[kev]

Dew berries will be rip in 2 - 3 weeks and black berries will be rip in about a month.

Does anyone have a recipe for putting up their own jelly they would care to share? In the first weeks of may, my wife, my kids and I will be driving the back roads grabbing as many berries as we can find. The plan is to take some clean gallon milk jugs and cut a large opening in the top. There will be 5 gallon buckets in the back of the truck to dump the gallon jugs in.

From the number of blooms I saw a few weeks ago, we should be getting a good harvest. My wife and I are going to try and put up enough berry jelly to last a whole year. This would only be about 12+ jars. We do not eat a lot of jelly, but if the berries are free, why not get as much as you can.

 

[ZigMund]

when I get home I'll check and see if we still have the recipie that my mom used years ago when she canned some preserves/jelly from black berries. that stuff was great!

 

[Reality Czech]

Dewberry Jelly Recipe

Make them in seperate batches if you want more than this will make.

Crush enough berries with potato masher or fruit press to get about 2qts of juice.
Run the crushed fruit and juice through a jelly bag, or one of your wifes hose to get rid of those pesky seeds. Though not called for in most recipes, I always add the juice of one lemon to help wash out the juice of the strainings.
In a large sauce pan, bring the 2 qts of juice to boil with 3 1/2cups sugar.
Add one box of pectin if you like real firm jelly.
Cook the jelly till it just starts to sheet off the spoon.
Put in pint jars, tighten lids, and after 5 minutes, turn them upside down and cool.


Don't forget to IQF a few. Just wash them in colender, shake dry, and freeze them on a cookie sheet overnight . Then bag for future pies and cobblers.

I would nix the 5gallon bucket for transport. The weight of the berries will crush the bottom ones,.....I use those 1 gallon ice cream pails with handles and lids. Those milk jugs will work fine though.

 

[ZigMund]

Dagnabit, I found the recipie we used, but I left it on the counter, and didn't post it last night. If I can get away from the rugrats at home today after work, I'll post it up for ya.

 

[shar]

I use the jelly recipe listed above also. The 5 gallons buckets are not a good idea because of crushing the bottom ones, wild blackberries here in Michigan seem to be very juicy and will spoil fast if not kept cool.
The berries come into season here at a busy time for me, lots of canning, drying and freezing going on. I usually go through the berries pick out the leaves, twigs, sometime a bug or two, then pop them in the freezer. If I have some time I will juice them and then freeze the juice for making the jelly in the winter can't beat that smell in the dead of the winter.Last winter I was trying to organize the freezer and found 5 of the gallon size bags full of berries so made quite a few jars of jelly in Jan. Good luck on the berry hunting.

 

[treehugger413]

I am new so I am hoping I'm replying correctly. I have a jam and jelly recipe that came from my grandmother. She lived in the mountains of Tennessee and raised 11 children on doing people's washings and picking berries for people. It's the best I've ever used and I have tried many recipes. If your still wanting it, I can look it up and put on here.
Tammy

 

[BabyBlue]

There's recipes on-line for everything under the sun. Look em up to find some that aren't run of the mill ordinary. I agree with nixing the 5 gal bucket. Only one, maybe two gallon containers or you'll end up crushing the ones in the bottom.

 

[LindaLou]

Used to pick wild dewberries on my in-laws property.

Made some yummy jelly using a standard recipe for blackberry jelly. Worked fine.

Just as an experiment, I made some dewberry jelly using unripe (green) apple instead of Certo as the gelling ingredient. Didn't have any measurements but went ahead anyway.

SUPER firm jelly, as in it stands under its own power. Under the right circumstances, it might have been the blob that ate Cleveland (or whatever that old movie was). Guess I over-did it.

Anyway, there was no noticeable apple taste, just sweet dewberry taste. Yum!