{"id":1227,"date":"2012-07-21T20:55:32","date_gmt":"2012-07-22T01:55:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/?p=1227"},"modified":"2012-07-21T20:55:56","modified_gmt":"2012-07-22T01:55:56","slug":"major-moms-back-to-basics-campaign-homemade-blueberry-syrup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/2012\/07\/major-moms-back-to-basics-campaign-homemade-blueberry-syrup\/","title":{"rendered":"Major Mom’s “Back to Basics” Campaign: Homemade Blueberry Syrup"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today I made blueberry syrup. \u00a0This was a request from Jacob, who loves the taste of blueberries but doesn’t care for the texture of the skins or the seeds.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
It looks strange in a jar, I know, but I can keep it in the pantry this way. I have a Good Seasons dressing cruet that can hold the current syrup in the fridge for day-to-day use.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The recipe I used was mainly from the Ball Blue Book canning guide<\/a> and I chose it because it called for two quarts of blueberries, which was exactly how much I had in the freezer. Just ignore the part of boiling the sugar water to 260 degrees, that doesn’t seem right to me…that’s “hard ball” candy stage so I only boiled to 225F, which is syrup stage.<\/p>\n

In terms of the technique, this blog post from Simple Bites<\/a>\u00a0fits the bill for describing the steps.<\/p>\n

While canning foods is old hat for me — I’d been doing it since canning homemade pasta sauce from homegrown Ohio tomatoes in 2001 — \u00a0boiling sugar and double-straining berry juice, such as what you might do for making jelly, were new techniques for me. \u00a0I didn’t realize how SLOW straining berry juice would be, nor did I realize how long it would take to boil down the sugar water to syrup stage. \u00a0Allow 2 hours for straining the berries and about 30 minutes for boiling down the sugar enough to make the syrup.<\/p>\n

Now that I know this, I can be sure to multi-task during those stages \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

Note: avoid using any plastic or wood cooking utensils for this — the berries will stain!<\/p>\n

Read the captions for my step-by-step process.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
2 quarts of berries into the pot with two cups of water.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"<\/a>
Jacob graciously offered to crush the berries while they simmered.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"<\/a>
While Jacob crushed berries, I zested one lemon’s worth of peel straight into the mixture. \u00a0Use the same lemon for lemon juice later in the recipe.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"<\/a>
My new Foley food mill<\/a>! This is a bigger, stainless steel version of the one my grandmother and mother used to have.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"<\/a>
After simmering the berries, zest and 2 c. of water for about 5 minutes, turn the mixture into the food mill over another pot. Process the berry mixture through the mill until the skins are all that’s left. This is stage 1 of the straining…<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"<\/a>
This is my setup for stage 2: a quadruple layer of cheesecloth clothespinned to a colander suspended over a large bowl. \u00a0If you have a jelly bag, that will work for this also.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"<\/a>
This is where I learned that this is a SLOW process. I didn’t realize that you should allow TWO HOURS for the mixture to drip through the cheesecloth. I tried to hurry things along by pressing through the mixture with a spoon. \u00a0I got about 3 cups of syrup after all the straining was complete. \u00a0If I had allowed the full two hours, I might have gotten closer to 4 cups.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"<\/a>
When the berry mixture has about 30 minutes worth of dripping left, get the syrup started: 4 c. water and 3 c. sugar. Bring this to a hard boil and let it boil for about 20 minutes. If you have a candy thermometer, let it get to 225F. If you don’t have one, use the cold water technique to cook the mixture to the “thread stage”: a drop of this mixture will thread when dropped into cold water. This is 220-235F, learn more about boiled sugar science through the Exploratorium’s website<\/a>.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"<\/a>
Pour the strained berry mixture into the boiling sugar water. Bring this to a boil for one more minute, then add 2 Tbsp. of fresh lemon juice.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"<\/a>
Ladle into prepared canning jars to within 1\/2″ of the top. Lid and band the jars. \u00a0The pot on the far left is what I chose to use for the few jars this would yield. \u00a0Ordinarily\u00a0I would use my bigger canning pot<\/a>.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"<\/a>
Process jars in a boiling water canner for 10 minutes. Since I only had 3 jars, a large soup pot sufficed.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"<\/a>
And there you go. I canned three pints and had about 4 oz. left over that went into my salad dressing cruet. It can be kept in the fridge.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today I made blueberry syrup. \u00a0This was a request from Jacob, who loves the taste of blueberries but doesn’t care for the texture of the skins or the seeds. The recipe I used was mainly from the Ball Blue Book canning guide and I chose it because it called for two quarts of blueberries, which … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[255,261,228,8],"class_list":["post-1227","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-back-to-basics","tag-blueberries","tag-canning","tag-cooking"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t