Gelatinization and Crab Apple Jelly

It’s almost fall! How do we know?

• Football is on five days a week (and what, exactly, are we supposed to do on Tuesdays and Wednesdays?)
• The daily highs dip below 100° F ^[1] at WLBOTT CenTex
• UC#1 and SU harvest crab apples and make jelly

^[1] Celsius is a gateway to the metric system, which in turn is a gateway to universal health care.

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Gelatinization: What You Need to Know

• 6 syllables
• 14 letters
• letters per syllable: 2.3333333333333333333333333333333

Thank You for Your Patience

Before we get on to the apples, let’s celebrate the variety of the AI experience. All images were generated with the simple prompt “gelatinous mass”, with various art filters applied.

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Crab Apple Jelly!

9/14/2024, 7:29 PM

Hi, WLBOTT Team!

Yes, we have come full circle, it is now crab apple season again. My how time flies!

Note that I plan to do another batch tomorrow and will take more photos at that time.

Here is the recipe as I have adapted it from a multitude of websites and cookbooks:

• Take a whole bunch of almost ripe, washed and de-leaved crab apples and chop the flower and stems off. Toss them in a large pan. Stop when the pan is almost full.
• Add water so that the apples just start to float.
• Boil the hell out of it for about 20 min.
• Use a potato masher^[2] to turn the entire pot into mush.
• Take 1m lengths of twine and form one end into a noose.
• Arrange a 30cm x 30cm (approx.) piece of cheesecloth in a large colander.
• Position a number of empty jars and snap-lids in a shallow pot of simmering water (to pre-heat and sterilize them)
• Using a ladle, scoop mush into the cheesecloth, being careful to not drop any on the sides of the cloth (or on the floor, or your shoes or anywhere else for that matter).
• When the cheesecloth is full, loop the twine around the top edges, feeding the loose end through the loop and pulling it tight, as if it were around the neck of a rich, criminal narcissist.
• String up the cheesecloth on a handy cabinet door handle or anything else where you can position a pot below to catch the drips.
• Position a pot below to catch the drips.
• Wash the big pot used to make the mash.
• Collect all the drippings and pour into the big pot.
• Insert the thermometer into the goo and bring to a boil. Note the boiling point temperature (at this altitude it is about 205F (about 96C).
• Add 2 Kg of sugar (more or less according to your preferences) and continue to boil until the boiling point rises about 7 degrees F (to 212F or 100C).
• If the boiling point will not rise the full amount, add more sugar, slowly, while observing the temperature.
• Continue to boil for 5 minutes, then remove pot from the heat.
• Using any convenient ladle (such as a measuring cup), transfer the brew to the waiting bottles.
• Wipe the top edges of the bottles and add snap-lids and screw caps. Tighten and let stand.
• After 10 min (+/-) you should hear the lids pop down as they vacuum seal.
• Notify your spouse that she can now clean the kitchen^[3].

Each batch yields about 6 small bottles of jelly.

Crab Apple Jelly – Nutritional Value (Per tablespoon (15 Ml) shown as % of recommended daily amounts)

• Vitamin C: .0001
• Vitamin D: .0001
• Fibre: .0020
• Folate: .0010
• Potassium: .0050
• Calcium: .0001
• Magnesium: .0001
• Cyanide: .0070
• Sugar: 5000.0000

Enjoy!

UC#1

^[2] In Texas, it is permissible to use a bean masher.

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9/15/2024, 7:01 PM

The good news is I got a lot of crab apple jelly. The bad news is, I don’t think today’s batch jelled. That means dumping it all back into a pot and boiling it a bunch more. I thought I had the right boiling point, but I guess either I misread the thermometer or there isn’t enough pectin, or something. Dang, that was a lot of work!

Tomorrow or Tue I might try to do another small batch. If it works, I will have enough jelly to last through then next civil war, perhaps even enough to barter. Then I will prune the tree to the point where any normal tree should die. My neighbor assured me that it will not, it is a tough old crab.

UC#1

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9/15/2024, 10:36 PM

By the way, UC#1-SU did provide an explanation for the markings on the thermometer. It is a candy thermometer and when you make candy, you take a scoop of the simmering mixture, form it into a ball and drop it in cold water. At a certain temperature it will turn into hard candy and at a lower temperature, soft candy. Thus the “hard ball” and “soft ball” settings.

I feel much better knowing there is some logic to the universe.

UC#1

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9/16/2024 6:16 AM

Dear Sir John the Exhausted, Kt,

Thanks for the pictures of the crab apple jelly making, and thanks for including some Twine Images for the archives! Good luck on today’s labors. I look forward to BLOTTing your good works.

Elder G has bestowed upon you the title of “Sir John The Exhausted”. You are now a Knight of the Sticky Table.

(Elder G also has an infinite supply of puns, beginning with: “Sir John might b e tired, but he’s a ‘knight in shining jelly!’ “, and “He’s always ‘preserving’ his legacy, one jar at a time!”)

UC#4

^[3] UC#1 stakes on thin ice.

9/16/24 9:00 AM

Thanks for the handsome image, UC#4 and Elder G. I definitely don’t do it justice. This is a sticky business and I risk becoming one of the knights that say “yuck”.

Operation crab-apple continues today with the re-boiling of batch 3 which didn’t set and the start of the crab-apple-sauce phase. After that, on to jelly batch 4.

The plan is to then trim the tree down to near-death, but since it is, according to my neighbor, an “aggressive crab” (sounds like someone I used to know), it should survive just about anything, including thermonuclear war.

Elder G‘s puns are so funny I fell over and did a jelly role.

UC#1

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Bonus Content: Gelatinization’s Greatest Hits