Homemade Strawberry Jelly (for canning!)
This bright and fruity strawberry jelly is made with fresh summer strawberries for the most vibrant flavor and color. It is water-bath canned to preserve it for months to come! This jelly makes for the most delicious peanut butter sandwich, spread for biscuits, or filling for cake or dessert.
Yield: 4 Half Pints
Ingredients
- 2 cups (16 ounces) pure strawberry juice (I used 3 1/2 pounds ripe, fresh strawberries to get this amount of juice)
- 3 1/3 cups (666 grams) granulated sugar
- 1/4 cup (2 ounces) bottled lemon juice
- 1 pouch Certo liquid fruit pectin
- 1/2 teaspoon butter, optional* (this greatly decreases the amount of foam)
Instructions
- To extract strawberry juice from fresh strawberries: Wash your strawberries and remove the green caps. Slice strawberries into quarters. Add half to your food processor. You won't puree the strawberries, that creates too much air/foam. Rather, you'll pulse consistently in the food processor until the strawberries are finely crushed. Add the crushed strawberries to your jelly straining bag, then repeat with the remaining half of strawberries.*To Strain the Juice: Once I had the strawberries crushed, I used this inexpensive jelly bag straining setup to get the strawberry juice. This is what took a long time, so just be patient. You don't want to squeeze the bag, as this pushes some of the fruit through the mesh and will make your jelly cloudy. You can let it strain over 4 hours on the counter, or a nice way to do it is overnight in the fridge so you aren't constantly checking.
- When you're ready to make the jelly, sterilize your canning jars by washing in hot, soapy water.
- Bring your half pint jars to a simmer in your water bath canner.
- Add strawberry juice, sugar, lemon juice, and butter (if using) to a large heavy-bottomed pot.
- While stirring, turn heat to high to bring liquid to full rolling boil.
- Once rolling boil is achieved, add liquid pectin and boil hard for 1 minute. (You can also test with an instant read thermometer to make sure mixture gets to 220 degrees F.) These things will make sure you get a good set.
- Remove from heat and skim off any foam that has accumulated.
- Ladle hot jelly into hot jars, leaving ¼ headspace. Screw band on until fingertip-tight. Place jar in boiling water canner. Repeat until all jars are filled.
- Process jars for 10 minutes. Turn off heat; remove lid and let jars stand 5 minutes. Remove jars and place on a flat towel to fully cool and seal. The jelly can take up to 24 hours to fully set. Unopened, the jelly will last for up to 16 months in a dark, cool place. Opened, it will last in the refrigerator for 2 to 3 months.
Notes
- Every brand of pectin is a bit different, so use only what is recommended here, Certo Liquid Fruit Pectin, otherwise your jelly may not set.
- ‘Hard boil’ means it’s boiling so hard you can’t stir it down. Keep stirring. If the boil goes away, it’s not boiling hard enough. When it boils even with you stirring, it’s a hard boil.
- I used the recommended safety guidelines for canning this jelly using the outline by the National Center for Home Food Preservation.
- If you're having trouble getting enough juice, you can always take the jelly bag and squeeze it over a fine mesh strainer into a bowl, in effect, straining twice. I did this and was able to get a lot more juice, without making the jelly cloudy because I was squeezing the juice over the fine mesh strainer.
