What am I about to be?

Ripe prickly pears, ripe Chili Tepins. Spent hours picking in the heat. First correct guess receives a free sample, IF it turns out OK. New adventure for me so can't guarantee product.


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About to meet the pear burner.



Texas Tortoise came strolling through while I was in the bushes picking peppers.

Prickly pear and chili tepin jam or jelly?

Yes Sir. Never heard of it or seen it, but I'm gonna take a swing at it.

My Grandmothers canned a lot of food and so did my Mother, but I was little and didn't learn how to.

I'm trying to learn now.

The only thing I've ever canned in my life is fridgerator pickles. Starting with jelly and then salsa. Have canning supplies on the way.

Any tips would be appreciated.

I've never made jelly or jam. I can my own BBQ sauce, and homemade salsa, and that's about it. I'm very much a novice, so would have little relevant advice. However, as I am the winner of the free sample if it turns out good and you mail me a jar, I'll mail you a jar of my BBQ sauce...that is, if I can wrangle a jar out of my nephew's hands. He steals all of my homemade BBQ sauce that he can get his hands on...

That sounds like a deal Sir. IF this test batch turns out OK, it'll be coming at you. My 6 yr old baby girl deserves all the credit though. She sweated her butt off helping me.

This is us after processing pears. She says she's ready for her first deer this year, asked me 4 times today when she can kill her first deer.

Like I mentioned before, thank God for kids.





:

That is awesome. Damn you ugly

Some say it's my covid beard. Gonna feel weird when I shave.

Or maybe I'm just ugly.

Would.

Had a bird dog that pointed turtles.

My eyes are getting old i saw figs lol

We were cleaning the cupboards out a while back and found a jar of strawberry preserves that we put up probably 15 years ago when the berries were especially sweet. They were still good. I’ve got all of mom’s canning stuff. I grew up helping her put up the garden output. It didn’t seem hard at the time, you just need real clean jars and new lids. And a big pressure cooker.

I wish I had figs, I love them.

That is awesome. Gonna try some homemade sauerkraut too.

I have often though about juicing a bunch of prickly pears and trying to make wine but I have never been on a property with enough cactus to make it.

HEB sells them some years

Good pic of you and your baby girl

Thank you Sir, they sure grow too dang fast. Can’t believe I’m gonna be a Grandpa in 2 1/2 weeks.

Hope yours turned out well. It does make really good jelly/jam. I had it when I was younger and don't remember who made it. Agarita make really good jelly also. I have seen some recipes online that they used the tunas to make ice cream with. The few I have here are just getting ripe but the deer and hogs are getting them.

There are some. Wild grapes growing along the county roads. In my area. Reminds me of wild muscadine grapes.

Buy the Ball canning book, my wife and I learned to can using the book.

That’s good advice, I saw that on-line last night and ordering today.

Thank you Sir, I’m making the first test batch today. Fingers crossed.

I grew up on mustang jelly and later muscadine wine.

Me too.

Beauty is skin deep; ugly goes right to the bone. And through any facial hair. . . :-)

First swing was a miss with the jelly. The sweetness & flavor was there, but probably too much heat for most folks. The strike was that it didn't set up. I will correct and be back on the plate tomorrow. I really like the flavor of the sample I pulled though. Once I boiled the prickly pear juice for a while, it shifted gears. It's dang good.




Also ran a test run on my red sauce, two pints. Been making it fresh for years but never canned it before. Would have had 3 pints but the family demanded they have some with a bag of chips, OK whatever.




Trying again tomorrow on the jelly, God bless.

Tunas.

Well I have ate Jelly that did not jell as suryp. Still tastes great on biscuits. Might work as a sweet and hot sauce

That's what I'm doing now lol, that's syrup. Have test batch #2 in the water bath now. Will see what happens.

skinner, while my mom was still alive, I wanted to get her jelly recipe as it always turned out perfect and had been passed down over multiple generations from her side of the family. I spent a long afternoon during deer season between hunts helping her make plum jelly (and jam with the leftover pulp using artificial sweetener, she was diabetic in her late years). Of course she did it all by memory and I was trying to capture it out of her head as we went along. My wife and I have used this recipe multiple times over the past 7-8 years and it always comes out great and firmly jelled. When documenting my mother's process, she told me the key was during the step where the sugar was added and it needed to be brought back to a full rolling boil for EXACTLY 1 minute ... her comment was "exactly 1 minute, not 59 seconds or a minute and 1 second".

We have skipped the step on straining the pulp out when we are doing peaches and run them thru a blender to puree them before doing the jelling process (that is what we use as our liquid juice portion), we peal and de-seed first.

