Strawberry Jam Canning : 101

 My husband and I wanted to get into canning this year!  Neither of us have ever canned before, but we both have wonderful memories of our mothers canning jam when we were both little, so, we decided our first canning experience was going to be canning strawberry jam to keep the tradition going!  

Now, keep in mind, we had no clue what we were doing.  We bought a canning kit from Amazon and bought jars and lids from our local grocery.  We thought it would be fun to pick the strawberries ourselves, but again, we had NO CLUE what we were doing.  We have a great local produce farm near our home called Rowes Produce, so we grabbed some boxes and started picking! 

My advice:  DO NOT pick 16 lbs of strawberries for your first canning experience!  

This is what 16 lbs. of strawberries looks like!  It is A LOT for your first canning experience.  To give you more of an idea, these 16 lbs of strawberries took us 9 HOURS to can!  That is 9 hours, with 2 people!  Don't try it for your first time!  Especially if you are canning by yourself.   Make it more reasonable like maybe 4 or 5 lbs for your first time out.  We are idiots.

16 lbs of strawberries = 50 jars.  25- 4oz. jars (1/4 pint)  25- 8oz jars (1/2 pint)

Here are some facts about canning jars and measurements:
1/2 pint equals 1 cup or 8 fluid ounces. 
1 pint equals 2 cups or 16 fluid ounces.
1 quart equals 2 pints or 4 cups or 32 fluid ounces.
1/2 gallon equals 2 quarts or 4 pints or 8 cups or 64 fluid ounces.


Below are the step by step instructions for how to can strawberry jam:

5 Cups crushed strawberries
7 Cups (yes 7) Sugar
1 surejell packet
4 T. Lemon juice

Tip: 4 lbs of strawberries = 1 batch (1 dozen 8 oz jars (or 12- 1/2 pint jars).  This formula will help you decide how many berries you will need if you want to do a specific amount.

To begin, place your lids (the flat part of the lid, not the actual screw on piece) and place them in a pot of boiling water.  Allow these to boil and just leave them in the pot until you are ready to use them.

Take your jars and place them in a large pot of boiling water. 

Doing these 2 steps will sanitize your lids and jars, which is what you will need to create sterilized equipment to work with.

Just let both of these pots boil while you are making your jam.

First step.....  clean and hull your berries (make sure to dry your berries so you don't have all that extra water going into your pot).  Then, mash your berries.  I just put my hulled berries into a large bowl and mashed them with a potato masher.

Next, put 5 cups of mashed berries into your pot on your stove.  Add your lemon juice and pectin.  Whisk all ingredients together and bring mixture to a rolling boil.

Tip:  Add a pad of butter to the top of the mixture when boiling the berries to reduce the foam.

Once boiling, add in your 7 cups of sugar.  Whisk again and bring this mixture to a high boil.  Boil this way for 1 1/2 minutes.  Your pot should be at a high rapid boil.  Like a violent boil.

Turn off the heat.

Skim off the foam that has gathered on top (if there is any.  Adding the butter greatly reduces the foam).

Here is what ours looked like with only a little foam.

Here is my husband... defoaming the top of the pot. 

This is what it looked like after skimming the foam off (picture is below).

Notice my pot in the background of my lids.  The large green pot to the right has our empty jars in them, boiling.

Tip:  We made jars of regular strawberry jam and then we made a separate batch of strawberry/lime jam.  If you are going to add lime, omit the lemon juice and add 1/4 cup of fresh squeezed lime juice and then add 2 teaspoons of lime zest.  The strawberry/lime jam was a HUGE hit with family and friends! 

This is a picture of the strawberry lime jam once we added the lime juice and lime zest.

Once you remove the foam and remove the pot from heat, you are now going to begin the jarring process. 

Take a jar, using tongs, from the boiling water pot.  Dump out all of the water. 

Fill the jar with the jam mixture, leaving 1/4" at the top. 

Run a knife around the edges of the inside of the jar to remove any air bubbles.

Place a flat lid on top (remove them from your pot of boiling water with tongs or a magnet lifter), and screw on the round screw lid, but don't tighten it.  Just screw it on enough to keep it in place.

Once you are finished filling the jars, place them all back into the boiling water and boil (hard boil) for 10-13 minutes (completely submerge them in the water).

After boiling for 10-13 minutes......

Turn off the heat.

Let the jars sit for 5 minutes.

Jars will begin to pop when they seal.  It's the best and most gratifying sound in the whole world because you know you are done!

It's best to let the jars sit for 24 hours.  I just left mine on my countertop.

Tip:  People will say freezing your jam is much easier.... and it is!  However, when we can, we do it in bulk.  I don't know about you, but our freezer is bursting at the seams as it is, and we don't have room for freezer jam.  Plus, we like to give away our canning projects as gifts, and it's hard to mail out freezer jam or for it to travel well.  By canning with a water bath, your cans are all shelf stable and they travel well and the people on the receiving end of the gift doesn't need to find space in their freezer for their gift.

If you really want to dress up your jars as gifts, you can add fabric and ribbon.

By the way, this is what our dog was doing the entire time we were canning.

Hope this helped you and always remember to enjoy the process!  Canning can be very gratifying and a fun hobby!  So far we have done strawberry jam, strawberry/lime jam, raspberry jam, raspberry/mango jam, and salsa.  It's a fun project, they are great gifts and YOU are 'just an idea' away from making some great jam!!