Food & drink
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The Ball Freshtech jam & jelly maker: ‘Beyoncé was right – I simply am not ready for this jelly’

This automatic jam machine claims to take the heat out of fruit preservation. It gives me a tension headache

Pricey and pointless … Want jam? In a hurry? Got £149? Get the Ball Freshtech jam & jelly maker
Pricey and pointless … Want jam? In a hurry? Got £149? Get the Ball Freshtech jam & jelly maker Photograph: Martin Godwin for the Guardian
Rhik Samadder

What?

Tub fitted with rotor blades and lid. Hot fruit continually agitated produces a gelled preserve.

Why?

Making jam gets me in a pickle every time.

Well?

Jam makes me very bad-tempered. It’s the labour-intensity and volume involved. Life is too short to be dickering around with muslin cloths and massive pans, creating 18,000 sticky jars you’ll be turning into birthday presents for two years.

Moreover, not one person wants your mouldy burden clogging up their cupboard when they can buy an inexpensive jar of Bonne Maman anywhere. Presented with homemade jam, I show the gifter the door, and let it smack them on the way out.

I realise a lot of people like making jam. It’s even possible that I’m addressing a conserve-ative majority. So, for you people, here is the jam/jelly-maker from Ball. It replaces hours of tedious boiling and set-checking with an automated program, which sounds even less fun. The self-stirring pot claims to go from fruit to jam in an incredible 21 minutes. The recipe booklet is outré: kiwi lime jam, or mango pineapple chilli, anyone?

jam maker
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Time-poor, jam-rich. Photograph: Martin Godwin for the Guardian

I have a crack at a balsamic and rosemary jelly, and immediately come unstuck. I’m advised to use Ball’s own “setting mix with pectin”. I resent proprietary ingredients; besides, my supermarket doesn’t have any. I find bottled pectin, but substitution isn’t straightforward. “Two tablespoons liquid equals four teaspoons powder”. So how much is four tablespoons powder, I wonder, wishing I hadn’t spent every maths lessons doodling Lion-O from Thundercats.

Beyoncé was right: I simply am not ready for this jelly. I try again, for strawberry jam. I crush strawbs, set the timer, pour in jam sugar with added pectin. The machine heats up, blades sweeping powerfully through the bubbling, blood-like syrup. After hours of cooling, it drips weakly. Like a distracted badger, I have an incomplete set.

Jam & jelly-maker
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A passion for pectin … the jam & jelly-maker Photograph: Martin Godwin for the Guardian

Have I boiled off the pectin? What even is pectin? “STOP SAYING ‘PECTIN’,” I shout at myself. I run the programme again. After several hours, I have a tension headache and some … pretty great jam. Still, it wasn’t worth it. If you have access to free fruit, or you are Paddington Bear, this machine will simplify and speed up your marmalade-making – possibly at the cost of some satisfaction. For me, there’s nothing here worth preserving.

Any downside?

All fruit and no pectin makes pectin a pectin pectin.

Counter, drawer, back of the cupboard?

Pectin. Packed in, chucked out. 3/5