The recipe is generic and can be used for a multitude of different fruits.

example for Plum jelly would be to start off with 1 quart of plums (remove seed) and 1 quart of water. Remove seeds and cover with water, low boil until skin falls off the fruit. Strain juice to remove skin, meat/pulp of plum and save meaty portion for jam (if desired).

5-1/2 cups Juice from cooked fruit
7-1/2 cups granulated sugar
1 package Pectin (SureJell)
1 TBS butter

put juice in dutch oven over medium to high heat, stir in Pectin and butter, bring to a full boil while stirring constantly!!!

add sugar and return to a rolling boil ... rolling boil for EXACTLY 1 minute (my mother said this was KEY) constantly stirring ... remove from heat, skim foam and put in clean jars while still hot. Put new lids on to seal and let cool.

might give that a try to get it jelled properly instead of syrup.

Thank you Sir for that write up! Much appreciated.

The second batch was a fail too, but I'm trying again tonight with your recipe. 2'nd batch was better than the 1'st but still didn't set up, it did make an excellent glaze for some sweet & spicy BBQ chicken wings last night lol. I'm trying the 1 minute sugar boil tonight with your measurements. What I have been doing is bringing it up to 220-221 with a candy thermometer like I read to do, but that takes longer than one minute. There's not much info out there on prickly pear jelly, there are so many different recipes for different fruits depending on their natural pectin content/acidity etc. So figured there'd be some trial & error here.

Question for ya - after canning did she put the jars in a water bath or pressure cooker? I've been putting mine in a big water bath pot and boiling for ten minutes to seal - lids to pop.

3'rd test batch is in the water bath, followed PMK's recipe. Praying to the jelly gods....

You’ve got this.....

Another fail. Strike 3 and I’m out of juice. I followed PMK’s recipe, exactly one minute. Flavor is on point, but it’s still not setting up. It’s syrup.
I dunno what I’m doing wrong with this, but I have a few ideas. Time to pick more pears, make more juice, and start over.

And to make things worse, I just went back to Wal Mart for more canning supplies last night. On test batch 3 I figured I would use the Sure Gel powder as per PMK’s recipe instead of the Certo gel pectin I had been using. Anyway, I went through the self check out and paid for my stuff, and requested $60 cash back. About that time this pretty, well built, & very revealing red head starts checking out next to me. Totally distracted me, and I walked out of there leaving that $60 hanging out of the machine. Didn’t realize it until I got home. Way to go, dum dum. Hopefully whoever found that money really needed it.

hmmm ... I am wondering if the pears have something to do with it not setting ... hmmm and we never measure temperature, just bring to a full rolling boil, stirring constantly with the 1 minute timer once it starts to really get rolling.

as far as canning, we use room temperature jars and pour directly from the hot pot after skimming, put on the lids and they fully seal on their own with the hot liquid in there, just set the filled jars with lids on a towel on the counter-top. the lids pop as they start to cool.

OUCH on the $60, but a hot redhead might distract the best of us.

Yessr, I think the pears have something to do with it. Either the pears or the peppers. I’ll get it figured out eventually. I think this is the most challenging thing I’ve ever tried to make lol.

Why does this not surprise anyone on here? Lol. You do know that Sure Gel is like the books for dummies, you mess it up and well, think you know that answer. The pretty, “well built, & very revealing red head” that distracted you, did you at least get his number?

You should “ignore” me now. You ain’t got the powder to stay in this “debate.” Course real men don’t have to ignore anyone. Real men don’t have to avoid people who disagree with them. But you will use it. Ring that bell.

Are you adding fresh lemon juice and the pithy lemon peel to the boil?

Aw geez, so now the far intellectually superior Sniper.270 has resorted to trolling my food threads. Actually I've never ignored, reported, or avoided anyone on this forum so I don't know what you're talking about. If you have any beneficial information though on how to make peartepin jelly, I'd love to hear it.

I added bottled lemon juice to the first two test batches and tried it without on the third, but it made no difference. No, I haven't tried boiling with lemon peel.

I don't know the makeup/chemistry of the prickly pear, but I'm thinking that these pears may be real low on natural pectin. Thinking maybe I need to add more Sure Gel than the recipes call for. It's either that, or maybe I'm screwing it up by moving it around too much after the jars come out of the water bath. All of the pepper seeds/bits rise to the top while the jar is cooling. I don't want that, I want the pepper bits to be evenly distributed throughout the jelly nice & perty. So, as the jars cool and start to thicken a little I flip them upside down and shake just a little trying to get the pepper bits to stay put. But, they don't. They just keep floating to the top and the jelly never sets up.

