Making My Favorite Elderberry Jelly

the other berries are ripe and it's time to make one very Kelly's I don't know if you saw about that about the drought last year but um for some reason most of the elderberry bush did come back very few elderberries on them this year but at least they're still alive and you know they're fighting back so it looks like hopefully next year I'll you know have a little bit better batch there's only one there that that one basically he's got to come out that one's just about that but the other nine of them you know basically made it and did recover some himself I got some elderberries for my favorite jelly and my hops I didn't bother to put the ropes up this year because I thought they had all died from the drought but it turned out that one of the three plants actually survived and I'm gonna have to get a ladder out to get those hops down now it looks like because I you know I didn't but take the time to put the ropes up but I'll have a couple hops is here so anyhow I'm starting by just picking some of the right elderberry that I can find I don't have enough here to make a batch of wine this year but you know at least I do have enough for some jelly and they you know some of them are starting to get ripe and they're all in different stages so I'm trying to pick the the rapists ones now to get going now I'm going to put a link to the recipe in the description here I can't really print it because it's an old sure jell recipe but I'm not you know positive about the copyright on it so I'll put a link to it and there the elderberry that picked like almost 5 gallon bucket full and now it's time to first thing I got to do with wash them all and this is really just a time consuming thing because you know basically I soak them and then make sure that you wear rubber gloves if you deal with these things because they can stain your skin really bad you'll be bright purple when you're done it does not come off easily so you know basically it's a matter of removing the berries from the stem and that bucket there took me probably about an hour hour and fifteen minutes just to get the berry separated it is a time consuming process you know pick out the berries and make sure you get the bugs out stuff so they're they already got the stems in the berries and um for this recipe it says that you need you know you need like three pounds of berries for a batch and I'm making two batches so I'm just kind of weighing them out to make sure that I have enough and it's getting a little later in the day so now I'm going to just put them in a plastic bag for and put on my book down in my beer fridge for so I can start to jelly tomorrow morning so basically I you know I did wind up getting my my six pound the elderberry plus I did get a couple extra pounds so I got about seven and a half pounds altogether so I have planning to make two batches and when you make jelly you never want to double up on a batch at once you have to make them individual otherwise you can have problems where it won't set up or that you know just major problems with it so I always break them down and you know do individual patches so today with my berries and here we are the next morning I'm just you know I put them in my beer fridge overnight to keep them fresh and cool and then I'm just gonna dump them in a big pot and you know once you get them in there I've got the fire under it low just starting to warm it up and heat it up and just start crushing them as I go so you notice that you know when you're cold they're kind of hard to crush but as the pot starts getting hotter they they crush you and you'll start to see you know a little more juice coming to the top and stuff and before you know it you'll you know the pot will have a bunch of juice in it and in the meantime while that's starting to heat up I got the jars out and you know it says it makes five jars but I I usually get six out of it's only got a dozen jars out for the two batches and you know you just have to make sure that you get them all really wash good and ready to go so that you know just take a couple minutes while the berries you start and in the lids these new style lids you have to also wash them in hot soapy water you no longer bring them up you know put them in a pot of water and heat them up so you just use them after washing them like that here we are to Barry Barry they're starting to simmer now and you know you have to simmer them for a while until they all break down and the juice comes out so in the meantime I got this got to make a jelly bag and what I do is I just take this big stainless steel strainer in some cheesecloth and what I do is I'll put like three layers of it I'll fold it over a couple times and just put three layers of it in the strainer to start out with and I'll stick the whole thing in a big pot because I don't want to make a mess my wife will kick me out of the kitchen if I spill this stuff sell and make sure you have old clothes on when you're working with this stuff because anything that touches you will cause this team so there it is I'm just kind of you know pouring the juice through the colander berries and all and it's all really winding up in the cheesecloth there so there's a little bit more than the colander could hold in the beginning and just played with the cheesecloth and then I just took and pushed it down a little bit to get some of the juice out of it and then I just went back and took the rest of the berries that were in the pot and got them in the cheesecloth then once you get them in the pot you just you know kind of fold it up like a little one of those hobo bags and rapa I use some cotton butcher caught or butcher's twine and wrap that around a couple times and make sure you get a real good tight knot so that when you hang it nothing will fall out you don't have a giant mess so there it is just you know tie a good tight knot on it and I have a cabinet door that has hinges that are strong enough to hold the bag so what I usually do is I just hang it from the doorknob there over the pot to drip not all hinges and cabinet doors are strong enough so you have to be careful and you know make sure that you hang it from something that's good and I just let it drip for about a half an hour and well that's you know going I get the the jar started to heat up and I just use one of those old blue enamel pots to for these jars because I don't need the big canner and after half an hour go back and just squeeze a little bit let more out of the juice and there it is you got my my juice and you need sheer gel so you need um one box of pectin for each batch and then I need two lemon juice so my wife usually does this but you don't she's sitting there watching me and tell me how to do it she said you gotta roll the lemons first said you get more juice at him if you roll himself that's why I'm doing this I don't know if it really does anything or not but there's no real way to tell and then she tells me to put the lemon in the lemon press like that and I look at it I'm like gee how come there's holes in the bottom and there's no lemon coming out of it I'm like you're doing this all wrong I think so I I did the first lemon like she told me to just a pleaser and then I went back with the next lemon and I decided to kind of flip it around so that it would work the way it should work and the lemon would come out the bottom instead of squirting all over you and turned out that she's been doing it wrong all these years so now we both know the easiest way to get the lemon juice out so I you know I squeezed