There are many options available when it comes to pectin and they are all different. Wife is the jelly and jam maker in our family and she swears by Ball's Lo-No Sugar pectin. With most all fruits it allows you total control over the amount of sugar used, even none. She also prefers the other Ball pectins over either Certo or Sure-Jell

Pomona is another option if you want to play with sugar amounts but it works differently and many do not care for the flavor difference or the mouth feel when made with it. You have to try it yourself to see if you like it.

And of course there is always pectin-free jams.

Dave

I agree with Dave's wife, I like the Ball Low/No Sugar powdered pectin, but have good luck with SureJell regular pectin and with Certo. Some recipes call for powdered pectin and others for liquid pectin and you cannot substitute one for the other, so I use various kinds, depending on the recipe and on what is available at that moment in my small community.

I do not use Pomona's at all. I don't like the chalky texture and find the mixing to be tedious.

I most often make jam with no pectin, and have had some success with cutting the sugar down by about 1/3. I've cut it down further, and just cooked it longer, making a very low sugar fruit spread, but it's not really jam/jelly, it's more like fruit butter.

If using commercial pectin, though (other than the low/no sugar types) the sugar cannot be cut down, as it will cause problems and your jam won't set properly.

Annie

I have found no difference in quality for the common pectin brands. I do not like Pomona, as annie said - a chalky texture thing.

I make thousands of jam every year so I bought bulk of Low Sugar (LM-0), Regular (LM-3), and Instant Liquid pectins from Pacific Pectin. I am pleased with every batch I make including those difficult jams like Chocolate Black Cherry Jam and Tomato Jam. Most people would not buy such a huge quantity - it is like $80 for 10 lbs. I use three tablespoons (about 1 ounce) per normal batch (7 jars). That figures out to 1600 batches of jam, or 11,200 jars!!! I think it would be fun to get a group of us heavy jammers together and split it up. Problem is I am the only one around for miles that makes so much. Maybe some of you here on GW would be interested?

Nancy

If you buy enough pectin for 1600 batches of Sure-Jel or Ball pectin in little packages it would cost $4,800 assuming $3 per packet for 7 jars. As opposed to bulk at $.05 per batch.

Thanks everyone. A chalky or gritty texture would not be appreciated here and it seems I did read about that some time ago. Since I want to cut the sugar for taste reasons and not necessarily only health issues, I think I will try the Ball's Lo-No sugar like some suggested. Thank-you, too, Annie for pointing out that powdered and liquid pectin cannot be interchanged, I didn't know that. I wondered why some recipes called for one or the other. Lori

I have had very little problem with the Pamona pectin, and it makes great jam with low sugar. I think the problem anyone using it has had with a very hard set or chalky texture is because they are using way too much of it for the amount of fruit being processed. Since I am not restricted in my sugar to fruit quantities, I am far less rigorous with measuring everything precisely, which means I tend to include more fruit than the basic recipe. I also pay attention to the natural pectins in the fruit I am using. Traditional pectins tend to call for 4 cups of fruit and 4 cups of sugar, and at those rates about all the fruit is doing is adding color. I have found that to maintain the quality and flavor of the jam, most of the time I need at least 1-1/2 cups of sugar. Less than that things just haven't worked as well for me, even when the fruit is pretty good. I bought it in bulk years ago, put it in jars, and I think I've continued using it for nearly 20 years now (they told me it would never go bad - I agree).

nancy, I'd love to get with you and anyone else interested and split a bulk batch of pectin, especially the low sugar stuff. I suppose I could buy an entire batch, which should last me, oh, the rest of my life, LOL, since I don't make nearly as many jars of jam as you do.

I do like many of the no-pectin fruit preserve recipes, like Readinglady's Pear Preserves, I think it's my all time favorite, but I have managed to cut the sugar down a little bit and still get an acceptable final product.

Annie

When using the low-sugar pectins, do you use regular jam/jelly recipes and simply reduce the amount of sugar called for in the recipe?

