ReLocavore: Redefining "local"

Back to Wisconsin, my cheesehead friends

Tag Archives: sugar


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The price of my homemade strawberry jam=$0.22/ounce

2015-06-22 08.38.34Here’s the sick thing… I did the math and my homemade jam costs about as much per ounce as Bonne Maman’s high-end grocery store jam: $0.22 per ounce.

I made 30.5 pints of jam, using 34 jars (some were half-pint jars for gifts), inputting 28 lbs of strawberries, 7 packets of Certo pectin and 21.462 pounds of sugar.

Here’s the breakdown:

  • Jar and ring – reusable and depreciating resource.
  • Canning equipment – depreciating resource.
  • Canning jar lid. $1.99 for 12 = $0.17 per lid, or $5.78 for lids.
  • Sugar. $2.59 at the COOP for a 4 pound bag = $0.65 per pound or $14.07 for sugar.
  • Strawberries at $2.50 per pound and 28 lbs of berries into the recipe = $70 for strawberries.
  • Certo is $4.59 for 2 pouches = $2.30/pouch so $16.10 on pectin.

Grand total = $105.95 for 30.5 pints of jam. That’s $0.22 per ounce. 

Bonne Mamans jam was on sale at the COOP for $2.99 for a 13 ounce jar or $0.23 per ounce.

I hope some of you are jumping up and down right now and pointing out the serious flaws in my calculation… I don’t take into Labor costs, which was about 13.5 woman-hours. I don’t take into account the cost of my “facility” to produce jam. I don’t take into account transportation, and I’ve discounted my equipment. But hey! My jam is a heck of a lot tastier than anything you’d ever buy in a store. Plus I have a great memory of spending a hot, muggy day in the kitchen with my sister. That’s worth a lot more than $0.23 per ounce.


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Fruit, sugar, pectin needed to make strawberry jam in quantity

I got sick of doing the math every year, so I made a table for large batches of strawberry jam. The recipe is based on using Certo liquid pectin.

Certo Pectin Pouches Strawberries
Pounds		 Strawberries
Hulled and crushed
cups		 Sugar
cups		 Sugar
Ounces		 Sugar
Pounds		 Yield
Pints
1 4 4 7 49 3.066 4
2 8 8 14 98 6.132 8
3 12 12 21 147 9.198 12
4 16 16 28 196 12.264 16
5 20 20 35 245 15.33 20
6 24 24 42 294 18.396 24
7 28 28 49 343 21.462 28
8 32 32 56 392 24.528 32

What to Do With 50 Pounds of Stone Fruit: A Photo Gallery

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We stopped at the Apple Bin Farm Market on the way home from visiting Sam’s grandmother in New York state. They had ripe apricots and peaches. We left with a full carload. So… What can you make from 50 pounds of stone fruit? Click on an image to read more about what me made.

The motherload…
We ate a LOT of apricots and peaches, and gave many away to friends and neighbors.
I like canned peaches. So, we made 7 quarts. In light syrup so we don’t get too fat eating these in the winter.
After canning peaches in syrup, we had some leftover, so it went into a bag and into the freezer. This will be a great cobbler.
Apricot preserves – 12 half-pints. I didn’t add any pectin. Instead we cooked it for a good 45 minutes to get the natural pectin out of the fruits. It’s a soft-set, but has REALLY GREAT flavor.
Peach butter. 4 pints. Peach butter doesn’t have any fat in it. It’s called “butter” because it’s very spreadable fruit with little added sugar. After canning, we had a few tablespoons left over. It went over the top of the apricot cobbler. Yeah, we baked too…
My friend came over to help with drying, and we ended up making an apricot cobbler. This is not a picture of my cobbler, but it looked just about identical…
Dried apricots. We didn’t use sulfur to keep the orange color, so they turn brown when they dry. They still taste really good. I forgot to set an alarm to wake up in the middle of the night and turn down the dryer. They got done in about 14 hours, instead of the usual 18.
I selected the prettiest tiny little apricots to make apricot bounce – apricots with sugar drowned in straight brandy. The jar will sit until Christmas, then we get boozy on fruit!

This gallery contains 9 photos


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Strawberry Jam

photo

The back-of-the-napkin calculation…

Yielded 25 jars of jam for $4.66 per jar.

Next year, when I don’t have to buy jars, but only have to buy lids ($0.16/lid), each jar will cost me $4.14.

And yes, I didn’t factor in the cost of the equipment that I used – both the general equipment (bowls, spoons) and the canning-specific equipment (canner, jar tongs, lid lifter magnet).

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