There is an old saying in Finland that Rowan berry trees can't carry two, which means that if there is a good rowanberry year the following winter will be mild. Regardless the truth of the saying, the amount of rowanberries we get certainly vary from year to year. The last time we had such a good year as this was in 2021, and I am delighted by this years abundance.
This year I picked the berries when they were ripe, but before the first frost. It has been an unseasonally warm September, and so I put the berries into the freezer over night before cooking them. This is to bring out the sweetness in them, as rowanberries are notoriusly bitter. To get the juice I like steaming the berries because the liquid becomes clearer than when they are cooked, but it is of course possible to cook and strain them as well.
Once the juice is clear liquid, I add 400 gr of sugar per liter of juice, as well as a teaspoon of citric acid as preservative to prevent moulding, and 2 teaspoons of pectin as a gelling agent. I have many friends who skip the preservatives and that is also possible, but as I like to be careful I don't mind using natural preservatives in moderation. Then the liquid is boiled another 10 - 15 minutes to get the right concistency for gelling while skimming the foam from the top until it is very clear. One thing I have noticed when adding pectin is that as the foam starts to gather, it is best to stir the juice for a few minutes to disolve the pectin to ensure it melts into the liquid properly. Otherwise it's easy to accidentally remove it with the first foam, and thereby reducing the stiffness of the jelly.
Before filling the jars, I heat them up to 100°C in the oven, and pour boiling water over the lids to prevent any bacteria entering the jelly. It also helps in the preservation of the jelly to disinfect the jars this way. When pouring the jelly it's good to be careful not to spill any on yourself as it is very hot and burns easily. Getting the lids on the hot jars is always a bit of a hassle, but when done properly it creates a vacuum that extends the shelf-life of the jelly.
We get a lot of local deer meat from my neighbour, and nothing has the same wonderful autumn vibe as deer meat served with home grown potatoes, a cream sauce and rowanberry jelly. The deer population has grown so explosively during the last decades that they are crowding out the elks, simply by feeding so much on the early spring vegetation that there is a bit of a food shortage. While the deer are cute up to a point, the elks are majestic beings, kings of the forest and almost mythical in their apperance, and so I much favour them and feel it is an environmentally friendly act to support hunting of their habitat rivals. Happy hunting then, both for rowanberries and deer!
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