How To Make Post SHTF Jelly
The first step in making post SHTF Jelly is to gather your ingredients. So whichever flavor of jelly you are planning to make get out there and pick'em!
Sanitize your jars. This can be done ahead of time. It is extremely important that the containers be clean. By clean I mean sterilized or the jelly will not last.
So boil the containers for 10 minutes to kill all bacteria etc. that they might contain. Leave the containers in the water when finished. Obviously the water should be as clean as you can muster.
Make your jelly / jam in small batches. For unknown reasons to me it seems to work better this way and also if anything goes wrong with one batch it will not mean that you lose all of your jelly / jam.
Wash the fruit to remove all foreign materials like small bugs and debris. Now smash up your fruit really well.
Filter out solids for jelly or leave in to make jam, your choice.
Sugar post SHTF is going to be hard to come by. Honey will likely be a substitute for sugar in a jelly recipe. But if you are growing sugar beets or sugarcane then sugar might not be an issue for you. So use whichever sweetener you have.
Without sugar your jelly is going to be more runny. Some sweeteners for jelly are fruit juices instead of sugar. Use what you have. Post SHTF is going to be about improvising and substituting. Recipes suggest using the same fruit juice for your jelly as the main fruit ingredient. However, that may not be practical. The number one goal is storage and if taste suffers a bit you will not mind so much when you are starving.
Cook this by bringing it to a full boil, stir as needed to prevent burning and sticking to the pot.
Since you are going to be using ingredients that you have collected I can't give an exact recipe for you to follow. Your pectin (pectin)for example will have a strong influence on how much of it you will need. This is another reason to do small batches. Practice makes perfect and it might take a bit of experimentation to get your jelly just right.
Pour the HOT Jelly into the STILL HOT jars.
Let cool and test. If it is too runny then you will need to add more pectin on the next batch. If the jelly did not set, all is not lost. It might not be the jelly you were hoping for but it is still going to be edible. Consume the runny batches first and save the well set jelly for storage.
If you have canning jars, that is great. Use them and the lids you have. The lids do not last though so soon you will be without canning lids. When this happens you will need to use regular jars and hope. You can also seal the jars with wax or lard.
If you have jars with lids, the last step is to put them back in the pot of water and bing it to a boil once again. Once the water has been boiling for about three minutes remove from fire and let it sit for a few minutes. Pour off the hot water and allow the jars to cool. Done!
If you are lucky you can store the jelly for more than a year. Post SHTF means your storage life could be shorter due to improper jars, meaning non-canning jars with imperfect seals.
Sanitize your jars. This can be done ahead of time. It is extremely important that the containers be clean. By clean I mean sterilized or the jelly will not last.
Make your jelly / jam in small batches. For unknown reasons to me it seems to work better this way and also if anything goes wrong with one batch it will not mean that you lose all of your jelly / jam.
Wash the fruit to remove all foreign materials like small bugs and debris. Now smash up your fruit really well.
Filter out solids for jelly or leave in to make jam, your choice.
Sugar post SHTF is going to be hard to come by. Honey will likely be a substitute for sugar in a jelly recipe. But if you are growing sugar beets or sugarcane then sugar might not be an issue for you. So use whichever sweetener you have.
Cook this by bringing it to a full boil, stir as needed to prevent burning and sticking to the pot.
Since you are going to be using ingredients that you have collected I can't give an exact recipe for you to follow. Your pectin (pectin)for example will have a strong influence on how much of it you will need. This is another reason to do small batches. Practice makes perfect and it might take a bit of experimentation to get your jelly just right.
Pour the HOT Jelly into the STILL HOT jars.
Let cool and test. If it is too runny then you will need to add more pectin on the next batch. If the jelly did not set, all is not lost. It might not be the jelly you were hoping for but it is still going to be edible. Consume the runny batches first and save the well set jelly for storage.
If you have canning jars, that is great. Use them and the lids you have. The lids do not last though so soon you will be without canning lids. When this happens you will need to use regular jars and hope. You can also seal the jars with wax or lard.
If you have jars with lids, the last step is to put them back in the pot of water and bing it to a boil once again. Once the water has been boiling for about three minutes remove from fire and let it sit for a few minutes. Pour off the hot water and allow the jars to cool. Done!
If you are lucky you can store the jelly for more than a year. Post SHTF means your storage life could be shorter due to improper jars, meaning non-canning jars with imperfect seals.
