Question
Alison Flatley
What's the best way to separate pulp from seeds when making raspberry jam? I have tried several sizes of sieves, scraping techniques, etc but still can't get them to separate well. Help please.
Answer
That's a tough one, Allison, because I know exactly what you mean. You basically have to start with cooking the raspberries, right? That's your first step. And then after getting the raspberries, you definitely want to use the smallest sieve you can find. I'm horrible at pronouncing that word, but you know what I mean. And you basically want to put it into that and then press your spatula on the inside as the liquid slowly, and I mean slowly, goes through those, and it catches all the seeds and any other pulp behind as well. That is pretty much the tried-and-true way that everybody has done it for years. I was talking to Hobart recently, which is an equipment manufacturer, usually for industrial kitchens and stuff, and they actually have a machine that actually does that professionally, but that's like a $3,000 machine. But for some specific diets, certain people do need that. So if you're on a commercial level, you might want to check out that machine from Hobart. But if you're at home, you're actually doing exactly what you're supposed to be doing. You're using a sieve, scraping out with a spatula. Cheesecloth also can help as well, too. I've used that, but it doesn't quite catch everything, so maybe even the cheesecloth inside of a sieve. You get the point again. But anyways, you're doing it just right, and it's going to be low and slow, and I would probably do it a couple of times just to make sure. Once you get everything through, basically rinse that out, and then put your mixture through again to be able to catch as many of those raspberry seeds as possible because they're so tiny and hard to catch. But it sounds like you're right on the right path. It just takes a little bit of patience.
