# Why did my strawberry jam seperate?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-my-strawberry-jam-seperate/354804>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [April 30, 2006, 3:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-my-strawberry-jam-seperate/354804 "2006-04-30T03:13:16Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\
**Post date:** [April 30, 2006, 3:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-my-strawberry-jam-seperate/354804/1 "2006-04-30T03:13:16Z")

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Today my mom and I went strawberry picking, and I came home to make tasty jam out of our tasty berries. I just used the regular old Ball Blue Book recipe (berries, sugar, lemon juice, pectin). There was one extra jar’s worth that I stuck in the fridge - it’s perfectly normal strawberry jam. The ones that got processed, however, came out seperated - translucent red juice on the bottom, pink stuff (one assumes involving the fruit) on the top. What happened? They all sealed just fine. Can it be fixed?

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**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\
**Post date:** [April 30, 2006, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-my-strawberry-jam-seperate/354804/2 "2006-04-30T03:22:50Z")

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Too much sugar increased the density of the liquid to the point where the berry goo floated?  
[This site](http://blogs.salon.com/0004392/categories/myInterests/) suggests a fix:

> [@](#):
>
> I learned to solve the “floating fruit problem” by stirring the jam after it is done until it starts to gel just a bit. And if there still is “floatage” after it comes out of the canner you can turn it upside down, roll it around and do other fun stuff to it, but only after you heard the “ping,” inicating the jars have sealed.

It’s probably too late now that the stuff has set.

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**Author:** ![Hello\_Again](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/85e7bf/32.png) [@Hello\_Again](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hello_Again)\
**Post date:** [April 30, 2006, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-my-strawberry-jam-seperate/354804/3 "2006-04-30T14:53:18Z")

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This has happened to me, I think too much sugar is the cause as others have said. Just stir throughly when you open the jar and you’re fine.

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**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\
**Post date:** [April 30, 2006, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-my-strawberry-jam-seperate/354804/4 "2006-04-30T18:44:50Z")

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Man, that sucks - I was really looking foward to this stuff, the berries were just so good! I hate to give people weird funny-looking jam and say “Oh, I promise, it’ll be okay if you just stir it a bit.” Maybe the berries were too sweet on their own, so that the recipe’s amount of sugar was too much? I hate to distrust the Ball Blue Book, man!