recycling sugar from home canned jellies

[Larry33843]

We have a few jars of home canned jellies, mostly
citrus that are older than we want to use and I was wondering if anyone has
ever used such to start a batch of alcohol. Thinking of watering back down,
maybe bringing to a boil ?, cooling down, adding yeast and waiting. Anyone have any suggestions ?Thank You
for your consideration, Larry

[Bushman]

Hypothetical math problem with variables not considered. Not sure about how much sugar you would retrieve but I did a bit of research and on average there is 10.76 grams of sugar in a tbspoon of jelly. If 453.59 grams equal a pound then it would take approx. 42 tblspoons to get a pound of sugar. 1 pint equals 32 tablespoons thus you would get a little over a pound of sugar out of each jar if none is lost. I am sure there is a flaw to this thinking but I thought it was an interesting problem to calculate.

[stevenun]

Get a pack of certo and read the recipes for the type of fruit you have. That should give you a ball park figure of the amount of sugar.
When I make jelly from grapes, its 7 cups of sugar to 4 cups of juice. Lots of pectin in jelly... I would probably water it down, boil it, let it cool, and add some pectic enzyme to break down the pectin binding the stuff together. You could always check it with a hydrometer to see what your potential alcohol might be. If you only have a few jars you're going to need more ingredients (sugar/grape juice) if you hope to get much out of it. 7 cups of sugar and 4 cups of juice is only around 3-4 pounds of sugar spread out over four pint jars. I know, because I can make two batches of jelly from a 10 pound bag of sugar, and still have sugar left in the bag when I'm done.

[StillLearning1]

Seems like I remember a member saying that whenever they needed more jars they just bought jelly and fermented it all. Said it was cheaper than mason jars plus you get a wash out of it.

I don't remember how he fermented, I'm thinking someone else might remember the thread...may help you out some.

[bearriver]

Said it was cheaper than mason jars plus you get a wash out of it.

Same deal with Costco peaches, which come in standard mason jars.

[frozenthunderbolt]

Yup. I've made 'Marmalade vodka' before - more like a citrus schnapps really.
Boiling water to melt and dilute to a sensible SG (based on 50% by weight of the marmalade).
Some vit B and a tsb of DAP for nutes and it came out well once double distilled.