Well done and better without seeds! Reference Bar le Duc sauce. Red and white currant jelly still for sale today. The French used white duck quills to remove the seeds by hand. It is still made today with a special recipe and needless to-say, quite pricey. The red and white varieties tes of currants have historically been made into jelly. The black currants, Jam; again seedless.
Somewhere I read, I think on this site, to put currants with seeds in blender,. I think then seeds somewhat disappear. I donāt want to lose the seed bulk and at the same time the seeds get stuck in my teeth and gums. So blending seems like a good compromise.
I would just try it except I used all my current this year.
Since so much of the current bulk is in the seed I wonder if anyone can confirm mixing everything in blender for jam or jelly.
similar to putting tomatoes and skins in blender for canning sauce.
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Thatās an interesting idea. I think it could work.
Iām in the seeded jam is better jam club (with some exceptionsācherry pits and grape seeds would be pretty awful). The texture is so much better, more dynamic contrast. And thereās little to no impact on flavor. I havenāt grown enough currants yet to make my own, but I much prefer the seeded red currant jam when I can find it in the stores. Doesnāt seem any worse than blackberry jam for the seeds.
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Weāve been picking black and red currants for the last few days and this morning. What we donāt sell today will likely go into jam ā if we make time.
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Yikes! I made currant juice on Sunday, and then forgot about it. Maybe thereās time tonight to make jelly out if it.
Sold out of red currants and pink champagne currants, but not black currants.
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How big a harvest did you have and out of how many bushes?
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Still plenty to pick. We brought 3 quarts of black, 2 quarts of red, and a pint of pink.
I donāt know how many black currant bushes there are. We have 2 bushes each of red and pink champagne.
Jay @jcguarneri @HollyGates
I managed to gather up 2.5 cups currants from neighbor.
I tried putting juice with seeds in the blender, then colander to filter out seeds still too big.
First off, I got about 50% more juice pulp, than if I didnāt use blender, and only going for juice.
Well the compromise was I got more jelly and the seeds werenāt as severe but they were still there, but smaller.
Also as you can see from the picture the blended jelly isnāt very clear itās sort of cloudy whitish, but thatās okay.
I didnāt read your text as well as I should have at the end where you say put spoon in freezer for a bit then take out and put juice on it. I missed the part where you said to put spoon back in the freezer for a few minutes.
Without that final step I think I cooked the juice way too much because it never seem to solidify without that extra step of putting spoon back in the freezer.
Adnd knowing that I think I lost some jelly liquid due to to much liquid being boiled off.
So I taking a future is going to be either all juice onlyh or seeds and juice, no blender.
I did add a bit of lemon juice. No pectin
When I open up one of the jars I expect the jelly to be extremely hard. So next time it will be better.
I sweetened to taste which seems as though the recommended recipes I found has too much sugar. For me if the recipe says put in three cups I like one and a half cups only.
Thanks for your input.
Fran
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Very cool! Glad to see that you get more volume. Regarding the cook time, Iāve definitely made that mistake before. My first batch of no-pectin wild grape jam set so hard you could slice it. Like several degrees beyond canned cranberry sauce firm. Iāve since learned that I pretty much made a fruit cheese, which goes great paired with real cheese, crackers, and charcuterie. Long story short, even too firm or too soft jam is still good jam.
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when im pressed for time i just make freezer jam from currants. wash and mash berries , add sugar/ squirt of lemon. jar and freeze. i find the taste is better than cooking them and you dont need to worry about a set. its a little loose upon thawing but not bad. havent got enough red currant yet to make jam but i think next year i will.
@HollyGates
Holly
Where did you get your squeezo?
Looks heavy duty.
What other uses for you?
pic of Walmart model
thanks!
Fran
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I finally made my jelly last night. Yes, jelly. And yes, i tossed about half the initial volume into the compost. Seeds, skins, and the strings that i picked with the berries.
The jelly tastes fantastic.
I had a weird experience, though. I was following the recipe in the Joy of Cooking, and i used 4 cups of juice and 3 cups of sugar. But i didnāt read the recipe carefully, and i dumped all of that into the pot and then turned on the heat.
As i was skimming scum off the top, quite suddenly, my pot boiled over. That is, it rapidly filled with foam and a lot of it spilled all over the stove.
I split the remainder into two pots, and resumed cooking. The stuff i cleaned off the stove tasted great, so i donāt think I actually ruined it. (I used bread to soak up some of the spill, until i was too full to eat more.)
For the second batch, 3.5 cups of juice and 2.6 cups of sugar, i followed the instructions, and started by cooking just the juice for 5 minutes, removing scum that rose to the top. Then i added sugar, and heated to 219F before bottling it. (the recipe said 220F, but last time it came out a little gummy, so i decided to try a lower temp.)
It didnāt boil over. I was more consistent about stirring it, because i didnāt stop stirring to skim it. Was that the only difference? Or did that scum interact with the sugar to make it overflow?
Anyway, i need to give a bottle to my sister, since they were her current bushes. I have only one red currant, and i watched the critters eat every berry before it ripened. About half of her berries were missing, but she has a much larger patch, so i got a lot of them before the critters did.
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Great!
so far pieces of mylar flash tape tied on bamboo poles have kept the birds out of mine. not enough this year to make jam but ive been eating them strait off the bush. pretty tart but still tasty. maybe next year ill have enough for jam.
The 219F worked great. I live at sea level, and i was cooking 4 cups of jelly. I now have several bottles of lovely soft delicious currant jelly, minus the two i gave to my sister.
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My favorite U-pick berry farm apparently pulled out all their gooseberries and currants last year. Lack of demand. 
And their raspberry patch was very skimpy, with lots of damage to what berries were there - I think due to spotted wing drosophila. So, I grabbed some tart cherries while I was there, just so I wasnāt leaving empty handed. Iād meant to make raspberry/currant jelly. Instead I ended up making cherry/berry jelly. And grated in a green apple, just to make sure there was enough pectin. Itāll do.
But I still miss currants.
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why ive been shifting my berry production to earlier fruiting cultivars. most bug damage gets worse from mid july on so it only makes sense to grow as early producing fruit as possible. currants and gooseberry are usually done by the end of july here. been adding more honeyberry as well. most of the early fruits are spray free also which i like.
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Iāve had very little harvest so far from Red currantsā¦Rovada being the main one Iāve planted.
The black currants are best in preserves/jelly.
Drew51 turned me on to b. currant juice. its fabulous and not as much sugar as the jam. i cut mine with water its so rich and flavorful. if you have alot you can freeze some in ice trays for later.
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