Marmalade making - fruit to sugar ratio?

[infodiva]

Hi all - I've searched the boards for an answer to this question, but I still wasn't completely sure so I figured I better ask before I mess up a lot of oranges!

I'm following a recipe from a chowhounder which calls for shredding oranges to 8 cups, adding 12 cups of water to soak over night. However, I didn't measure very carefully while I was shredding the oranges and sort of just eye-balled it.

I am going to measure out everything more carefully before I cook up the marmalade tonight -- but just in case I have a deviation in the amount of oranges/liquid, is there a rule of thumb for the amount of sugar to add?

Thanks in advance... why do I do these things at the last minute, I'll never know.

[corneygirl]

All the recipes I've seen call for equal measures of fruit and sugar.

[infodiva]

Is that by weight or volume?

[corneygirl]

Volume, 1 cup of fruit juice/pulp/rind to 1 cup of sugar. I just finished a couple batches and this turned out fine. It is kind of horrifying to measure out all that sugar, but it keeps away the spoilage. I used lots of rind so the bitter balanced out the sweet.

[infodiva]

Ah, thank you! This is a big help - I feel a lot better.

One last thing - is there an amount I should stick to to make at one time? For example, don't do a larger batch than 10 cups of fruit/pulp or so?

[corneygirl]

I'm a novice too. I think that it may take longer to set up if you don't have a wide enough pot, but other than that I don't see any safety reasons for it. Like I said I haven't done a lot of this but I don't think it's a big issue. BTW 10 cups of fruit stuff yielded about 5 1/2 pints of marmalade (I used 4 and 8 oz jars).