Fireweed Jelly

If you don't know what fireweed is, you clearly don't live in Alaska. That's ok, you are still a good person.....

Fireweed is a "weed" that grows plentifully here in Alaska. It is known for growing in the Northern Hemisphere in open fields, lots of light and especially where a fire has burned as it has no competition and thrives in that environment. Read more on Wikipedia.

This is a lovely close up shot of what a field of fireweed looks like. Photo credit, thank you.

This is a great pic from USGS from the air. You can see how the firweed will take over an area that was taken out by fire.

I have had to develop my own recipe for my Fireweed Jelly because I use only Pomona's Pectin now. I am a complete convert. I read someplace today in all of my research that the store bought pectins are sugar triggered and Pomona is calcium triggered. What I like best is I have never had a Pomona batch not set up. You can even double batches with no worry. Also...you only need about 1/2-3/4 tsp of pectin per cup of juice or berries when making jam or jelly. So just a little box of pectin will go a long way. If you are anything like me, you will soon be buying a pound or half pound of it to last you years and years. It also comes with the necessary calcium powder. You make a small batch of calcium water and add your water to your juice or fruit mash. The calcium to water ratio is 1/2 tsp of calcium to 1/2 cup of water. This stays good in your fridge all summer...NOT all year. I learned this in 2014 the hard way.

I made 6 different batches of fireweed jelly today, all a little different. I made 3 spiced batches and 3 not spiced batches. Spiced, meaning, I added cinnamon and nutmeg. Two of my kids prefer this most. One of my kids loves it plain best and the rest of us love them both. We have found that the "traditional" recipes with lots of sugar and the store bought pectin doesn't taste nearly as good as the kind we made with about 1/2 the sugar. You can't really taste the flower if you use so much sugar, so just another reason I love the pectin. All of my recipes used about a 1cup juice to 1/2 cup sugar ratio. Some of the lower sugar jams and jellies won't last as long in the fridge, so I used half pint jars this year to avoid mold. I did have some of spoiling with my fireweed/rhubarb jam I made this winter because of the 12 or 16 oz jars and low sugar. I'd like to try a honey recipe next as we have bees making us lots of good honey, but so far, this is what I have.

If you are deprived and don't have any Pomona and want to make jelly RIGHT NOW I no longer have a solution....(sad face) I used to have a recipe link to use Sure Jell but the link is broken, so I lost it....but honestly you won't be disappointed if you try Pomona, it will change your little-jelly-making-life. When I first published this blog in 2013 Pomona was very new and hard to find...so here are some updates over the years: Update 2014: my friend said Fred Meyer in Wasilla is carrying it in their health food section. I also found it on Amazon here. Azure Standard is by far the cheapest if buying in bulk.
Update 2018: Amazon's prices have come way down...on Azure it's still $44 for a whole pound (up from $42 in 2014) where on Amazon it was $80 but now it's $57 for a pound and $36.50 for a half pound...that's a great size if you have a big family, however, if you're not scarfing down jelly like us, DON'T buy a pound! A few one ounce packs will do to start you off.

Gather ye fireweed:

This is a job for kids, if you don't have 6 slaves kids, I'm sorry, I guess you're on your own. (Fortunately you probably don't eat as much jelly as 6 kids who are addicted to PBnJs so you won't need as much.)

One gallon of fireweed blossoms. Or 8 cups (1/2 gallon) of packed blossoms. Rinse, drain, put into a large pot. Fill almost up to the top of blossoms with water. Look out, these blossoms are like Cheerios, they float, so don't put in too much water.

 

Now, put your pot to boil but don't walk away. You don't want this overcooking, your tea/juice can turn bitter if left too long so let it come to a boil, stir it for a sec to be sure your flowers are drained of their color & remove from heat. Strain (I use a paper towel under a sieve). You will have a purple juice. Each batch is a bit different color. Some darker, some lighter, but all very pretty.

