All About the GramJam

      Hello everyone,

             We can't believe its almost the middle of March! We've missed the last couple installments of our blog due to our other jobs pulling our attention away. We figured that it is time to begin talking about and answering questions you may have about our products. At Farver Creek, we take pride in everything we produce. Each item we offer is directly the result of our own knowledge, and developing craft expertise, work with our animals, or otherwise offered due to collaborations we have within our community. This pride is, perhaps, most evident with GramJam, which was the centerpiece of our very first market season.
      Nate first learned how to make the core elements of our recipe from his Grandmother when he was young (hence the name!). As an adult, he re-engaged with the craft, and we began to think of ways to make the recipes unique to Farver Creek, and align it with our mission to offer locally sourced, all-natural products. The first item to change, therefore, was the pectin. Pectin is the ingredient in most jams and jellies to make it jell/firm up, and occurs naturally in many types of fruits to varying degrees. Typically, homemade jam is made with store bought, processed pectin. Instead, some intensive Google research led us to develop an all-natural pectin. Our pectin is made completely from apples (specifically Granny Smith apples), which we break down and boil into a substance not unlike apple sauce. Since different apples contain different levels of pectin, we had to experiment for some time to get a rough estimate on how much to put in each recipe. The next component we focused on modifying was the sweetness. While jam is a sweet spread, certainly, many recipes call for so much sugar the flavor profile is dulled to a cavity-inducing sugar overload. So, we experimented a bit more by lowering the sugar content such that the flavor of the fruit is predominant but the chemical processes of jelling remain intact. Additionally, we switched to a local brand of sugar derived from sugar beets, which means our recipe (technically) only contains fruit and vegetables. The fruits we use in our recipe is sourced from local farms and orchards, in order to support local farmers. This brought us to our current recipe, where we use twice the amount of fruit to sugar ratio. Every single batch of GramJam is made by Nate in small batches to optimize consistency and flavor. Recently, we have been experimenting with different flavors and unique combinations, such as Mango Pineapple. This particular jam sold really well, so we will definitely be doing this again! On the other hand, one of Nate's friends pestered him to try making Watermelon jam...Let's just say that it was an exercise to prove that not every fruit can be made into jam!

      Starting either this week or next week, the jam production will once again go into full swing. Up until this point, production has been slow/nonexistent but not forgotten- our main jobs and commitments have simply demanded too much time!

      In the next blog we will talk about building housing for different animals. Over Spring Break, our next project will be building custom housing ("Bunny Condos") for our rabbits so they can be outside and safe...and Kaitlin can put her car in the garage again!

Cheers,

Farver Creek Food & Fiber Farm