We make jelly from all kinds of frozen concentrates. Works great!

Apple butter from applesauce, fine, you just need to cook it down more. But be careful picking the juice to make jelly from - I tried making jelly from a "juice cocktail" yesterday, I had bought it for drinking but when 1st juice (100%) wasn't appealing color we grabbed the other bottle. Not only did the powdered pectin precipitate out during processing (b/c the juice had sugar added already - maybe liquid pectin would have worked), but b/c the 1st ingredient was water, a lot had to be boiled away. We used 6C of "juice" and after pouring off the clear stuff got 2.5C of jelly (still with a little pectin at the bottom).

So read the label - 100% juice! I wouldn't trust anything that was made from concentrate, with 1st ingredient water - you might find you end up with a lot less jelly than you planned!

Sugar added might be OK if you use liquid pectin - but I'd avoid artificial sweeteners (except maybe Splenda) as NCHFP says the others don't can well - I don't know if they change taste or what, just know they're not recommended.

A few years ago when I got started with jellies using liquid pectin, I found the 'Juicy Juice' brand of juices worked well except Apple. I couldn't find a 100% juice that worked with the liquid pectin. I didn't try any concentrates. This is the time to get apples in our area, a trip over to Berrien County, MI and you would find all kinds of orchards with apples available right now, plus the Concord grapes are ready. I don't know about other areas, but since you are in the Chicago area, it's worth a trip. Bring boxes for your produce.

Is it possible to make apple jelly just from store bought juice? Or apple butter from store bought apple sauce?

Yes it is. Both are easy to do. But why? They will end up being much more expensive to make than just buying already made apple jelly and applesauce. Consider costs of buying all the ingredients, the pectin, the sugar, the jars and lids, your time, and the gas or electrical energy and the water used for all the cooking and processing.

Dave

I have made mint apple jelly with store-bought apple juice and it never seems to get solid enough.

I made Candy Apple Jelly from store bought juice a couple of years ago, but I used Pomona's Pectin and it did jell very well. Of course, like everyone says, Pomona's will jell plain water. It did turn out a nice clear bright color and there was no weird taste to it either.

It is a gamble. Sometimes OK, sometimes not.

The pectin levels of frozen or canned juices are reduced compared to fresh fruits. Something in the process. Plus a juice is more problematic anyway because most of the pectin is in the cell walls of the fruit and that's gone.

Sometimes commercial pectin is sufficient to compensate but there're no guarantees. I'd guess Pomona is the most reliable.

Carol

You can solve this by simply buying fresh pressed apple cider instead of juice. It's certainly in season and available in most markets. My house always seemed to have some cider left over in a gallon jug, and I used to make jelly from it so it wouldn't be wasted. It's as close to your own pressed juice as you will likely get and has no other added ingredients to affect the set.

The problem is here that cider is required to be pastuerized - I don't know about other states. Plus it's $5/gal and simply boiling that down will give you I think 1C (or 1 pint?) of jelly per Linda Z's Joy of Jams. Lots less $ to just buy apple jelly, as Dave pointed out.

There is no reason pasteurization will affect your jelly. Boil it down? Not if you are using pectin. One gallon of cider at five dollars the gallon will give you 24 jars of jelly. That should take less than two five pound bags of sugar. I buy sugar on sale at around two for the five pound bag. That brings the cost up to nine dollars. I buy my pectin bulk and enough to do four batches (one a third cups) is about a dollar. Twenty four lids at .20 cents each are $4.80 cents, say five that brings the cost up to fifteen dollars for two dozen jars, or sixty two cents a jelly jar full. The taste compared to a commercially produced jar of apple jelly? Mine will make you wanna slap your Mama and about half the cost of one off a shelf. I also know the apple juice for my jelly didn't come from China. Nuff said.

I didn't assume you'd be using pectin - I thought the purpose of using freshly pressed cider was not to have to add pectin. Pasteurization destroys the pectin, and IMHO if you're going to have to add pectin you might as well buy apple "juice" instead of "cider" and have a clear jelly - it's also less expensive.

You do have a point about apple juice coming from China though. But that's a different topic. Actually, aside from the jelly DD was going to make from bottled juice for the fair this week (and cranberries that I buy on clearance after the holidays), we make all our preserves with fruit that either we or our friends/relatives grow. I might just have to use some of my apple pectin for DD's fair entry though I was thinking commercial pectin would be easier for her, since Carol says it can be tricky?

Do you use any spices in your apple jelly?

' I thought the purpose of using freshly pressed cider was not to have to add pectin'

First off heat processing does not destroy pectin.......it releases it from the pulp. If you are using a cold process to extract apple juice (cider) a lot of the pectin will end up in the pomace instead of the liquid. If I don't want to add pectin to an apple jelly I make my jelly by simmering down apples and straining off the pectin rich juice. If I make it from cold pressed juice (cider) I just automatically add pectin.

If you have loads and loads of apples like I do (my own little orchard) you have bushels sitting around and it's one way not to waste them. I did that this year by boiling and straining and also did the cold extraction. I bottled both up as juice/cider but there is a tremendous difference in taste and cold pressed cider wins hands down. The same can be said about the taste of apple versus cider jelly. If it's a carefully blended cider, and some are, it also wins for taste hands down over commercially obtained apple juice. Like comparing champagne to Ripple. My cider jelly compared to one off the market shelf.....there is no comparison so I'm taste driven when I make it.

Cider jelly does not have to be cloudy, you can strain the cider. I do a crude strain but if I were making jelly with it, simply letting it sit undisturbed and decanting the clear liquid off the top leaves the residue settle on the bottom.

I agree with Carol. Using apple's own pectin can indeed be tricky. Last year I produced one run of apple sirup instead of jelly, and I'm no novice at jelly making.

It's all dependent on so many factors......how picky you are about taste, if you have huge amounts of apples (like we do) how much time you want to put into it.

I have added spices on occasion to my apple jellies. Mostly not very exotic like cinammon. Never to my cider jelly.

A good blended cider will taste better than any "cider" (basically unfiltered apple juice) bought in a grocery store. Finding it may be the hard part though.

There's a mill near us I just discovered - haven't been there yet but they were featured in the paper b/c they are distilling "moonshine" (legally), I called them and they charge $9/gal for sweet cider.

So until we get enough of our own apples and look into custom pressing to make cider, I'm just going to be using heat extraction for a few quarts of pectin at a time.

I have made jelly successfully from 100% apple juice, then tried pomegranate juice and it wasn't well set,loose consistency. I then read online it is low in pectin and benefits from lemon juice in the mix. I tried black cherry jelly next and since it is low in pectin too, I added lemon juice, it set great. Now I want to try cranberry juice and make jelly. Has anyone tried this successfully?

I've done cranberry jelly, but none of my family liked it. Same with grapefruit. Now Tangerine, Pineapple and lemon jelly went over great.

I haven't had good luck with store bought apple juice. I do a Apple Cider jelly that works well. Even tried a Raspberry Cider and it worked out well.