Time tip: The last two years I didn't have time to make jelly the day the kids picked the blossoms. So I filled up my 1/2 gallon jars to the very tippy top and put on an un-used jar lid. It sealed with the hot juice and I poped it into the fridge. (Price tip via 2018...Azure is also better priced on their half gallon jars if you're signed up with Azure. I LOVE these things and we use them for everything...grain sprouting, storage, goats milk, etc...one gallon jars are way too big for kids handling precious goat milk.) What I made today was a week old but in a sealed and refrigerated jar. I also made the kids pick again today so I managed to get another 8 cups of juice today to make a total of 14 pints of fireweed juice total.

I can also make large batches of juice in this canner. Before that I used my pressure cooker to water bath jams. I got this last year from Amazon for my husband who loves to make cheese and I wanted a thick bottomed pot. I LOVE it soooooo very much. I actually bought it because I also wanted a large stainless steel pot for making giant vats of chili and I didn't want to use my aluminum presto pressure canner for that. I feel spoiled now that I actually own a water bath canner. It's been 6 years and I use this thing a ton...for canning jelly and also for cooking big batches of food. 

Gather ye ingredients:

In the jelly making grand scheme of things, this one is really simple. You need:

-fireweed tea/juice, my recipes use 4 cup juice measurements so if you need to add a tad of water to make that much, that's probably ok.

-lemon juice

-calcium water (Pomona comes with the calcium powder...it reacts with the calcium to set up)

-sugar

-Pomona Pectin

-cinnamon (opt)

-nutmeg (opt)

-sugar cookies (for sustenance)

Here are all of your needed ingredients sans the spices. I'm using Tattler lids for some of my jars.If you've never tried Tattler Reusable Lids, try out a dozen or two to see if you like them...I love reusable lids it allows me to can more and not be stingy with the lids.

Canning Caveat: 
I'm going to assume you have basic knowledge of canning jelly/jam.
If you don't please do yourself a HUGE favor and buy the "Ball Blue Book" for canning. This is a must for any canner and is not expensive. I also LOVE the new Pomona Pectin Cook Book, "Preserving with Pomona's Pectin" I bought it 2 days after I posted this blog post...this post is my most popular blog post and now I'm an Amazon affiliate, so I can get a percentage of what is purchased through this site! I already had links all over the place, so it's a win win! The Pomana Pectin cook book works for teaching basics of canning jams and jellies too, so you don't have to buy the ball blue book if you aren't planning to can other things. It's a beautiful book and gives lots of ideas for how to can with low or zero sugar.

This is such a great book!

2018: Since we live in Washington now I'm using this book a lot this summer because our friend gifted me a huge box of peaches that they gleaned and also a ton of free frozen cherries. So the book is giving me great low sugar recipes to use. I made maple syrup- peach jam for my mom who brought me maple syrup from Vermont but so far her favorite was the peach-cherry recipe from the book. I love that they even have you use grape or apple juice concentrate instead of sugar in some of them. I even found a big patch of fireweed up in our local mountains! So we still make fireweed jelley every year! I guess I'm not as cool as I originally stated...but Washington is pretty rad and I do love my new home.

I also got this canner back in 2012 from Amazon. I LOVE it soooooo very much. I actually bought it because I wanted a large stainless steel pot for making goat cheese and also for making giant vats of chili and I didn't want to use my aluminum presto pressure canner for that. It's been 6 years and I use this thing a ton...for canning jelly and also for cooking big batches of food.

9:38pm house is WARM! No AC for us Alaskans.

So thankful for my screen door and the nice cross breeze we get.

Fireweed recipe #1 - plain:

(Today this was Batch #5, it set up the best over all, this is being updated the day after the original post was made. The only difference I see is the other plain batches didn't have enough calcium water.)

