I am a mom to 6 children, 7 if you count my spouse. Our grocery bill is insane!
I decided this year I would buy a second freezer and fill it with fresh produce for the winter. In all my “look what I can do” glory I said to myself let’s make jam….
My kids eat a jar a week and at a cost of $8-$10 a jar I figured “how hard could it be”?
It’s HARD!
And after all that work my jam hasn’t set!!! I followed everything to a T, step by step….
Now I just have lumpy, overly sweet peach juice. 26 jars of it!
I will include the recipe in the comments (I tripled it could this be the reason)
by NovaScotianCFA
41 Comments
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https://barefeetinthekitchen.com/peach-jam-made-by-my-man/
😥😥 I am so sorry!! As tempting as it is, never expand the recipe-it always ends badly. (Ask me about my blueberry lemon jam that turned into blueberry lemon pancake syrup).
You can’t double or triple jam, the pectin doesn’t work correctly. It’s worth the extra time to make a single batch at a time.
When making jam u only want to make a batch at a time otherwise that is what happens
Did you double the jam recipe?
Pectine can be very finicky and most of the time, it won’t set if you double recipes.
I know it’s a pain in the butt, but you get best results making one batch at the time.
Edit: I can’t read.. you said you tripled the recipe, so YES, unfortunately, that’s the most plausible reason why it didn’t set.
Hi, yes, most likely tripling the recipe is the reason. Jam recipes with regular pectin have a tendency to not set when the recipe is increased, due I believe to the difference in heat distribution in a larger batch. A lesson many of us learn the hard way.
You have a couple options:
1. Enjoy having a great deal of peach syrup/sauce and leave it as it is. The family may enjoy lots of pancakes and ice cream.
2. Try to remake it. This will be more work, but here’s the process: [https://www.ndsu.edu/agriculture/extension/publications/oops-remaking-jams-and-jellies](https://www.ndsu.edu/agriculture/extension/publications/oops-remaking-jams-and-jellies)
Note # 1: While in general, we will tell you not to use recipes from random blogs as some of them are very unsafe, and to compare them to tested recipes, I did compare this one and it looks fine to me.
Note # 2: Here’s the process for sterilizing jars but also the information that you do not need to sterilize jars if you process them in the hot water bath for at least 10 minutes. I adjust that for elevation although it doesn’t make it clear if it’s necessary. What I’m getting at is, since to remake this you’re already going to have to dump out all the jam, reclean the jars, do several batches of remaking with new lids…if you want to skip the step of sterilizing the jars again you can just process the full jars for 10 minutes instead of 5. https://nchfp.uga.edu/how/can/general-information/sterilization-of-empty-jars/#:~:text=To%20sterilize%20empty%20jars%2C%20put,for%20each%20additional%201%2C000%20ft.
I know it sucks to have all that hard work not turn out the way you wanted, but don’t give up! Read through some of the resources before you do more canning in the future and browse through the posts, I’ve learned a lot from these fine folks.
Edit to add: apparently while I was typing, everyone else answered your questions. 🙂
This happened to me making strawberry jam one time. I ended up using it like a syrup to add flavour to baked goods, blended it into milk for milkshakes, blended it and dehydrated it as fruit leather (kind of worked – a bit too much sugar) and I still spread it on toast, because it didn’t matter to me that much.
That’s a lot of jars to do that with,but I do recommend leaving some jars as a syrup.
This happened with my very first batch I made. Makes a great topping on ice cream and mixed into oatmeal or yogurt if you don’t want to go through the trouble of fixing it.
You’ve gotten a lot of comments about how to fix for next time, but I want to point out that this is not the fail you think it is. I have people that ask me only for my peach jam that doesn’t set. Here are some ideas for how to use it: syrup for pancakes/waffles, top yogurt or cottage cheese with it, marinade for meats (esp pork), mix with a little bbq sauce for chicken dipping or sandwich spread, topping for ice cream…..you can use 26 jars no problem!
For the future, I highly recommend Pamonas Pectin. I have never had trouble with it setting.
Call it peach topping, put it on ice cream and move it to the win column.
Then just follow the Ball recipe and make the standard batch as everyone else said.
I hate when jam doesn’t set. I always use Ball’s low/no sugar pectin when I make jam. It’s just a stronger pectin than the regular kind. Some fruits like strawberries & peaches are naturally low in pectin. That means it can be a little harder to get it to set up. So you should always add a little extra pectin when making jam with a low pectin fruit.