on lemons and you can see I got a lot more juice at him and then I get through two to half sin and one for a final squeeze and even got more juice at himself I I squeezed all the lemon juice a I needed that further both of the batches and I'll just divide it up they do the individual batches and then some of the little seeds did go through the holes and that lemon press so how to go back and you just put a put it through a little strainer and get all the the pits out and then you just start in a pot put in the elderberry juice that would be just made and then I'm going to add the amount of lemon juice it is required for the recipe and then the next thing you do is you get that mixed up and started you heat up and you open the box it packed in and put the whole bag of pectin in now I just kind of dumped it in fast and I should have gone a little bit slower I usually do but I wasn't paying attention so it took me a while they go back and stir it all in and get it all mixed up good but it's easier if you just put a little bit in that time and stir it a little more in stir it and you know just keep on stirring in and now you have to turn the your fire up on high and get that to a rolling boil and then in the meantime I'm getting the sugar ready here for the recipe does take a lot of sugar and you know the elderberries are really bitter so I guess that's why and once you get that up to a rolling boil to juice you just go back and start to slowly stir in the sugar this you have to you know do a little bit that time and get it to all dissolve and you know just keep stirring it and you know from this point on it's basically you really have to just about constantly keep stirring this stuff anyway to to keep it from burning in the bottom or anything so then I got all the sugar stir it in and I actually had to move it back to the hotter burner and turn it up on high and have to bring this this to a rolling boil and I'm just about at the rolling boil point so I got to get the jars ready too because you want to try to be quick when you you know you get it boiled to from the time you get it boiled until the time you get it in the jar so so here I am just you know trying to get the jars out trying to keep stirring it so now at this point you're really dealing with a lot of steam and a lot of hot liquids here so you have to be you know really careful that you don't get burned because it would be really easy to get burned so get the jars out and I got the jelly up to a rolling boil and you have to boil it for a minute like that and keep stirring it and usually it will foam up on you um for some reason I didn't get a lot of foam on it so I was real happy about that some people put butter on it to add other foam but I I never do that I usually just let it foam up and scrape it off but for some reason this time I did not get the foam so I'm just gonna you know keep stirring it for the minute and then shut it off you got to fire off and take it off the burner and you have to immediately start filling the jars up it is a very very hot liquid that will burning really bad so you have to be careful and this is not you know like other like pickling and stuff where you leave a headspace basically you have to fill the jars up to about they say an eighth inch from the top I usually try to get it between a quarter and an eighth of an inch from the top so they're they're pretty much you know filled right to the top and a recipe says that it makes five jars and for some reason I don't know I always followed a recipe and some for some reason I wound up getting six jars out of it so you know I always prepare an extra one and there you can see it's like great great to the last liquid drop I got six six jars out of it just you know perfectly so you know basically they're you know they're all pretty much full now and they're red hot so you really have to be careful at this point in time and so then I just take a damp paper towel and wipe off the rims just to make sure that there's you know no sugar or jelly or anything that might have dripped on them and then you just you know put the caps the lids on there and these are those new style lids so you don't heat them you just wash them like I showed you before I don't know how long you're gonna last they say 18 months but I've stored jelly with the older style lids for like five years and had no problem so I'm hoping that they last longer so basically and I get the lids on and then get the rings on there and get them started and I have one of the little ball jar gripping hot mitts like that I used to do the final snugging up or the lids before I you know put it back into the water bath the nerd is the water pretty much up to a boil and now it's just time to put them back in and process them now the the process time for jelly is really a you know it's a really quick time and I did was able to scrape just a little bit that's all I had leftover in that batch so that was really close batch and then it's time to start cleaning everything up again just to start get the second batch going because I'm making two batches and you know starting all over with the juice and lemon juice in the sugar and everything else this time I put a little bit of extra juice in and a little extra sugar and just so that I could get something to taste and here it is you get the other ones up to a boil and start the timer it's only a five minute processing time on these so you know boil them for five minutes and then I shut it off to fire off and let it cool for a couple minutes and you know then take the jars out and put them on some wood racks to allow them to cool it's amazing how fast the jars pop with the jelly in them you hear that lid pop just about by the time to get over to the wooden rack for some reason so basically there's the first six jars done now it's time to start all over with the next six and you know I've got then did you starting to heat up now and coming to a boil and starting the next jars to get them heated up and sterilized and you know then I get same thing over again you bring that up to the rolling boil and let that boil for one minute once you get there and then it's time to you know start all over filling the jars again um and like I said before I've from what I understand you're never supposed to try to double up on batch of the jelly so I don't um it just takes too long and it's too tough to make that you know take any chances so I always follow the instructions carefully so there it is um you know the next batch is getting ready to be processed and in the end I wound up with twelve jars and like I said it put a little extra juice in to get a little bit extra to try and so that was you know they're actually about seven hours worth the work to get to that point so it's not easy to make a lot of jelly but basically the next day I just you know took the jars and took the lids off wash them all up and got everything all labeled and you know all ready to go down in the root cellar now basically so I did put the Rings back on me so just because I'm worried about the new lids so I don't know if that will help or not and you know there's my test jar and you can see how good it set up so you know it did come out good it did set up good and it's just got an amazing flavor that you'll never find in the store thanks for watching please subscribe

Channel: Unemployed Redneck Hillbilly Creations

Views: 80,540

Keywords: Sure jell, pectin, jelly, elderberry, canning, Ball jelly jars, water bath

Id: Cr30BXIIlRg

Length: 17min 54sec (1074 seconds)

Published: Sat Sep 02 2017