4 c fireweed juice
1/4 c lemon juice (1T per cup juice)
4 tsp calcium water (about 1tsp per cup juice)
-bring these to a boil in a large pot-

In a separate bowl whisk:
2 1/2 cups sugar
(For the sugar, you can change this as you please, with Pomona you can use honey also they give you a conversion chart with the pectin so you know how to convert sugar to honey or maple syrup!)
3 tsp Pomona Pectin

When juice is boiling add the sugar and pectin mix, stir vigorously while everything dissolves. 
Return to a rolling boil. Remove from heat (Don't over boil at this point, this pectin won't work if over boiled.)

Ladle into hot jars. Water bath 10 minutes.

Here's a good picture of the plain jelly and the color you get. The spiced will be more brown in color.

Fireweed recipe #2 - spiced:

4 c fireweed juice
1/4 c lemon juice
4 tsp calcium water (this batch also had the correct ratio on calcium and set nicely)
-bring these to a boil in a large pot-

In a separate bowl whisk:
2 cups sugar (this is 1/2 cup less than batch #1)
3 tsp Pomona Pectin
1/4 tsp nutmeg
2 tsp cinnamon (cinnamon is good for you, did you know that?!, this is an easy way to get it into your diet)

When juice is boiling add the sugar, pectin, and spice mix, stir vigorously while everything dissolves. 
Return to a boil. Remove from heat.

Ladle into hot jars. Water bath 10 minutes.

16 pints of jelly from 14 pints of juice/tea. 6 batches later.

Enjoy the fruits of your labor, you deserve it.

Oh, yeah, and today we also canned 14 half pints of smoked Alaskan red salmon. Fortunately, hubby did all that prep work and I just manned the canner. Yum.

Sat. 7/12/2014: Note taking on here for my own record...easier to find this than a recipe. We ran out of the fireweed jelly about a month ago. Two of my kids will eat no other kinds unless we are completely out of fireweed jelly, then they'd prefer not to eat PBnJs. I decided to make much more. Tonight, I told the 4 younger kids they could have ice cream if they each brought me a gallon of flowers. I ended up with 2 nice full gallons semi-packed and to each gallon I added about 3 quarts of water and cooked them in separate pots. It's late so I can't make jelly tonight, but I now have 3 one half gallon jars filled to the brim with the beautiful purple juice. I'll put those in the fridge after they are cool in the morning. One child still owes me a bucket of blooms, so hopefully I can get another 8 cups of juice made tomorrow. Our neighbor expressed interest in buying some jelly when she saw my kids picking on the road. I may end up selling some since I'll have extra. We shall see.
Sun. 7/13/2014: Got another gallon of blossoms today and made 8 more cups of juice. Checked my math and last year I had 14pints of juice, that equals 28 cups that equals 1gal and 3 quarts. I currently only have 2 gallons of juice made for this year, guess I will need much more if I want to make extra jelly. Our goat, Elka, kidded today. She had one boy one day before she was due. They're doing well.
Mon. 7/14/2014: Hired the neighbor girls to pick 4 gallons of blooms, they PACKED them so full I had to use a gallon of water instead of a half gallon to extract the juice. I ended up giving 2 gallons of blooms to my sister because I was running out of pectin and realized that I would have 4 gallons of juice to use with what I had. Did one whole gallon of juice for my first batch and used last years calcium water...bad choice. Should have not done so much in one pot, also should have made new calcium water. Had to re-batch the whole thing, none of it set up.
Wed. 7/16/2014: Made 2 more batches  (I'm doing 8cups at a time for one of my batches this year, this works great! just double the recipe) I'm starting to run out of jars.
Sat. 7/19/2014: Finished using all of the tea, made the last 2 batches today and re-batched the rest of the non-set jelly. Final count was 36 1/2 pints total (with 4 gallons that would be 32 pints of juice that I started with, 36 cups of sugar, 16 TBL pectin = 1 cup, 4 cups lemon juice, ~2 cups calcium water). Broken down into 18 pints of plain fireweed and 18 1/2 pints of spiced. That is over double what I did last year. I have already sold one 1/2 pint and given away 2 other 1/2 pints. I followed my recipes that I posted here exactly and they all set up except the one gallon batch using old calcium water.

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