We be jammin' (Strawberries)

I love berries. LOVE them. Strawberries are far from my favorite berry, but they rock because they bear fruit so early in the year. For probably 20 years now I have been making jam and always look forward to picking them in late May/early June. I usually make 15-20 pints of jam and freeze anywhere from 5-10 one-gallon bags of them also.
I have been picking strawberries since the mid 80s at a nearby place called Jacquemin Farms, http://www.jacqueminfarms.com Kerry Sullivan (married name, she's one of the Jacquemins) told me the farm started out as a way to save a little money for college. It's quite an operation now, and they have ventured into many other farm-market products. I'd give my left leg to have a place like theirs!
My son Weston and I went to Jacquemin's this past Saturday and picked about 15 lbs of strawberries. I hope to get there at least twice more at that rate.
Here's Weston doing what he does best when we go there:

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Which leaves me to do the picking

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Actually Weston does a pretty good job, once he fills his stomach.

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I freeze about half of what I pick, freezing is easy. There is one trick that I have learned, though. If you place them in freezer bags you will end up with a solid block of strawberries. However, I place them on a cookie sheet and freeze them on the sheet first:

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After a couple of hours in the freezer I place them in the freezer bags and they don't stick together. This makes it easy to use only a few at a time, or as many as you want, versus using a sledgehammer to break up the frozen block of berries.

We be jammin
I use Sure Jell Light to make strawberry jam, with less sugar being used you taste more of the berries instead of all the sugar. It's a lot more expensive than some other pectins, but it is extremely reliable.
A microwave oven is a simple, fast easy tool to use to sterilize your jars and keep them warm until you pour the jam into them

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Place about a inch of water into each clean jar and microwave them until the water is boiling. Then I use my microwave's "Hold Warm" option to keep them warm until ready to use.

First, crush the berries, a cup or two at a time, in a bowl until you get the required amount of crushed berries. It was 6 cups for Sure Jell Light's recipe. I use a coffee mug to crush them, using a glass would be dangerous if it broke, but you can use almost anything

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I don't crush my berries much, the boiling that comes later breaks them down enough already, and I like chunks of berries in my jam. This is what they look like after I crush them slightly:

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Jam and jelly recipes call for EXACT measurements, so I use a butter knife to smooth off the remaining sugar in the measuring cup:

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In the recipes you will read what is described as a 'full rolling boil'. This is a hard boil that does not reduce when stirred, and looks something like this even when stirred:

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I sterilize my lids in a small separate bowl in boiling water for five minutes, then keep them on the burner turned to low to keep them hot until ready to use:

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The green rod in the picture is a magnetic lid lifter (sounds like an Acme product that Wile E Coyote uses!) which is an invaluable inexpensive tool.


When the cooking has completed according to the pectin recipe instructions, quickly ladle the jam into jars, leaving an eighth of an inch of headspace(the remaining empty space in the jar)

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I dont think today's recipes call for this next step anymore, but I still do it. I turn the jars upside down for about 5 minutes

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Then I turn them over and label them. I do this the easy way, with a Sharpie, writing directly on the lid, but sometimes I get fancy and make nice labels with my computer.
We eat a lot of it at home, but jam makes GREAT gifts, and I give many of them away during the year.