Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!

Garden fruit crops

Since rain returned, after the unusually hot dry period, my garden has quickly recovered some of its health. My Bramley tree had shed about three quarters of its leaves and a lot of undersized apples but this has now stopped. I have pressed four loads of these apples apples which in a normal year would have yielded very tart juice. Oddly, the juice from these four batches turned out to be sweeter than anything we have previously had. It looks as though the remaining apples will be bigger and our crops of eaters will be better than usual.

On Sunday, I noticed that the quinces had swelled quickly and some had dropped so I harvested the lot. Here they are, some slightly misshapen but only a few damaged by squirrels. I suppose they prefer the hard pears which are more plentiful and less useful (to me).

I processed 4 kg of these to make 14 jars of quince chutney. The question is, what to do with the rest, another 12 kg. Quince and chilli jelly anyone?

Tags for Forum Posts: fruit, garden, quince

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Permalink Reply by Dick Harris on September 30, 2022 at 12:19

If you add a spoonful of meths to a spoonful of the fruit syrup the pectin will form a clot. You can judge the pectin content by the firmness of the clot. If you tried it with black currants, gooseberries or plums it would usually show a loose clot which is still good enough for jam but with raspberries, strawberries or black berries there would be barely a trace of clotting. To avoid adding a commercial gelling agent (or loads of lemons), a good way to increase the pectin content is to add apple syrup. I usually keep some frozen ready for the following Summer jam making.

This is what a firm clot looks like - this one was from crab apples.