I would keep a few jars the way they are to mix in with yogurt or as a pancake topping, and then cook down and reprocess the rest. Peach jam does not require pectin. You can just cook it down until it thickens (smaller batches will probably work better) and then put back into clean jars with fresh lids and water bath 10 minutes.
This is the method I usually use to determine done-ness for something like peach jam: [“It’s done when you pull a spatula through the jam and it doesn’t immediately rush in to fill the space you’ve cleared.”](https://www.ballmasonjars.com/blog?cid=peach-jam-sriracha) Pull the spatula along the bottom of the pot, and if you can see the bottom of the pot for a second, you’ve got jam.
TIL you shouldn’t double or triple a jam recipe.
At least you have pancake syrup, OP!
I did that with ny first batches. I just use them as fruit syrup for waffles & pancakes!
You can use it as a base for pies 🙂
if you have freezer space, another way to handle a lot lf produce in the summer is separate processing from preserving. so, ill usually stsrt by processing all the fruit (peel, pit, slice) add a bit of lemon and sort into large feezer bags. then, I’ll make one batch of jam from about 5 lbs of peaches, maybe a second batch if i have time for that, and the rest go in the freezer. that way, when you’re ready to can you have a prepped bag of fruit ready to go, and, if you don’t get around to it then those bags are there in the freezer for later. I’ve pulled them out in January to make cobbler or fridge jam around the winter holidays. if you lay them flat while they freeze they barely take up space in the freezer, and making things with them is much less time consuming because they’re already processed and prepped.
I have the opposite issue – my jam is way too solid. I’d rather have peach sauce!
If you are worried about the aesthetic look of your jars:
Even with a single batch sometimes you just get that separation with juice and flesh. One tip shared on this sub for issues like this was merely to set the cooked jam sit on the stovetop with the heat off for a few minutes (3-5 is what I do) before you start filling them in jars. Even though you still have to process the jars where the contents are heated again, that small amount of time before filling, letting the gelling start, has made a difference in my jams.
Are you using a ph reader or a refractometer? These two items will up your jam game instantly
Peaches are tricky. Couple that with being a first timer, it happens
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I have had peach jam do this before. I use ball powdered pectin for lower sugar jam. Liquid pectin is a lot more finicky. If your peaches are very juicy or not quite ripe enough, these will cause loose set. I recommend waiting a couple of weeks and check to see if they set any better. I have had jam ( esp. peach and black raspberry) take a month or more to set.
I also use 1/2 to 1 tsp. extra pectin in all my jams to help ensure set.
I agree with the others who recommed just taking the hit and using it as a syrup or topping. If you blend it up, would be great for putting on pancakes or into a green smoothie. I made bbq sauce out of a batch of failed blackberry jelly one year and now everyone demands that I make it on purpose lol
Also, once you’ve tried the tips on getting the jam to set, try the frozen plate test before processing your jars. Put a plate in the freezer. Put a spoonful of jam on the plate and tilt it. If you run your finger through it, do you see a line that doesn’t fill in? Does the jam slide down the plate?
Doing things for the first time, it would have been probably easier to do one batch at a time
Throw in some chia seeds, it adds thickness, fiber, and crunch.
Also, “look what I can do”…😂
Don’t worry. I did the same thing this year. You can use it on ice cream, mix it with some soy sauce to make a great dipping sauce for chicken nuggets. Layer it in cakes and if you’re just making PB&J I’d imagine if you mix the peanut butter with some of it it’d stay less runny to sandwich between some slices of bread. Oh, I bet a smear of it on a grilled cheese with a finish of balsamic would be amazing. In a blender with some ice tea. Yum!
Nothing to say but love that quote. I actually have it in a bug frame above our bed.
The first time I made peach jam I ended up with peach sauce 🫤 but it was delicious over pork chops or ice cream
To address the lumpiness issue on your next jam excursion:
Get someone to assembly-line with you, and use a potato ricer to pulp the peaches after you blanch. Slice the fruits in half, feed them through the ricer (you want an aperture with medium holes, since large will be too lumpy and small won’t pass enough fruit to be useful) and then move on to cooking. You’ll still get a slightly lumpy end product, but MUCH less than what I see in your photos, and IMO it’s a good tradeoff for time’s sake. You can even blanch and pulp the fruits all at once and stash most of the pulp in the fridge to make several batches of jam over the course of several days; it’ll discolor a little on the top, but it’s a cosmetic change only.
Whenever I fuck up a batch of jam, I just call it sauce.
