Making Peach Jam - Tips

Summary

Tips on making peach jam or other fruit jam. How to learn from other peoples experiences to make the jam of your dreams.

Contents

This is not a recipe. There are many recipes around telling you how to make jam of various kinds, giving all the ingredients and methods etc.

Unfortunately most do not give details, expect some degree of expertise and generally leave things a bit up in the air as to exactly what you are to do.

These following tips fill in some of the details and explain some of the things the recipe creators take for granted. It gives you the benefit of experience without experiencing the mistakes.

Recipes vary as to their recommendations in how to do this. But there are two principles: HOT and COLD.

You have to leave the peaches in boiling water for about 1 minute. Larger peaches can take a little longer. Now here’s the trick... Plug up your sink and fill it half full with cold water. Take the peaches gently with tongs or a slotted spoon and immerse them in the cold water until they cool off. Of course you may have to drain some of the water and refill it with cold water, since the more hot peaches you put in, the warmer the water will become. The change from hot to cold will pull the skin away from the flesh and make it easier to peel. It doesn’t matter if you leave the peaches in the boiling water a little too long and the outer part of the peaches get a little cooked. They’re going into a boiling sugar-water mixture anyway.

Let the peaches cool to room temperature in the cold water. Don’t try and peel them too soon. Its difficult, messy and can be uncomfortable (ie hot). The skins will easily peel away.

You can also use some of the water that the peaches were in for the rest of the recipe, rather than fresh water(They usually call for some water to be mixted with the sugar). It will add a little more flavour to the jam.

If you like fruit chunks in your jam, just crush the peaches lightly, or cut them up into small piece. The boiling sugar-water will take care of the maceration for you and you will end up with fewer pieces than you think. If you like a more homogeneous texture, mash the peaches into a pulp. It’s your own personal taste that counts.

There are about as many recommendations as there are recipes, but most are not specific enough, especially if you have little experience in making jam.

Here is a fool-proof method which will result in success every time.

First you need a candy thermometer. The new digital ones with a long probe work best, particularly if you’re making a lot of jam. They are available at many kitchen supply stores but can easily be found on the internet at very good prices. These thermometers double as deep-frying thermometers and many have information on the back as to the relationship between a specific temperature and the type of candy (hardness). The softest candy is the “thread” stage; but you can be sure that if you let your mixture get to this temperature, you’ve gone too far!

The ideal temperature range for jam is between 2260F and 2310F. The higher the temperature, the thicker the jam.

Now for the second part of this technique: You will need a small bowl almost filled with ice-water and a small metal teaspoon, not the measuring kind, but rather the coffee/tea stirring kind.

When you jam reaches 2260F, take a little out with a wooden spoon, the one you have been using to stir the jam, and transfer a little bit to the metal spoon (don’t fill the spoon completely). Immediately, put the bottom of the spoon holding the jam into the ice water, so the part holding the jam sits above the water. If you leave it in for only a few seconds, the spoon and jam will still be hot, so you need to leave it in until the spoon (and jam) cool to room temperature. It doesn’t take a long. You can test it with your finger carefully. Swish the jam around gently in the spoon and see how runny or thick it is at room temperature. You can repeat the process at every incremental increase (ie every degree) in temperature of the jam mixture until you’re happy with the consistency.

An important addendum: Stir often especially towards the end of the cooking time. If you don’t, the mixture will start to burn and a lot of effort will have been wasted.

If you have a dishwasher with a “Sanitize” cycle you can use it to prepare the jars and lids before pouring the jam into them. You can also use it after the jars have been sealed with the jam inside.

Otherwise the jars and lids should be boiled to sterilize them.