Making larger amounts of strawberry Preserve

Asked on 8 Nov 2017 by dickus

scaling up preserves

i have made several of the preserves very successfully but when i scale up say 3 times for strawberry preserve following the recipe I have to boil so long to get the preserve to set the majority of the strawberries dissolve.
are there any rules for scaling up?

Lindsey, Food Editor replied

Hello,

We agree that scaling up homemade preserves is problematic.

We find Strawberry Preserve is best made in small batches with 2lb of fruit. When we have more strawberries we prepare batches in bowls to leave overnight and cook them off separately. We have 2 pans so we heat them up at the same time to dissolve the sugar and then boil them one after the other.

We find that the strawberries are more likely to harden than they are to dissolve so I wonder if your fruit is overripe or if you haven’t left the strawberries long enough in the sugar before you start heating it.

Kind regards

Lindsey