Elderberry Jam JK Jelly Because Raccoons

This is neither a jam recipe nor a jelly recipe. It's a jam-into-jelly story and you should not do with your elderberries what I did with mine.

That said, I will go on to say that the jelly turned out fabulous. It's the perfect texture for my jelly tastes: soft and pourable, but at a slow pace, not a runny liquid that didn't really set. It's a glorious deep purple color and it tastes good.

Now for the story. 

One August night as I read in bed I heard a lot of noise outside, like something breaking bushes or wood. What on earth was it?! I didn’t think a human intruder would be that noisy so after a few seconds I had my suspicions.

I turned out my lamp and looked outside. Couldn’t see a thing even after my eyes adjusted. Turned on my phone’s flashlight and shone it out through the screen. Couldn’t see a thing. Put on my robe and sneakers and went outside, where I discovered a mama raccoon who was BREAKING my elderberry bushes’ branches to get at the ripe berries! I had guessed raccoon but the woody noise had been a bit of a mystery since we don’t have a brush pile out there.

She made a very ominous low rumbling sound. I realized why a second later, as an immature raccoon edged past me on the fence about three feet away. She was clearly saying “Don’t you dare hurt my baby!” I won’t, Mama, but get away from my berries! Once the baby made its way to her we had a staredown for a few minutes. She backed slowly away but didn’t really want to go. Even after I turned off my flashlight I could see glowing eyes watching me, the mama’s eyes higher than the eyes of the baby crouched in front of her.

The next morning, some very sad elderberry bushes awaited. I trimmed off one truly broken branch. With a couple more I’m going to try taping them up as if I’d grafted the branch and see what happens. I’d been planning to harvest anyway. Time to make elderberry jam! Or is it?

Elderberry safety warning!

Elderberry canning comes with safety warnings, though. The University of Wisconsin is quite clear on this point. Their "not safe for canning" headline is discouraging, but that's not really what the article tells us. It says weigh ingredients and make sure you add enough acid!

"For Jam, the weight ratio of elderberry pulp to sugar must be no more than: weight of fruit/ weight of sugar = 47/55 = 0.85. For every 16 ounces (1 pound) of fruit pulp for Jam, your recipe must include at least 18.9 ounces, by weight, of sugar. It is not acceptable to use dry measure cups or assume that a 1-cup measure of fruit or sugar weighs 8-ounces, it will not. You must weigh ingredients."

There's more information there about making jelly, adding lemon juice, not using honey, not reducing the sugar ratio. (You can add more than the recipe calls for, never less.) Read the article if you're going to can elderberry jam or jelly. Honestly, this makes me wish I'd chosen a different food-producing plant for that corner. After the Incident of the Raccoons in the Night, I'm actually thinking about pulling out the bushes (I planted one and it sent out a volunteer so I have two) and putting in something else. Probably also raccoon-tempting, but more conducive to canning.

Elderberry Jam

I had 4.75 pounds of elderberries after all the cleaning, from this saved-from-the-raccoons batch and ones I'd harvested earlier this year and last year. Elderberries keep coming on so it's a while before you're done with them.

Cleaning tricks: Freeze them first. Hold the stem over a big bowl and geeeently run a fork down the twigs. Berries will pop off. Some of the annoyingly minuscule stems will too, and you need to pick out as many of those as you can spot.

My rooky error at this point! I forgot that when you double a jam recipe you really add to the cooking time before reaching the jelling stage. You're (I'm) better off making two smaller batches rather than one big batch. Uh-oh. I'm committed now, though, because at this point I'm using my Dutch oven to cook the batch of apple hot pepper jelly. I made the juice yesterday and left it to drain overnight and I already had it on the stove. So now I can't split this batch.

With the University of Wisconsin guidelines in mind, and an online percentage calculator to do the math for me, I worked out that 4.75 pounds was 85% of 5.58 pounds. Round up, not down! 5.75 pounds of sugar it is. Got a bit edgy here: I used 5 pounds of white sugar, .75 pounds of brown sugar, after checking that it is indeed okay to substitute. I wanted that slightly caramel edge that brown sugar brings.

How much lemon juice, needed to help it gel since elderberries are low in pectin? The Creative Canning Elderberry Jam recipe gave me a ratio: 1/2 cup of lemon juice is 20% of the 2.5 pounds of elderberries she had. That meant 0.95 cups of lemon juice. Call it a scant cup, filled to the line or a skosh below. (If you measure by the titch instead of by the skosh, that's fine.) 

And now to get a gigantic pot of elderberries to boil....

They do foam up quite nicely, as promised/warned, and I was glad I had them in my deepest stockpot.

But after 45 minutes of cooking, stirring often, I still had pretty chewy elderberries. It was getting late, I'd already made the apple hot pepper jelly, I wanted to be done.

Pivoting to Jelly

Again, not the recommended jelly method. I should have cooked the elderberries without sugar, left them to drain overnight, then mixed the juice with sugar and lemon juice. The Extension site also noted that jelly required a higher sugar:fruit ratio than jam and I now didn't have a way to measure that because the sugar was in the jam pot.

Onward. I drained the elderberries in my jellybag strainer, not letting them sit overnight, just waiting for the drips to dwindle to an occasional one rather than a stream. I put the juice in my Dutch oven (clean by now), added another 1/2 cup sugar figuring I'd already rounded up the sugar when I thought I was making jam, brought it to a boil, and let it cook, skimming the foam off. 

I test readiness both with a thermometer for temperature and by dipping some juice, holding the wooden spoon on its side, and watching how the liquid behaves as it runs off. If it's dripping fast like water, it's not ready to jell. If it's in slow syrupy drips, or better yet running together to form more of a sheet, it's ready. I got t his juice to the slow syrupy stage and called it good enough.

Into the jars, into the hot-water bath for 15 minutes, and done.

The next day I opened the one quarter-pint that had come up a tiny bit short when I filled the jars. To my surprise and delight I had gorgeous jelly. A deep purple, a pourable but jelled consistency, and a taste that for me was a lot more rewarding than those chewy, somewhat woody berries. It has an astringency unlike my other jellies but I like it. 

Maybe I don't get rid of those bushes after all. Although I do think next year I'll try elderflower jelly so as to avoid tempting the raccoons.

Again, this is not a recipe. This is what happened because raccoons.

Yield: 5 half-pints, 10 quarter-pints.