Blackberry Jelly

Just yesterday, we picked around 20lbs of blackberries from a local u-pick farm. Blackberry jelly had to be made. With this post, I am in no way saying that this is a my own recipe that everybody should use. I am mainly documenting the process for my own journaling purposes. I wanted to get lots of pictures of the process, but many times in the heat of the moment, I forgot.


I had never made blackberry jelly before, so I just looked at various recipes online and sort of formulated my own. My mom was also very helpful with over-the-phone tips.


The numbers I ended up using were:

10 pints of unprocessed blackberries

7 1/2 cups of juice (the 10 pints ended up making about 6 1/2 cups of juice, the remaining cup was made up using white grape juice.)

9 cups of pure cane sugar

and two 1.75oz. boxes of Sure-Jell



The 10 pints of blackberries were cooked down and hand squashed by Amanda. Slow heat no burny.


After a cook-down (approx 10-15 mins). The berry mush and juice were strained through cheesecloth. Yes, we did a little bit of squeezing. I know.


The berries yielded about 6 1/3 cups of juice. The rest was made-up with 100% white grape juice.


The total of 7 1/2 cups of juice was mixed with the two boxes of Sure-Jell and brought to a rolling boil. The 9 cups of sugar were added and the mixture was returned to a boil for one minute.


After one minute, the foam was skimmed off and the mixture was ladled into 1/2 pint jars. All jars were sealed and put back into a 5 minute boiling water bath.


And we are left with beautiful, clear and tasty blackberry jelly