Does Jam Last as Long if It’s Made with Organic Preservative Sugar?

When canning jam with organic preservative sugar, does it keep as long as it does with regular one?

Whether you use organically or conventionally produced jam sugar to preserve your jam has no effect on the shelf life.

The type of gelling sugar you use is more decisive for the shelf life, and there are definitely differences between organic and conventionally produced products.

With the classic 1:1 gelling sugar, fruit and gelling sugar are used in equal parts. Here the sugar content is so high that a long shelf life is achieved. The same applies to the 2:1 variant, in which twice the amount of fruit is used compared to the sugar. Working hygienically is a prerequisite for all variants.

Conventional products mostly consist of sugar, pectin and citric acid. Sometimes palm fat or hydrogenated sunflower oil is also added as a foam inhibitor.

Organic products usually only consist of sugar and pectin. With low-acid types of fruit, such as strawberries, it makes sense to add some lemon juice to the jam itself. This is important because pectin always needs acid in addition to sugar in order to gel at all. The lemon juice also has a positive effect on the taste.

In the 3:1 jam sugar variant, three parts fruit and only one part sugar are used. The sugar content of these jams is no longer sufficient to guarantee a long shelf life. For this reason, manufacturers of conventional products like to add a preservative such as sorbic acid.

This is not done in organic products. Therefore, when making the jams, you have to pay much more attention to all hygiene rules (e.g. boiling the jars and lids, etc.). After opening, the jars must be kept in the refrigerator and used up quickly.