Goumi Berry Jelly
What berry? Yes, I said goumi (pronounced “goomy”) berry. I had never heard of them until about a month ago. And did I say jelly, not jam? Yes, this is my first foray into the world of jelly making. Jam is made from the flesh of the fruit whereas jelly is made from only the juice.
The entire experience was quite an adventure of new things and new processes. I learned a lot as I endeavored to make my first ever batch goumi berry jelly.
My friend Kim called me one day in May and left me a voice message. He was going to be out of town and offered to allow me to harvest what sounded like “loony berries.” When I returned his call, I asked him what loony berries were. “Goumi berries, not loony berries!” he corrected. Not knowing anything about them I thanked him and said I would call back once I had done a little research. I learned that the goumi is a shrub that is native to the far east. People harvest the dark red berries to make syrup and jelly. “Jelly?” I thought? My first try at jelly! I called him right back to thank him again. The next day, I headed out to his place in a rural area of South Georgia.
Kim was away, but his wife Amy (an experienced jam and jelly maker) met me at the house. She showed me the two berry bushes and asked me if I had brought my picking buckets. Picking buckets? I was used to just placing picked fruit into plastic shopping bags. She smiled and brought me into the house where she offered the use of two small metal pails. “These work better for picking,” she explained. “Then you can transfer the berries to your bags to take them home.”
I returned to the bushes and tasted a berry. I don’t know how to describe the flavor, other than to say that it was tangy but not very sweet. And each berry had a relatively large seed in it. Amy told me that the astringent nature of the flavor would go away once it was cooked. I hoped she was right.
As I began picking, I soon learned why a picking bucket is preferable to a plastic shopping bag. I was used to picking fruit with some size to it, like pears and oranges. These tiny little berries with their log stems would be difficult to wrangle into a floppy shopping bag. But it was easy to simply pick and drop them right into the little bucket. As I got going, I was soon visited by several chickens. Apparently, chickens love goumi berries. Who knew? I kept shooing them away from the pail until I figured out that placing it between my feet kept the berries safe from the chickens. They didn’t want to get that close to me.
There were thousands of tiny berries on each bush. They were so small that harvesting went pretty slowly. I had allotted myself an hour and when my time was up, I only had about 2/3 of one bucket (about 2 pounds). I emptied it into one of my shopping bags and returned the buckets to Amy. “Are you sure you have enough?” she asked. I replied that I had enough for a small test batch (which I hoped was true) and asked her how she got the juice from the berries. “With my juicer,” she replied. Duh. Problem was, I didn’t have a juicer. “You can always just use a food mill,” she said. Seeing the blank look on my face, she offered to show me her food mill. She took me back into the house where she produced an implement that looked like it may have come from my great grandmother’s kitchen. “Here,” she said, “you can borrow mine. Just use it over a bowl.” I thanked her again and was about to leave, but she wouldn’t let me go without sending me off with a loaf of her home-baked bread and a plate of scones. Amy is terrific.
When I got home, I took a good look at the food mill. It looked like a metal saucepan with several exchangeable bottoms, each with various sized holes. It had a crank handle that you could attach to the top which rotated two blades that looked like they would squish the juice out of the berries when you turned it. I washed the berries and began to pluck off the stems. Thousands of stems. It was such slow going I decided to squish the berries with the stems on. I started with the base with the smallest holes. I set the food mill atop a large glass bowl, added berries, and began to crank. No juice came out. I tried the next largest holes. Still no juice. I tried them all and still got no juice. What was I doing wrong? I blanched the berries for about 30 seconds and tried again. This time I began getting juice! In the end, my 2 pounds of berries yielded less than 3 cups of juice. How was I ever going to get enough berries to make a decent sized batch of jelly? But that was a problem for another day, so I put the juice in the fridge and studied how I might turn this stuff into jelly.
Amy had let me know that I was going to need to add pectin to my jelly, but I still needed a recipe. Unable to find a recipe online for goumi berry jelly, I decided to use one for blackberries and substitute my goumi berry juice. The recipe called for juice, sugar, and a product called SURE-JELL, a gold standard pectin product among jam and jelly makers. I was able to use my existing skills to determine when the jelly was cooked enough to set without hardening into a brick. And it worked fabulously well! I had a delicious, tangy-sweet jelly that I would be proud to offer in the Single Tree lineup. But it only made three and a half jars. How was I ever going to get enough to make even a dozen?
A week had elapsed since my first harvest before I went back for more berries. This time my better half, Shellie, came with me. And we had two hours to work on harvesting. In about one and a half hours we had around six pounds of berries and we were tired. Plus, there wasn’t much left on the bushes, so we headed home. It was easier to make the jelly this time because I had already developed a process that worked. I ended up with an additional nine jars of jelly, making an even dozen. The second batch turned out much darker than the first batch. Having been on the bush a week longer, the berries were softer and more of the berry particulate ended up in the juice. You can see the contrast in the picture. The flavor and texture are the same, the only difference is the color. I have learned through the years that batches of jam vary from one batch to another based on many factors. This particular example illustrates that well.
When I returned Amy’s food mill to her, I also gave her one of the jars of jelly. I always like to provide a free jar of the finished product to the provider of the fruit. Amy has many more years of experience making jam and jelly than I have, so I was curious to see her reaction. With a big smile on her face, I watched as she examined jar of jelly and its label. Then she gave me a nice compliment. “I like your lids” she said. Well, I am kind of proud of my lids, so that made me happy. I just hope that she and Kim enjoy jelly.
So, after many hours of driving, working, and experimenting, I ended up with twelve jars of jelly: one for Amy and Kim, and eleven to sell. I took the eleven jars to the May 30th market. The market was pretty slow, but just about everyone that tasted it purchased a jar. I think it tastes pretty fabulous, and so did my customers. I now have only seven jars left. If you want to try a really delicious jelly with a distinctly unique flavor, they are available from the online store.
In Other News…
- In general, I am running low on jam. Three months ago I was overloaded with citrus jam. In the Spring I was able to make a number of jars of loquat jam and a dozen jars of jam from my peach tree. The markets have been so busy I am sold out of everything except for the seven jars of goumi mentioned above, one jar of loquat, and some grapefruit. If you know anyone that does not want the fruit from their tree, please let me know!
- A number of people have asked about fig jam. My fig tree usually provides her fruit in July, so I hope to have more fig jam by the end of July.
- I had a fun granola sale this quarter. Knowing I was going to miss a few markets in a row, I decided to sell eleven bags of granola I had on hand at a discount so it could be sold fresh. I placed an ad on social media, and in less than two days it was all sold. For several days after, I received a lot of inquiries about the sale. I had no idea that so many people see my social media ads!
- I really appreciate the people that purchase my products. Without you, this tiny business would not be possible. Thank you all so much!
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