How to Make Blackberry Jelly
This post may contain affiliate links.
Most people have a strong personal preference for jam vs. jelly. When you make jam, you leave pieces of fruit in the jam, and it is thick. When you make jelly like this blackberry jelly recipe, all of the fruit and seeds are removed, leaving just the juice. Then you prepare the jelly from the juice.
I’ve made and canned blackberry jam several times, and my family really didn’t care for all the seeds in the jam.
I normally like jam, but blackberries do tend to have lots of seeds. I decided to try canning blackberry jelly instead this year, and it was so worth it! Blackberry jelly is now one of my favorite top 10 easy homemade jelly recipes for beginning canners.
It is a little extra effort making the jelly, but the flavor is out of this world. And no seeds!
(New to boiling water canning and want to watch me prepare this recipe? This video will show me canning blackberry jelly step by step.)
Blackberry Jelly Recipe
Ingredients:
5-6 c. blackberries
5 c. sugar
1 pkg. or 6 tbsp. powdered pectin*
1/4 tsp. butter
*Note: If you are going to make a lot of jam and/or jelly, then you HAVE to try this powdered pectin that you can buy in bulk from Amazon. Six tablespoons of this pectin is the equivalent to one box of Suregel pectin. This is the ONLY way to buy pectin inexpensively if you are going to buy a lot of it (like I do!).
Hoosier Hill Fruit Pectin, 2 lb bag
You can prepare this recipe with any kind of berry. You can also combine berries if you want a mixed berry jelly. Just make sure you end up with 3 1/2 c. juice to prepare the jelly.
Wash blackberries and remove stems.
Place blackberries in large stock pot with about 1 c. water to keep them from sticking to bottom of pot. Bring to boil and simmer for about 10 minutes, or until blackberries are soft.
Extract juice from blackberries with a jelly bag or fine mesh strainer. Measure juice, adding a little water if necessary to get exactly 3 1/2 cups of juice.
Pour blackberry juice into a large stock pot. Sprinkle the pectin on top of the juice and use a whisk to mix it together. Stirring constantly, heat until boiling. Boil for one minute.
Add the butter and return to a boil. Add the sugar to the pot all at one time (measure it and have it ready ahead of time). Stir until sugar is dissolved. Return to a boil and boil for one minute.
Canning Directions
Remove the pan from the heat. Remove any foam with a metal spoon. Ladle the jelly into hot sterilized jars, leaving ¼ inch head space. You can easily measure the head space with this canning funnel.
Process the jars in boiling water canner for 5 minutes.
Note: Jelly can take from several hours to several days to completely set. Place the jars on a towel on the kitchen counter to cool and don’t disturb them for several days so the jelly has time to set. If after several days the jelly is still not set, then follow these instructions.
Yield: 3 or 4 pints or 7 or 8 half-pints
Granite Ware Covered Preserving Canner with Rack, 12-Quart
Norpro Jelly Strainer Stand with BagCuisinart CTG-00-3MS Set of 3 Fine Mesh Stainless Steel StrainersPrepworks by Progressive Canning Funnel for Regular and Wide Mouth Jars
Related Jelly Recipes
- rose petal jelly
- rootbeer jelly
- mountain dew jelly
- apricot jelly
- pear jelly
- chokecherry jelly
- grape jelly
- dandelion jelly
- pomegranate jelly
- lilac jelly
Did You Try this Recipe?
Tag @creativehomemaking on Instagram and hashtag it #creativehomemaking
Follow my canning and preserving board on Pinterest.
Canning Blackberry Jelly
In case you missed it:
Good, basic recipe. Used wild blackberries with much success!
I just made this recipe today. A friend and I picked the blackberries on their farm. Lots and lots of thorns but all that was worth it. My first time making blackberry jelly. The jelly turned out perfect and it is delicious!!! Thank you so much for posting this recipe!!!
I’ve tried various other recipes I’ve found but this one seems to be the best out of all of them. I’ve used this recipe to make all kinds of jellies from mixed berry to blackberry to strawberry and I’ll keep using it. The only thing I can say is try to get a real fruit pectin. It’s much better than sure jel. I get mine in bulk from an Amish market in Tennessee, luckily I have family there that can ship it to me but definitely worth the effort. Thanks for the recipe.
Wondering if you could make sugar free jelly with this recipe and if so how much sweetener and what type or kind is best. I have not been able to find a sugar free blackberry jelly recipe. Thank you!
I LOVE this recipe. It was perfect and my littles went through almost all the bottles within a week.
The only thing I would say that would help me and probably other is to have a print option for just the recipe. I had to use my phone and it got sticky quickly!
Thanks for sharing!
There is a print button at the bottom of each page 🙂 Blessings!
This looks so good! What a fun project to do with kids too!
Got a lil ahead of myself n added my sugar same time as the pectin. Will this affect my jelly setting up?
For all you ladies who like to make blackberry jelly here’s a heads up. Instead of going through the mess and hassle of using cheese cloth… I bought a berry steamer,the best invention ever…Just put your berries in the steamer and about 45 minutes pure blackberry juice with no seeds It’s a little bit of an investment about fifty dollars,maybe a little more now I bought mine about ten years ago so I’m sure the price has gone up some….it has more then paid for it’s self…if you do a lot jelly this is the best ever..happy jelly.
That’s a great tip, thanks for sharing!
What is the reason for the butter?
Hi! The butter is totally optional. It helps reduces the foaming that occurs when you are cooking the jelly. You can just skim the foam off with a spoon, whether or not you decide to use the butter.
I just have a quick question. The written recipe has 5-6 cups and the video has 11 cups, however the sugar for the 5-6 is 5 cups where the video is only 4 1/2. I don’t want a tart jelly so is the the correct amount of sugar for the 11 cups? I tend to like things on the sweet side. My first time so didn’t dare to change anything. HELP!!
Hi! Sorry for the confusion 🙂 Either recipe will work fine, but the 5 cups will definitely be a bit sweeter if that’s what you’re looking for. I just made some last week. Yum!
Thank you for this recipe! I was able to fill up one dozen 4oz jam jars perfectly! The only thing I didn’t find was when to put the lemon juice in. I read your recipe a couple times and listened to your video 3 times, but didn’t hear/read any mention of when to add the 2 tbsp of lemon juice.
Hi! I looked up a couple of other recipes, and it doesn’t look like the lemon juice is necessary, so I am going to go ahead and take it out of the recipe. It certainly doesn’t hurt if you did add it to your recipe, but it is not necessary for this recipe. Thanks for catching that!
Thank you so much. After going thru several sites, this one seemed to have the simplicity I was looking for. The jelly came out great, with the perfect sweet and tangy taste because of the berries being the tamed berries that are so much more sour that the berries in the fields. I truly appreciate it and will have it as my stand-by recipe for blackberry jelly from now on. No need to look anymore.
Thanks again
Yay! So glad your jelly turned out 🙂