What to do with 54 lbs of plums?

One option at GreenFriends is to make chunky plum jam. It takes between 2-3 days to make the jam. Why so long? The first step is to gather the crates of plums and start washing them. For current jam processing we gathered 54 lbs of plums. The jars for the jam must be sterilized with boiling water. That is a lot of jars. How many jars of jam was made? Actually made 72 8oz jars of chunky jam.

What is involved?

Once the plums have been washed, next, pit the plums. The seed pits must be removed before cooking. Cooking takes approximately 3 hours, sugar is added to the mixture, and constant stirring. Lemon juice is added to the mixture.

Why add lemon juice?

The lemon juice lowers the pH of the jam mixture, which also neutralizes those negative charges on the strands of pectin, so they can now assemble into a network that will “set” the jam.

Checking Jam Consistency.

The jam needs a certain thickness before it can be “jarred.” To do this we place a saucer in the freezer. After cooking, a small amount of the jam mixture is placed on the cold saucer. After a minute the jam on the saucer is checked to determine if it’s leaky or jelly like.

Sealing the Jam.

Once the jam mixture is ready the sanitization, pouring, and sealing is performed. Jars are sanitized in boiling hot water, the jam is poured into the jar, and the jar is placed in boiling water for 15 minutes to seal the lid. At GreenFriends 14 jars can be sealed at a time in a large pot.

Chunky Plum Jam.

The final step will be labeling. Here are the jars ready to be labeled. Thank you to Triguna, Abhayada and Muneebah. The jam will be available this week. Order now at the shop.