I learned some valuable preserving lessons today.

And by the way, there wasn’t anything in the goodies that I had actually sown and grown. Just putting that out there.

We’ve had the jelly disaster, of a sort, before. With that rhubarb jelly that didn’t set. Well, I was adamant that I would learn to set it. Rhubarb, I learn, has little pectin. Explains why it didn’t set, plus I probably didn’t boil it long enough.

So we set ourself another challenge. How about yellow plum jelly, as we try to get the jelly to set.

Plums contain pectin, I wanted to make sure that this was the truth. As variable as they are, I want this jelly to well…gel.

We would follow the same process. Boil up the fruit, with a lemon, in water. Till it went squishy, and then we dripped it over the night time. That was okay, I did that. This morning, we boiled up the solution. It had a kick, i had thrown in a scotch bonnet.

Boiling up, there was the jam thermometer positioned on the edge. Ma and I were watching it get to setting temp, 104. We kept it there, and made sure it was at a rolling boil. A rolling boil, for a while, til the solution had reduced, and was harder to stir, and the liquid was gloopy and on the turn as it were.

I learned that this was important, the rolling boil, the turning to gloop. I had clearly missed a trick. This is to be retained for later.

There was lot preserving today, I was in the mood for experimentation and getting things right. I just need to work out how to stop sugar crystals forming.