I’d decided to make jam from the Kousa fruit on Friday morning. As you can see from the size of the bowl I selected, there wasn’t anywhere near as much on the tree as I thought. I didn’t realize there was only fruit on the southern half of the tree, none at all on the north side.
Because there was so little fruit, I decided to run them through the Squeezo to save as much pulp as possible. It came out rather gritty, even though it didn’t look like the seeds had broken.
I tried to push it through a very fine sieve but it would not go through. I tried to squeeze it through buttercloth, but again, it would not go through. So I decided to make it just as it was.
There is not a lot about processing Kousa fruit on the web, so I was flying by the seat of my pants here. I did find 2 recipes and decided to try this one. Though labeled “Jam” it was actually making jelly.
source
I’d ended up with nearly 1 cup of puree. So I divided the recipe and used ¼ of the amounts. The puree was pretty thick, even with the water added, so I decided to skip the pectin.
I brought it to a full boil, and then shut it off as I had to wait for the jars and lids to heat up. Once they were done, I brought it to a boil again.
There wasn’t even a full pint so I didn’t process it. I just let it cool then put it in the fridge.
I’ve been so busy since it was finished, I’ve not even tried it yet. It’s the graininess that is putting me off. It’s like a really grainy pear, plus a touch of grittiness. In reading afterwards, it seems that comes from the skins. One post said they slit the skins and used a spoon to get the pulp, because of the grittiness. Next year I will try that.