I have 3 1/2 cups of pear juice left, so I'm going to try one more small test batch in a little while, but do things different this time. This batch I'm going to boil the peppers in the juice for a little longer to extract more flavor/heat, then I'm going to strain it so there are no pepper bits - just the flavor. Add it back to the pot, bring it back up and add extra Sure Gel (same amount of sugar), then pour into the jars and leave them alone. No water bath, and no flipping/moving around. If it still doesn't set up, then I dunno.

The prickly pear has no natural pectin and needs the lemon juice to make it safe for canning. The fresh lemon juice and the bottled juice are equal in the acid department (you can also use citric acid) but the pithy lemon peel has natural pectin that you need and adds a great boost from the oil in the outer skin. Yeah, I would strain out the chili’s and just can the clear jelly. The taste will still be there.

I think I would take a couple jars of the syrup and try again using the lemon juice/peel and more sure jell.

My neighbor has a huge prickly pear plant that is just loaded with green pears.

I looked it up!

First, you wait. Give the jam 24-48 hours to set up (because truly, sometimes it can take that long for pectin to reach the finished set).

If it still hasn’t set, it’s time to determine how much jam needs to be recooked. You don’t want to remake more than 8 cups (4 pints) at a time.

For every 4 cups of jam that needs to be remade, whisk together 1/4 cup sugar and 1 tablespoon powdered pectin.

Pour the jam into a low, wide pan and add the sugar and pectin combo. Stir until the sugar and pectin has dissolved. At this point, prepare your canning pot. Clean the jars and prep new lids.

Place the pot on the stove over high heat and bring the jam to a boil.

Cook vigorously for 5 to 10 minutes, stirring regularly. Look for signs of thickening.

Test set using plate or sheeting test

When jam has reached the desired thickness, remove pot from heat.

Pour jam into prepared jars. Wipe rims, apply brand new lids and screw on the same old bands.

Process in a boiling water bath canner for the amount of time requested in the recipe.

When processing time is up, remove jars from bath. Let jars cool and then test seals.

Yessr, I'll try it with some fresh lemon. Have a couple that were just picked sitting on my counter.

I thought about trying again with some of the syrup, I think I'll do that too. What do I have to lose.

I have a never ending supply of ripe prickly pears, but sure hate to waste my peppers! They are like gold in my casa lol. Thanks for the advice.


I did manage to put up a few pints of my green sauce last night, salsa is easy LOL.

I don't know where you found that information, but thanks! I'll give that a shot. I have plenty of jars lol.

Well alrighty, after 4 trial runs I finally have my first almost successful batch of what I'm calling Peartepin Jelly. I followed Cast's recommendation from above and re-used a batch of the syrup that I had made before. Simmered 4 pints of syrup, and the juice and peel of a fresh picked lemon, then strained it. No pepper flakes or seeds this time. Then dumped that back in the pot and brought it back up to a low boil adding the additional sugar & pectin. This time I didn't use temperature or time as an indicator as to when it was done. I learned how to do the "sheet test" with cool metal spoons. I say almost successful batch because now it is too jellied and won't spread. I went from one extreme to the other, but I know what I did wrong (I think). I decided to double the amount of additional pectin instead of following the recipe above, and by the time I finally figured out how to properly do the sheet test I cooked it a little too long. It set up almost instantly this time but like I said, it's too jellied and doesn't spread. Have to microwave it to spread on toast. So, it's time to pick more pears and make more juice tomorrow. I am getting closer to dialing this thing in.





Apparently traditional measurements of pectin and the sugar cook time doesn't work with this pear jelly. It looks like a longer low boil and the sheet test is the way go.

The adventure continues.......

Cast was on point. My first thoughts were the lemon juice. It needs acid to gel properly I believe. I've read a teaspoon of molasses will also help it gel. The recipes I've seen for Prickly Pear jelly use close to a 2:1 ration of pear juice to lemon juice. I've never made it though.

It's not as simple as I thought it would be LOL. I'll get it dialed in eventually and then write down my recipe.

I'm glad your doing all the work. I will definitely try it if you post the recipe.

I sure will. and then I can send Unclebubba the jar that I owe him, someday lol.

Your over gelled batch...

You can warm it up and thin it down with your pear juice, or my favorite, use it in recipes as a glaze. It would be great on my seared brussel sprouts. Pear instead of orange chicken. Great ham glaze. I bet it would work beside a pork chop. With turkey instead of cranberry sauce.

Yes Sir, that's a great idea and it does make a great glaze. I glazed some red Mexican chicken wings on the pit with some the other night, worked great! Sweet & spicy.

Until I started looking at jelly recipes, I never realized just how much sugar is in a jar of jelly. It's pretty much all sugar.

Now you're speaking my language. I love the sweet/spicy combination.