Note we aren't talking about jelly making. Very different process from making jam and/or preserves - unless you don't care about the degree of set or what the jelly looks like. :)

So you question would depend on the brand of pectin used. Their enclosed instructions should tell you how much you can reduce or if you can leave it all out. I can't say for some of the other brands but as I posted before with the Ball lo-no sugar we have made jams/preserves with no sugar added at all - just the cups of crushed/macerated fruit called for with 1 box of the pectin. If the fruit or fruit blend we have is a sour or bitter one or one that requires adding lemon juice for the pH (you'd taste it before cooking it anyway) then we just add minimal sugar to taste.

With a couple of exceptions my wife seldom uses specific recipes for jams and preserves. We just follow the ratios of fruit to pectin given in the instructions.

Dave

Normally I use the recipes I find in Sure-gell light pectin. After trial and error, I have kept some the same, others I have reduced the sugar amount listed (based on my personal taste preference) and in the case of cherry jam I actually increased the sugar slightly from what the recipe called for. In some cases I could not find a recipe on the recipes/instructions enclosed with Sure-gell light. First, I went to their web-site which listed more of them.

I did free-lance on the rhubarb jam and pear jam since I could not find specifics for making it with sure-gell light so I adapted by using one of the given recipes for another fruit and it works just fine. Of course rhubarb jam needed a lot more sugar than pear jam, but I have made enough jam over the years so that I was comfortable guessing on the sugar needed and they came out well.

I am a bit perplexed over the instructions for sure-gel light as it comes with a warning not to change the amount of sugar used or results may not be good as far as setting. Since this pectin is supposed to bind to Calcium not sugar molecules I have had no issues in the slight increases or decreases I have done on the amount of sugar the provided recipes call for. It seems to set up just fine and my cherry jam actually sets up a little too stiff (wondering about decreasing the amount of pectin the recipe calls for next time).

I like the Ball Low Sugar pectin. I really wanted to like Pomona's. Tried about 20 different batches of jams & jellies, but found it had a strange mouthfeel and the jellies come out looking cloudy.

If you consistently had complications with Pomona's, particularly the cloudiness, it is probably because you were being too literally precise with your measurements of fruit to pectin. It is completely necessary to be precise with traditional pectins - not so much with Pomona's. Almost always, when the recipe calls for 4 cups of fruit, I would continue to fill my 4 cup measuring cup until rounded over the top, probably 5 or 6 cups. I now always use at least 1.5 cups sugar to 4 cups of sweet fruit, and 2 to 2.5 cups for more tart fruits. So I use the quantity of Pomona's for 4 cups of fruit when I actually have close to 6 cups of fruit. Doing this, I have none of the cloudiness or other drawbacks, the jam sets nicely, and there is enough sugar to be sweet as you'd expect without obliterating the fruit taste, and enough to maintain the color and quality through storage for a year or so. I have had horrible batches that came out cloudy/chalky, but only when I used the quantities called for in the recipes. Use a third less!

Of course, it's fine to make jam without pectin at all. It's preserves, chunks of fruit in a runny fruit gravy. We make a lot of apricot jam with no added pectin, and about 1/3 sugar compared to fruit. The sugar is not needed for preserving; it's the acidity of the fruit and boiling the jars after closing that preserves it. It tastes very very fresh, like opening a jar of summer in the middle of winter. Most people love it, pile it up on their toast, and then eat some more with a spoon. No problem without pectin!

I just wanted to join drmbear in saying that here's another big Pomona fan. I have never found it chalky or gritty at all. I love the jams it makes, and I love that there's access to hundreds of wholesome, delicious, reduced-sugar, sugar-free and alternative sweetener concoctions, way more than with Ball / Bernardin's no-sugar needed pectins. (While Ball / Bernardin recipe books just seem to get heavier and heavier on the refined white sugar.) The Pomona makers are really, really helpful and give you personal attention. I'm happy to support a small business where I can. I'm not disputing other people's findings, everyone's taste is different, for instance I love cilantro and I know some people find it soapy, just adding a voice for balance to the 'love Pomona' side for those reading this thread in the future :} Happy jamming this summer with whatever pectin you use (or don't use) :}