Fruit in many jams tends to float because of the air in the fruit pieces and it can be difficult to prevent. Many choose to just live with it and plan to stir it all back up after the jar is opened.

But when jar appearance is important there are a couple of tricks other have posted here that sometimes help. Longer cooking time forces more air out of the fruit pieces so a little less floating happens. And, letting the cooked jam cool more and begin to set before filling the jars can also help keep the contents better mixed.

Here is a link to one of the many previous discussions about the problem. The search will pull up more on "floating fruit" if interested.

Dave

tired-of-floating-jam discussion

Dave,

Thanks for your reply. I will be happy to just stir it when I open the jar. Thanks for the link, it was very helpful too.

Helen

I've found that cutting up the strawberries, adding them with the sugar into a bowl, loosely covering it to sit at room temp overnight (called macerating) there seems to be fewer bubbles and less floating fruit. This also works for peaches. I don't usually have a problem with most other fruits though.

Nancy

Thanks Nancy,

I may try that with peaches this year. I have finished with strawberry jam. Thank goodness for my granddaughter, she picked all the strawberries for me. I never would have picked them and we hat lots this year. I canned about 30 jam jars so I am on the next thing that comes up.