Bulk Grapefruit Marmalade Tutorial

Bulk Grapefruit Marmalade

(smaller recipe quantities at the end)

6 kilos grapefruit

5 litres water

10 kilos sugar

100 grams Jamsetta with pectin

Scrub the fruit well and with a vegetable peeler peel off the skin. Put into your food processor and pulse until desired fineness is reached or very thinly slice the peel. You can also use a citrus zester but the food processor is much quicker for such a large amount of peel.

Remove as much white pith as you can from the remaining fruits as this will make your marmalade overly bitter.

Remove any seeds and blitz the fruit in the food processor.

Place the chopped zest, fruit pulp and water into a very large preserving pan and bring to the boil.

Simmer until the peel is absolutely soft. This can take 1 to 2 hours but is well worth the effort.

 

Add the sugar and the pectin and boil hard for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Skim off any foam with a metal slotted spoon. 

This can be put into a small jar or cup and used the following morning on your toast as it is perfectly okay but just not suitable or presentable to store in your jars.

Carefully pour the marmalade into hot sterile jars and secure a tight fitting lid on top.

Leave to cool completely then wipe the jars down to ensure that they are clean, label and store in a cool dark place.

KB’s Notes:

You can make this marmalade with any combination of citrus fruits that you desire. Try half and half with oranges and lemons, just bitter Seville oranges or just lemons to give you a variety.

I used 2 kilos of raw sugar to give the marmalade a wonderful golden hew and the balance in plain white sugar. The more raw sugar you use as opposed to white sugar will give you a deeper depth of colour to your marmalade.

We particularly liked the ratio that I used this last time but feel free to experiment. Canning is such fun.

With pouring the very hot marmalade into hot sterile jars and sealing them immediately there is no need for further processing. However if for any reason you reduce the quantity of sugar then you will have to water bath can the jars once they are sealed to ensure that the vacuum is formed and you get that wonderful “PING” sound and the jars seal and protects the contents from going bad.

Marmalade makes wonderful Christmas gifts. Place a nice circle (about an inch larger that the jar lids), of bright coloured material on the top of the lids and tie on with a piece of rustic brown parcel string. Attach a hand written label or card and you have the perfect gift for someone special.

Normal quantities for a regular sized batch is listed here. The directions to make this is the same as above:

1.5 kilos citrus fruit

1 ¼  litres water

2 ½ kilos sugar

25 grams Jamsetta pectin