Blackberry Jelly

You'll find blackberries in a lot of southern food recipes. Blackberries are delicious, and they were a big survival food for Native American tribes for centuries. If you make blackberry jelly, blackberry jam, and blackberry syrup, along with putting some blackberries in the freezer for the future, blackberries could be part of your survival plan, too. Living off the land is wonderful, huh?

If you live near any wooded or rural areas, you can probably get blackberries for free. They’re usually ripe and ready to pick in early summer. For jelly, don’t include just ripe berries. You’ll usually get better results if you include some under-ripe blackberries. I don’t mean green berries, but blackberries that still have some red on them. About ¼ to 1/3 of the berries should be less than fully ripe. This recipe will produce about 8 or 9 jars of blackberry jelly.

For tips on making clear jelly and for my blue ribbon homemade jelly recipe, click the link!

Blackberry Jelly recipe

Ingredients:

3-4 quarts blackberries

7 ½ cups sugar

3-ounce bottle of liquid fruit pectin

Directions: Wash blackberries thoroughly. Crush the berries and place in several layers of cheesecloth or in a jelly bag. Press until you get 4 cups of juice.

Place the berry juice in a large pot and stir in sugar. Bring to a rapid boil while stirring constantly.

Boil for one minute – the kind of boil that can’t be stirred down. For this 60 seconds, stir the entire time.

Pour in the pectin and boil for one more minute while stirring.

Remove the pot from the stove and skim off any foam from the top of the mixture. Ladle the juice into 8-ounce jelly jars, leaving a ¼-inch head space at the top.

Wipe off the jar rims with a clean damp cloth. Adjust lids and rings. Process for five minutes in a boiling water bath.