Every Summer when the strawberries are ready I go out to the farm and pick a few buckets full. Okay fine, I eat my weight in strawberries while picking a few buckets full, don’t judge me!!! The farm berries are fresh, juicy, sweet, and a perfect red color.

Upon bring my bounty home I always make sure to freeze a few bags for making out of season Strawberry jam! Well that out of season jam making adventure occurred yesterday because I had finally run out of the jars I made in the late Summer. The thing about homemade jam is the jars seem to disappear quickly once your friends and family learn of their presence in your pantry!

Making jam isn’t difficult as long as you do your prep work and work quickly once you start the process. There are many jam recipes out there but I always stick to the tried and true recipe that my Mom used growing up.

Ingredients
7 cups of White sugar
3 1/4 cups crushed Strawberries
1 package liquid Pectin
1/4 fresh Lemon juice
1/2 tsp butter

As you can see I like to prep everything before I start and that includes sanitizing my jam jars. This is as simple as boiling a large pot of water and letting the jars “cook” for three to five minutes. I leave them in the hot water bath until I’m ready to use them.

I repeat the hot water bath with the lids and rings, much later after the jam has a chance to set up and I’ve sealed the jars with wax.

On to the fun part!

Method
Combine strawberries, sugar, lemon juice and butter in a large pot and continue to stir over high heat until mixture reaches a hard boil. Once the mixture is boiling hard add your pectin while stirring and continue to let mixture boil hard for 60 to 90 seconds. Be sure to stir the entire time to avoid scorching the jam. Remove from heat

At this point you hopefully don’t have too much foam formed but if you do just skim it off. Once you’re done you can fill your jars. I use a funnel to fill my jars to avoid contaminating the rims of my jars. Fill your jars being sure to leave space for a wax seal.

Allow your jam a few hours to set up and then seal with melted food grade wax and apply lids!
Number of jars will depend On the size you decide to use. I get four medium size jars out of a batch.