Making Homemade Pectin

This last week, Mum and I have been making homemade pectin and jelly. Knowing how to make your own pectin is a great tool to have in your homemaking arsenal. Its free and all it takes is a little time. So if you're willing to put out the extra effort, you can make your own pectin at home and know exactly what goes into it.

This time of year, apples are plentiful supply and even if you don't have any of your own, chances are you can find them along roadsides. If you can acquire some apples you are well on your way to making your own pectin. If you harvest from along the roadsides, however, be mindful that there haven't  been insecticides sprayed in that area.

Unripe apples are best for the job. We had a branch break off our apple tree before the apples were ripe. Once we gathered all the apples before the worms got to them, my brother set up his cider press. After washing the apples, we juiced them and threw the scraps into a big stock pot. The juice will become apple cider vinegar since it won't be great for fresh drinking at this point. If you don't have a cider press that's fine, it isn't necessary. You can just cut up the apples and put them into your stock pot without juicing them.

Next, fill your stock pot about half full with water and turn it on to cook. Naturally, you want to keep an eye on it so it doesn't stick or boil over. When your apple chunks have become soft and mushy, its time to strain it.

We have a large metal bowl into which we strain our pectin. Our setup isn't by any means professional but it works for us so I"ll tell you how we do it.

You want to keep your strainer suspended above the liquid while you are straining your fruit pulp. Inside our metal bowl, we place a big cup upside down. On top of our cup we place a strainer which we have lined with a cheese cloth.

Ladle your pectin and fruit into the strainer. Cover so the bugs don't get in and leave it to sit overnight. Don't squeeze your cheese cloth, you don't want the particles.

Now comes the fun part: testing for pectin. Put a small amount of rubbing alcohol into a bowl. Now add a small amount of your pectin to the rubbing alcohol. After a minute, take a fork and scrape your bowl where you poured in the pectin. If your fork comes away with a gel, you have achieved pectin. If not, boil your pectin again until it gels when added to the rubbing alcohol. The timing of this will really depend on the apples you used.

Congratulations! You have made your own pectin and all it cost was a little extra time and energy. Not only did you save money, but you know everything that went into making your pectin. Its easy from there to can it up and have it on hand for jam and jelly making.

When we can pectin, we can in pint jars. We will get two batches of jam out of a jar as we use half a pint of pectin in each of our jam batches. Some people will can this in a water bath for 5-10 minutes or even just use the turn-upside-down-and-let-sit method. But for our altitude and peace of mind we process for 15 minutes in the water bath canner.

Stay tuned for next weeks post, where I'll talk about making plum jelly from homemade pectin!

(P.s. for you ladies with animals. Pigs and chickens love the fruit scraps! I wouldn't recommend giving it to them all in one go if you're making large batches but a little at a time makes a nice treat and nothing is wasted.)