As a general cooking rule, with recipes that involve boiling/simmering/reducing, the amount of liquid does not scale linearly. Because boiling rate is a function of the surface area of your pot and the time spent over heat. It’s the same reason you can’t just double the water amount when you make a double batch of rice, beans, etc.
TL;DR Not enough water evaporated during your cooking process, so the jam couldn’t set.
for what it’s worth, I was taught in pastry school to use a formula as opposed to a packet of pectin, so I never have to worry about doubling or tripling anything. that said, I use cuisine tech apple pectin, which is a powder and not a gel. I’ve never had a batch that didn’t set right, and i’ve made well over 100 batches with all different kinds of fruit, with each batch consisting of roughly 8 pounds of fruit.
the formula I use is as follows: 60% fruit, 40% sugar, and .5% pectin (I realize that adds up to 100.5%… but it works). so for example, here’s the specs for one batch I made:
roasted cherry plum chai
1942 g plums
1690 g roasted cherries
2421 g sugar
15 decaf chai tea bags
30 g pectin
6053 g total
yield = 8 8oz jars, 18 4 oz
(I also use lemon juice, but somehow I failed to list the amount in my notes for this particular recipe. don’t want anyone to think I’m not following safety guidelines)
when using powdered pectin, I measure it out and then mix it well with some of the sugar before putting it in the jam pot. it’s important to mix it all in well and add it while the whole pot is still cold… not after cooking it.
I just checked on Amazon and a one pound container of the cuisine tech brand of pectin is $66 (that seems really high to me, but the last time I bought it was in 2022 and it seems like all prices have gone way up since then). this batch size works perfectly in my 14 quart copper jam pot, and I tend to yield the number of jars listed above (it adds up to about 136 ounces of jam, or roughly a gallon).
so if I use 30 grams of pectin and the container holds roughly 450 grams, that’s about 15 batches per container, or about $4.44 per batch in terms of pectin expense. I don’t know how that compares to using the pre measured packets… but I definitely recommend using some kind of powdered pectin and a formula so you can always have the right amount based on how much fruit you have to work with.
(side note… I will vary this formula slightly if I know I’m using either a very high or low pectin fruit in my jam. and I usually end up putting spent lemon rinds in cheesecloth in the pot as well (the ones I’ve juiced for the jam) for good measure. but generally speaking I’ve had great success with this method.)
I reheated my watery strawberry jam to 220 and it became a jam.
Ok I believe I am a jam expert. You need to fix this and just reuse the lids. I fix plenty of my batches if they don’t set. Even a jam goddess like me does this. Btw my French fig jam is also runny. First I am partial to puréeing all fruits. My food processor does this. Peaches yield a beautiful purée. Now open up you jars put the stuff into your pot add a cup of sugar and a package of powdered pectin and boil hard for 4 minutes. In the meanwhile sterilize those jars again and lids. They will remember seal. I also have been using and reusing my bon maman jars and they are resealing beautifully. This should fix your runny jam. Now please listen…. Peal peaches and purée them. Don’t listen to anyone who advocates chunky jam. I have made batches of peach basil and peach strawberry jam. I am closing in on 100 jars with about 20 failure rate. Some I just keep as syrup but not afraid to fix a batch at all.
Again I hope the moderators do not kick off my
Comments. I do a lot of jam only for me. I have custody of six full sibling grandchildren so they eat a lot. I am in European blogs and I have my own lab. I reuse seals and check for failure. Only reuse bon maman lids which have an obvious seal. Also I reuse ball lids. Truly they are working beautifully with no failures.
Always purée your fruits for jam. I also strain out seeds for raspberries. I hate this fad of lumpy jam. Peel peaches and purée them for at least several minutes in food processor.
I also believe the price of jam is insane. Jam is one thing you can save money on. The stuff at Costco tastes like acid. I have six grandchildren I am raising and I am a jam goddess. I have been running a jam lab of sorts and am back and forth on the European sites and jam makers.
Get a good thermometer too, one that is long enough to probe into the food item without touching the bottom and that can hang or clip there without falling in. Avoid glass ones, they shatter too easily and ruin a batch when they do.
If you do like jams or make a lot of them a “Maslin pan” will make your life easier slightly, the shape allows you to heat it up and it will not boil over into a foamy mess all over the stove. Some are marked on the inside with volumetric marks which can be handy as it doubles as a large measuring cup. Cheap ones will have thin bottoms which could lead to sorching, but most that are stainless steel construction will have a second bottom welded on to help disperse the heat evenly and allow for use on an induction cooktop.