# Jelly - Honey Instead of Sugar



## HDRider (Jul 21, 2011)

Calling on your jelly expertise....

Can I substitute honey instead of sugar?

If so, how much honey is the functional equivalent of 1 cup of sugar?

Thanks all - Garden time is coming!!!!


----------



## calliemoonbeam (Aug 7, 2007)

There are a lot of recipes specifically using honey to can with instead of sugar. However, just substituting honey in a recipe that calls for sugar can be tricky. Honey adds more liquid and tends to make things mushier, and jelly/jam won't set up as well without a commercial pectin product. It also, of course, changes the flavor.

Here are a couple of sites that talk more about this. You can read up and then decide if you want to experiment with your recipes or not. If so, I'd recommend a very small batch first until you see how it comes out. Or you can hunt for tried and true recipes that are already configured using honey and go with them. There are whole books available with recipes canning with honey. There might be some at your library. Good luck, let us know how it turns out! 

http://www.simplycanning.com/substitute-honey-for-sugar.html

http://www.pickyourown.org/SubstitutingHoneyForSugar.htm


----------



## HDRider (Jul 21, 2011)

Thanks. I will.


----------



## kittyjo (Feb 10, 2005)

if you do substitute honey for sugar please make sure the honey has been pasturized if the honey is raw you will get bacteria in your food that waterbathing cannot destroy don't know about preassure canning didn't use that I did this with raw honey using the recipes from a book I had called Stoicking Up years ago and had exploding jars and popped lids in my pantry I had to throw out 15 cases of food that I had put up not to mention the mess to clean up so be very careful when using honey


----------



## calliemoonbeam (Aug 7, 2007)

Wow, great advice Kittyjo! You know, I never even thought of that. Back when I canned with honey (many moons ago, lol) I used store bought honey, which of course is pasteurized. Nowadays, I buy raw honey by the 5-gallon bucket and would have used it and never even thought about it!  

You probably just saved a lot of people some heartache, as well as the loss of the time, effort and food products, thanks again!


----------



## kittyjo (Feb 10, 2005)

glad to be of help to anyone that I could that is why I love this site because it helps so many people


----------



## Usingmyrights (Jan 10, 2011)

I know this is an old thread, but honey doesn't support bacterial growth, so I'm curious how the honey is the cause.


----------



## no1cowboy (May 2, 2004)

kittyjo said:


> if you do substitute honey for sugar please make sure the honey has been pasturized if the honey is raw you will get bacteria in your food that water bathing cannot destroy


This is totally not true


----------



## kittyjo (Feb 10, 2005)

Usingmyrights said:


> I know this is an old thread, but honey doesn't support bacterial growth, so I'm curious how the honey is the cause.


 
I am so sorry to differ with you but I am the one who had to clean up the mess from the poped lids and broken jars it was from using raw honey that had not been pasturized the temps don't get high enough during the water bath canning process to kill the natural bacteria or microbs or what ever you call them in the honey yes it is better for you for eating but not canning and that is also why they say not to feed it to babies


----------



## no1cowboy (May 2, 2004)

You may have had jars pop but it wasn't the honey! there are people canning with raw honey every day, without a problem.

http://www.simplycanning.com/honey-nutrition.html

http://real-raw-honey.com/canning-preserving-with-honey


----------



## MuskovyMom (May 31, 2012)

You might also wish to try Pomona's Universal Pectin - it works on a different principle to gel, and doesn't require any sweetener at all, if that's your preference. But you can use pretty much any kind of sweetener, to any degree. It's a bit more finicky than regular pectin because it's a chemical reaction that can differ depending on the amount of calcium originally in your fruit (or whatever you're canning), but the package offers great guidelines to many things. One of my friends used agar agar too, but it's a lot more expensive.


----------



## MichaelK! (Oct 22, 2010)

no1cowboy said:


> You may have had jars pop but it wasn't the honey! there are people canning with raw honey every day, without a problem.
> 
> 
> In a way, you are both correct, and also both wrong. Raw honey does have a concern in that it may sometimes contain botulism spores. Those are the spores of the bacterium _Clostridium botulinum_. That is specifically the reason why you should not feed honey to infants.
> ...


----------



## FeistyMuse (Apr 19, 2013)

you CAN sub honey IF you use Pomonas pectin. I put up some strawberry jam, strawberry-blackberry jam, and pineapple jam all made with honey instead of sugar this past week!

Amazon.com has it for a reasonable price BUT I have found the absolute best is to order it direct from the Pomonas website, in bulk!


----------



## JohnnyP (Nov 4, 2012)

I wonder if some other folks can chime in on this topic. With Strawberry season upon us I wanna substitute honey for sugar but prefer to use raw honey. Can I safely assume that the ph will be less than 4.5 when making jams with honey? Is there a way to test the ph? 

Thanks,

John


----------



## MichaelK! (Oct 22, 2010)

JohnnyP said:


> Can I safely assume that the ph will be less than 4.5 when making jams with honey? Is there a way to test the ph?


Honey is already naturally acidic, usually about pH 4.0. If your strawberry jam recipe calls for the addition of sugar and lemon juice, I'd cut back on the lemon juice and taste it first. If your strawberries are already acidic enough to water-bath can, then adding honey will not raise the pH. 

You can buy a pH meter, or pH paper at a Beer making shop.


----------

