Marmalade didnt set :mad:

Johnny_Fontane

Ok, so after purchasing my seville oranges this was my technique: via Rivercottage handbook

1.weighed out 1kg of oranges
2.boiled and then simmered in 2.5L of water for 2 hours.
3.left cool and then halved, deseeded, removed pith and flesh (squeezed for juice), chopped rind into thin shards.
4.boiled the seeds for 15 minutes separately and added to make sure I had exactly 1.7L of cooking juice.
5.added rind (not the pith or flesh though)
6. added 2kg of demerara sugar, dissolved, added 75ml of lemon juice.
7. boiled the $H1t out of it, used my biggest stock pot (it was half full) until it was literally boiling over the pan for about 20 minutes.
8. Ah balls, it hasnt set.

now I have nine jars of unset marmalade. Only so much that you can have marmalade sauce with sausages, steak and other meats.

Lingua Franca

Can you stir in some dissolved pectin?

Johnny_Fontane

its looking that way at this time.....

my real question lies with, did I do anything disastrously wrong initially. I left out the pith and flesh (not the seeds), should i have put that back in?

rubadub

Johnny_Fontane wrote: »

6. added 2kg of demerara sugar,

Don't take this the wrong way, but was it definitely 2kg?

Most demerara comes in 500g bags and many sugar bags look similar in size to 1kg bags, I remember looking recently thinking "thats cheap", till I noticed it was 500g.

Johnny_Fontane

tesco have 1kg bags of demerara that we always get.....I thought 2kg was a ton of sugar, but that was the recipe.

it did dissolve no problems after 2 minutes.....

The Sweeper

Two issues that commonly cause unset preserves: not enough pectin, or the cooking temp is wrong.

You need pectin to set preserves and you need to roiling boil at 104 degrees to cause the transformation from boiling fruit to jam.

Insufficient pectin I reckon is your problem. Should've tied the pulp, pith and seeds into a muslin bag and added to the pot for pectin.

Try a two-step cook next time - first peel the oranges, keeping the peel for your marmalade. Then squeeze the juice. In a large pot, keep the juice and the finely sliced peel. Retain all of the pith, pulp and seeds and tie it into a muslin bag. Add the muslin bag to the juice and peel mixture. You can leave that to sit for a while - overnight if you can.

Next day, turn up the heat. Cook the juice on a simmer until the peel turns gooey and translucent. Then remove the muslin bag of bits and leave it to one side until it's cool enough that you can squeeze all of the remaining juice out of it. Return said juice to your pot. Add your sugar, and bring your juice, peel and sugar mixture to a rolling boil for 15 minutes - then start testing with the cold plate test if you don't have a sugar thermometer. It can take 15 mins or up to 45 mins to reach setting consistency.

the beer revolu

Sometimes jams/jellies can take a day or two to set - it might get there yet!

sdp

Also you need to reduce the liquid by half or before you add the sugar, otherwise its really hard too get a set, as I found out I find warming the sugar first helps,and starting the oranges the day before, wash and put in with water, plate on top to keep oranges down, cover with lid and simmer for 2 hours, or there about's, till soft cool and drain,reserving the water.cut oranges, scope out soft center, chop peel, put pips into muslin bag, and all the juices, peel and bag into with the reserved water,
mind you I've only used granulated sugar. good luck