Making Dewberry Jam

We continue to pick dewberries, and we now have picked about 22 pounds.  Some of them we ate fresh over ice cream, but we are "canning" the rest.  Most we have bagged and put in the freezer.  Due to limited space, we are even using the freezer in the motor home refrigerator.  Looks like our freezers will be overloaded with dewberries until we can get the new freezer going in the new house.

Today we took a new tack.  Cec made two batches of jam the old fashioned way - without pectin (Sure Jell).  She crushed the berries, added sugar and boiled them down to a thick consistency.  Then the jam went into small jars that were sterilized by boiling and lids secured.  Then the filled jars were boiled to seal the lids.  After they cooled, they began to pop, indicating that the seal was secure.  The jars have to sit for an additional 12 hours without being disturbed to ensure that the seal is not broken.

The total production today was 18 half pints.  I got to scrape the pot for last remaining bits of jam, and it was delicious!  As my father would have said, "It'll make you slap your pappy down!"  For you non-East Texans, that means something is so good that it makes you take leave of your senses and do things that are otherwise unthinkable.