Blackberry Jam

Here's my first attempt at seedless jam.
First, I measured out and rinsed 9 cups of  the berries I picked yesterday.

Then I crushed the berries in the pot I use for making jam.

Then, I heated them until soft, poured into my food mill (a great find at Goodwill last winter!), and attempted to remove as many of the seeds as possible.  This wasn't working (blackberry seeds evidently are small enough to fit through the holes in the bottom of a Foley food mill), so I poured it all back into the pot and changed my mind about making seedless jam. Seeds will be fine ;0)

Then I added 1 box of pectin, and heated everything to a boil. 

Once it was boiling, I added 6 cups of sugar, stirring to dissolve it all into the berry juice.

Then I brought the berry/pectin/sugar mixture back to a boil.  Boiled for two minutes (love my little kitchen timer DH got me), then removed from heat.

I skimmed the foam, which wasn't much, although if there's lots, by all means save it in a dish rather than throwing it out.  It sets into a yummy whipped jello type of thing. (Which you can then eat without guilt because you have surely sweated more calories than this standing over the boiling jam pot and canner, right?).

 Then I ladled the jam into hot 1/2 pint sized canning jars. . .

 . . .which had been kept hot in a sink of really hot water, as evidenced by the steam in this picture.

When I put the jam into the jars, I left about 1/4" of head space so they don't boil over during processing in the canner. 

Then I wiped the mouths of the jars to make sure no jam was on them that would interfere with the sealing of the lids.

After putting on the lids and screw bands, I put the jars into the canner (water all ready brought to a boil while the juice was being made into jelly).

 I lowered the jars in the canning rack, making sure they were covered by a minimum of 1" of water.  Then I put the lid on the canner, and when the water returned to a boil, I set the timer for 15 minutes and let the jars process.  When the timer went off, I took the jars out of the canner, and set on a clean dry towel on the counter to cool for at least 12 hours (so the lids can get a good seal). 

Now I get to debate with DS2 how many jars he gets to take to college with him (blackberry is his hands down favorite), and how many are going to the farmers market on Thursday!