it into the pie crust.

Dave