How To Stop Jam Burning?

on October 10, 2022

Jamming fruit is one of the most popular ways to preserve the excess fruit that you have either when purchased from the store or grown on trees at home. However, jam can be a little bit tricky to make with the major risk being that you can burn the jam and taint its flavor, so what can you do to prevent this from happening?

There are several things you can do to reduce the chances of the jam burning when you are cooking which are listed below;

Use a thick-based jam pan to ensure the heat transfers more slowly when the heat is applied.

Cook the jam on a low heat setting initially to avoid sections of the fruit being burnt.
Stir the jam regularly to ensure that it does not stick to the pan.
Macerate the fruit the night before by coating it in sugar.

The process of maceration of the fruit will ensure that the sugar draws out any natural juices in the fruit creating a sugar syrup which will reduce the chances of the jam burning.

Lastly, to reduce the chances of the jam burning it is also important to test regularly whether the jam has set as this will reduce the cooking time in the pot and therefore reduce the chances of any mishaps.

How To Select The Best Fruit For Jam?

Generally, is it best to select fruit for jam that is fully ripe and ready to be eaten, however, because of the nature of the jamming process and what happens to the fruit when it is cooked it is an extremely forgiving dish that will allow you to include some fruit that is a little bit under-ripe or damaged and not in ideal condition.

The slightly under-ripe fruit is advantageous because it has a high degree of pectin which also helps the jam to set more readily reducing the length of time that you need to cook the jam which again will reduce the chances of it burning.

Do You Need To Chop Fruit Up When Making Jam?

It is a common practice to slice up your fruit before putting it into the pot for cooking, however, is that really necessary? Generally, speaking you can get away with not cutting the fruit up at all in many cases and this will substantially reduce the amount of work that you need to do to create your jam.

For example last year I made Jam from plums and I put that plums in whole without cutting them up at all. This process did mean that it did take longer to cook the fruit, however, it reduced the amount of effort required during the preparation stage. The only downside to doing this is that at the bottom of the pan there were the remaining stones from the fruit which could be easily dealt with by scooping them out with a spoon when most of the jam had been filled into jars and the stones were easily visible at the bottom of the pot.

How To Stop Fruit Sticking To Pot During Cooking?

As mentioned at the start of the article most important thing to create a successful Jam is to ensure that it doesn’t burn. The important thing to do to prevent this from happening is to ensure that the mixture is regularly stirred every 5 minutes or so during cooking.

Additionally, while most people concentrate on ensuring that the jam does not stick to the bottom of the pan it is also important to watch the jam on the sides of the container just above the liquid level which typically will dry out and form crystallized sugar which can burn relatively easily. To avoid this is important to scrape the top part of the pot ensuring that any part of the mixture does not spend too long in this relatively exposed area of the pot.

What Happens When You Add Too Much Sugar To Jam?

Most jam recipes that you will see will have a ratio of 1 to 1 in terms of fruit to sugar which will usually produce quite a high-quality jam irrespective of the fruit that is actually used, however, you may be wondering what happens if you add too much sugar to the jam.

The main effect of adding too much sugar to jam is that it will result in the jam crystallizing easily when it gets cool in a similar way to what happens with honey. This may happen to a small degree which will result in the jam having a grainy texture because of the sugar crystals.

However, if huge amounts of extra sugar is added you will get a texture more like wet sand that makes the jam difficult to spread.

If you inadvertently make a batch like this it can be recovered simply by processing the jam and adding additional fruit which will rebalance the amount of sugar in the recipe and produce a more suitable result.

Can You Boil Jam Too Long?

Generally, you can get away with cooking jam for quite a long time provided that you stir it sufficiently to avoid catching or burning it in the pot. However, when cooking for an extended period of time you need to leave the lid on because if the water evaporates too much you will end up with the sugar crystallizing in the jar.

So generally it is recommended that you cook the jam for the minimum amount of time and then test it regularly to ensure that it has reached the setting point. If you are unfamiliar with this process the easiest way to do it is to put it on a plate in the freezer and then place a spoonful of jam on the plate at an angle. If the jam does not flow down the plate it is ready and can be bottled.