How I Preserve Food: Making Jam Without Added Pectin

Learning to make jam and jelly is one of the first canning skills I mastered. Water bath processing is easy to do, inexpensive to begin, and is a great way to get a lot of food storage saved in a short amount of time.

Jams and jellies are an important part of your food storage. They can be used on more than toast, and let’s face it, the sweetness is essential if you are in a stressful situation.

I have nothing against commercial pectin, health wise. It is considered safe, but it can be expensive when you are making big batches of jam, so I prefer to skip the cost and go without, when possible.

If you’re in a “jam” and have fruit to process and no pectin available, you are still in business.

There is no evidence that pectin prolongs the shelf life of your food. Adding pectin to jam or jelly only affects the gelling of the end product.  It makes for a thicker spread. Use a water bath to can your jars as normal, or store your jars of jam in the freezer for up to a year.

Some Fruits Have Natural Pectin

All fruits naturally contain pectin; some just have more than others. When deciding on a new jam creation, combine low and high
pectin fruits together for the best results. Pectin needs sugar to work, so, no-pectin jams will not be sugar-free jams.

It’s also a good idea to remember that fully ripe fruit, while delicious, is lower in pectin than slightly under-ripe fruit.

High Pectin Fruits

• apples
• citrus rinds
• crab apples
• cranberries
• currants
• gooseberries
• grapes
• plums
• quinces

Low Pectin Fruits

• apricots
• blueberries
• cherries
• elderberries
• peaches
• pears
• pineapple
• raspberries
• strawberries

Make Your Own Apple Pectin

Apples have the most pectin content in the fall when they are at their freshest.

7 tart apples
4 cups water
2 tablespoons lemon juice

1. Cut the apples into quarters, it’s not necessary to peel or core them. Combine with water and lemon juice in a large stainless steel or enamel pan. Bring to a boil over high heat, cover, reduce heat and simmer for 40 minutes, stirring occasionally.
2. Strain the mixture through a sieve or place solids in a wet piece of cheesecloth and hang it over a bowl for 6-12 hours to strain. Discard the solids in your compost bin or dehydrate it to use in oatmeal or baking.
3. Ladle into hot jars and process for 10 minutes in a water bath canner.

To Use: For each cup of finely chopped fruit, add 1 cup of homemade apple pectin and ¾ cup of granulated sugar. Combine the fruit, apple pectin, and sugar into a stainless steel saucepan. Add 1 teaspoon of lemon juice if you are using a low acid fruit (see the picture above). Stir frequently. Bring your mixture to a boil over high heat and boil rapidly, uncovered, until the mixture forms a gel – about 10 to 15 minutes.

Some interesting jam combinations from the book – The Complete Book of Small-Batch Preserving by Ellie Topp and Margaret Howard

• Equal parts chopped kiwi and chopped mango
• Equal parts chopped pears and blueberries
• Equal parts chopped fresh pineapple and papaya

Adding homemade apple pectin to fruits which are low in natural pectin will not affect the flavor of the original fruit and will help bring the fruit mixture to a “soft-set” without excessive cooking.

No Pectin – Just Sugar and Lemon Juice

The simplest jams are made the old fashioned way without pectin at all. Using a high pectin fruit, or a low pectin fruit and lemon juice, you can still create a beautifully tasty jam. Use this table as a guide.

Spiced Peach Jam without added pectin
from The Big Book of Preserving the Harvest by Carol W. Costenbader

8 large peaches, peeled, pitted and chopped
5 cups sugar
2 tablespoons lemon juice
½ teaspoon ground nutmeg
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon

1. Place all the ingredients in a heavy saucepan and cook over medium heat, stirring constantly to dissolve the sugar.
2. Bring to a boil, stirring constantly and boil until the mixture passes one of the set tests (below)
3. Ladle into sterile jars and allow ¼ inch head space. Cap and seal
4. Process for 15 minutes in a water bath canner. Adjust for altitude, if necessary.

How to Tell if Your Jam Without Pectin Has Set

Temperature test: Use a jelly or candy thermometer and boil until mixture reaches the temperature for your altitude (220°F for sea level to 1000 feet and 218°F for 1000-2000 feet).  More information can be found in USDA Bulletin 539 “Making Jelly Without Added Pectin”.

Refrigerator test: Remove the jam mixture from the heat. Pour a small amount of boiling jam on a cold plate and put it in the freezing compartment of a refrigerator for a few minutes. If the mixture gels, it is ready to fill.

The sheet or spoon test: Test for gel formation periodically by dipping a cool metal spoon into the hot fruit mixture and immediately lifting the spoon so the mixture runs off. As the mixture continues to cook, the drops will become heavier. The mixture “sheets” when the drops become very thick and two drops run together before dropping off. It will form a gel on cooling and no further cooking is required.

Thicken Your Jam With Chia Seeds

You can substitute chia seed to thicken your jam, however, research is not clear about whether you can water bath can jam with chia seed. Until the data is in, it’s best to use the freezer method for longer storage or make small batches, which will last for up to 2 weeks in the refrigerator.

Any mixture of fruit can be used with this simple combination:

1 pound of fruit
¼ cup of sweetener (honey or sugar) more to taste
2 tablespoons chia seeds

Whether you choose to use chia seeds as a thickener, make your own pectin, or forgo the pectin altogether – the process of learning to make jam without pectin is an inexpensive alternative to commercially processed pectin.

It’s time to try a tasty jam experiment.

My favorite preserving books are found at Amazon. (affiliate links!) These are my “go to” books for technique and creative recipes.

Join us as we share different reasons and methods of how we preserve food to create a long-term storage plan for our families. Click on each link to be taken to a new blog with helpful information and tips.

Mom with a PREP – How to Dehydrate Ginger and Make Ginger Powder

PreparednessMama – Make Jam Without Pectin

Mama Kautz – Dehydrating

Busy B Homemaker – Freezer Jam

Ed That Matters – Anyone Can Do It: Fool Proof Food Storage

The Apartment Prepper – Easy Marinated Mushrooms

The Homesteading Hippy – How to Use Your Pressure Canner

Montana Homesteader – Making and Preserving Cherry Pit Syrup

Your Thrive Life – How I Preserve Food: Meals in a Jar

Melissa K Norris – Re-Usable Canning Tattler Lids-Do They Really Work?

Real Food Living – Preserve and Store Grains with Dry Ice

Cooke’s Frontier – Smoking and making peppered jerky

Homestead Dreamer – Water Bath Canning

Evergrowing Farm – How to Preserve Red Chile

Survival Sherpa – Modern Mountain Man MRE’s

The Backyard Pioneer – Fermentation and how to make sauerkraut

Trayer Wilderness – How We Preserve Food

Living Life in Rural Iowa – Vegetable Soup

The Organic Prepper – How to Make Jam without using added Pectin

Homesteading Mom – How I Preserve Broccoli and Goat Cheese Soup

PreparednessMama