How to make and use your own pectin

A long day of picking fruit in the hot sun is worth it if you can make homemade jam with your bounty. These essential steps will show you how to make pectin -- the glue that will hold your jam together.

1. Wash five kilograms (11 pounds) of tart apples, remove stems, quarter the fruit (but do not core) and place in a large cooking pan.
2. Cover apples with cold water and bring to the boil over a moderate heat. Then put a lid on the pan and simmer until the fruit is soft, about 30 minutes.
3. Pour into a colander that is lined with several thicknesses of cheesecloth and standing in a larger basin.
4. Gather together the corners of the cloth, tie tightly with string so that it looks like a plum pudding and hang on a hook so that the juice collects in a bowl beneath.
5. Leave overnight. There should be about three litres (12 cups) of juice; boil down to make 300 to 500 millilitres (1 1/4 to two cups) of pectin.
6. To add liquid pectin to fruit, cook fruit until it is soft, add sugar, bring to a full boil, then boil fruit and sugar together for a full minute. Add the pectin. No additional cooking of the mixture is required.
7. To add powdered pectin to fruit, mix the pectin with five times its weight of the sugar, then stir this mixture into softened, cooked fruit. Bring the mixture to the boil and add any remaining sugar required by the recipe you are following. Return the mixture to the boil and boil for one minute.
8. The mixture is then ready to bottle.

Jam-making equipment includes:

• Most standard bottling supplies such as a deep and wide stainless steel or enamel pot
•  A thermometer
• A timer
• An accurate pair of scales
•  A potato masher
• About half a metre (1 1/2 feet) of a strong fabric such as unbleached muslin or canvas to make into a bag for straining fruit for jelly.

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