2022 Apricot Jam

What we did

This year we decided to go for multiple batches rather than try and do it all at once like last year, see if we could get better process control with smaller batches. We worked off of the recipe Sara found at Its Not Complicated and basically used it verbatim for this first batch.

Ingredients

Amount	Item
5 lbs 8 oz	apricots
4 lbs	sugar
1/4 cup	water
1/4 cup	lemon juice

Equipment

• 2+ gallon stock pot
• large stirring spoon
• immersion blender (optional)
• enough sanitized jars to can the whole batch (we used 16 8oz jars)

Directions

1. Clean and dry apricots, tear them in half and remove the pit/stone.
2. Weigh out 5.5lbs of apricots and toss them all in a large stock pot.
3. Add water and lemon juice and bring to a gentle simmer over medium heat
4. The apricots will start to break down and release juice.
5. Cover for about 10 minutes
6. Once fruit has softened add sugar, stirring frequently to dissolve sugar and avoid scorching.
7. Once sugar has disolved increase to high heat and bring pot to a rapid boil, stirring frequently.
8. You can skim off any scum that forms on the surface (we only bother some times).
9. We blended with an immersion blender until it was a smoother consistency for this batch.
10. Cook for about 20 minutes or until it passes the cold plate test.
11. Remove from heat and let it rest for 10 minutes to let any chunks settle.
12. Can it.

Story

Our apricots hit all at once and only stay on the tree for a week or so, leading to quite a time crunch to process all the fruit. Once we started cleaning and pitting this batch we realized we had way more than we thought.

I think it ended up taking about an hour to process this batch, handy to have big enough pots from brewing to can in.