FFTC

Practical Technology

Postharvest/ Rural life PT2004-19

Simple plum jam processing technology

n Vietnam, ethnic minorities in the northern mountainous areas grow plum using the variety Prunus trifolium. The methodology of plum jam processing (Fig. 1) at the household level was developed to help farmers produce good quality plum jam that could be used for the whole year or can be sold in the market for additional income.

Ratio of plum and sugar

Plum and sugar ratio is 5 kg of plum: 4 kg of sugar.

Boiling
Pour plum into boiling pot for 15-20 minutes, then transfer boiled plum into a basket (Fig. 4).

Method
Selection and cleaning
Select soft ripened fruit, eliminating the diseased and rotten ones (Fig. 2). Clean and dry thoroughly (Fig. 3).

Fig. 3. Cleaning Fig. 1. Plum jam processing

Fig. 4. Boiling Fig. 2. Plum selection

Food and Fertilizer Technology Center (FFTC) 5F, 14 Wenchow St., Taipei 106, Taiwan ROC Tel.: (886 2) 2362 6239 Fax: (886 2) 2362 0478 E-mail: fftc@agnet.org Website: www.fftc.agnet.org FFTC: An international information center for small-scale farmers in Asia Cooperating agency for this topic: National Agriculture Extension Center 2 Ngoc Ha - Ba Dinh - Hanoi - Vietnam Tel: (84 4) 8233485 Fax: (84 4) 7342554 E-mail: tthl_knqg@yahoo.com

Crushing
Put the basket full of plum on top of the pot. Carefully crush the plum so that the meat could be filtered onto the bottom of the pot (Fig. 5).

Packing
Pour plum jam into heatproof bottle with lid (Fig. 7). Use spoon to fill up bottle with plum jam (leave 1 cm from top of bottle), then cover. Boil bottle with lid for 15 minutes.

Cooking
Mix sugar with plum meat, boiling under low fire and stirring until the mixture is lucid (Fig. 6). Good quality plum jam must taste sweet and smell good, while poor quality plum jam does not dissolve when dropped into water.

Storing
Put the plum jam bottles inside a pot with leaves or rice husk at the bottom (Fig. 8). Store in a dry and well ventilated place. Expiration is 6 months to 1 year; plum jam must be consumed within 5-7 days after opening the bottle's lid.

Fig. 5. Crushing

Fig. 6. Cooking and quality testing

Fig. 7. Packing

Fig. 8. Storing