Preparing the Jars

Cup of Yum
1. Clean your lids and jars, and place lids and jars, upside down, in a 200F oven.

Making the Apricot Jam

1. In a 3-4 qt soup pot, mix all of the ingredients. Heat over medium, stirring often, until the mixture begins to bubble and foam. (For us, this was about 20 minutes.)
2. Place the candy thermometer in the mixture and turn the heat to high. Continue to heat the mixture, stirring constantly. (At this point, you may want to put on an oven mitt. As the jam thickens it will begin to foam, sputter and spit. This is good; it means things are getting jammy. But, it’s not too good if you get hit.)
3. Once the mixture reaches 220-222F, remove the jam from the heat. (For us, it took 8-10 minutes to reach the jamming temperature.)

Canning the Jam

1. Using oven mitts, remove the hot jars from the oven. Ladle the hot jam into the hot jars, filling to ¼” of the top. ( ¼” is roughly the width of then nail on your little finger.) Wipe the rim of the jar with a damp towel to remove any sticky spillage. Top the jar with a hot lid and band. Tighten the band as tight as you can. Repeat until all the jam has been jarred.
2. If canning, process your jars in a water bath canner, using a water bath canning guide for jam.*
3. After canning, remove the bands after the jam has cooled. Check the seal on your lids and refrigerate any jars that have not sealed. Wipe the jars down one last time to remove any sticky bits before placing the bands back on the jars loosely and storing the jam.