Strawberry Jam

In June we went to pick our own strawberries. Let me tell you, if you've never eaten a strawberry straight from the field warmed by the sun, you've never eaten! Yum!!! Anyway, what to do with all those strawberries? Strawberry jam of course. We also froze a lot for smoothies and homemade ice cream, but made jam straight away. I've never made homemade jam before, but it was really easy, and I learned a lot about jam, well, strawberry jam anyway.

After I made it, I was reading online about home canning and botulism. I started to second guess my canning, and was scared to eat the jam. Which was stupid because I grew up eating home canned goods my entire life.  But, in situations like this, I did what I always do, which is research the heck out of it. I also talked to my father in law who makes jellies and jams all the time. He said he never worries about anything like that because of the sugar content. I didn't think sugar acted as a preservative, but apparently it does. I am not a scientist, but from what I could gather, large amounts of sugar acts similarly to salt in the fact that it sucks the water out of bacteria. If bacteria doesn't have water, it can't grow. So essentially, it kills the bacteria. Also, strawberries are acidic. According to this site for safe canning (as in a water bath) foods are considered acidic if they have a pH lower than 4.6, the lower the pH, the more acidic it is. Strawberries have a pH of 3.0-3.9. So, if you've ever been concerned about that, now you know it's ok to eat your jam!

Anyway, I used the recipe from The Pioneer Woman. It is delicious, however I think next time I will cut the added lemon down to 2 tablespoons, or eliminate it altogether. I also want to try to use apples as the pectin next time. The powdered stuff claims it is derived from apples anyway, so why not just use apples? I'll try it some day and see how it goes. If I ever do, I'll be sure to let you know!

Cook up some biscuits and load it up with jam and butter. Yum! You're welcome :)