September 26th, 2008 - Great galloping grapes
I took a 6 day vacation and should have written a bunch in here whilst doing so (it was at home). Instead, I didn’t and felt like I had all sorts of things to share that I never got to so I procrastinated more and more. ::sigh:: Sorry for my absence. Let’s get back on track with grapes!
Last Sunday, I picked something over a bushel of grapes at Moes. She had grape vines on the house she bought and can’t keep up with them. I also got some a few years back but not last year. I should just go ahead and email her each fall. Whenever I run into her, she always welcomes me over! It took only about an hour–not bad at all! I had two bushel baskets about half full. Wish I’d weighed them, but forgot. I believe these are Concord grapes. They aren’t sweet enough to eat plain (except the occasional lucky one) and have seeds. Maggie liked them, however!
My grape jelly recipes said that including the stems and green grapes was a good idea for extra pectin, so my first batch in the steam juicer just was dumped in. I them realized that it would be a LOT of batches and started stripping grapes off the stems. Not too carefully, however, as I didn’t care that much, just wanted to fit more in the juicer. (It was over 23 quarts of grapes, as I nearly filled the pressure canner with grapes waiting for the juicer.) Ended up with three batches in there. Each took at least 30 minutes till steam came out, then 60 minutes of juicing.
Put it all in the fridge to settle overnight. Monday, I made grape jelly. I may have scorched it as I thought the three tests would appear in a row, and I never got to the sheeting stage, so I never even tried the “in the freezer to see if you can run your finger through it” stage. I finally gave up and decided to have grape syrup. After filling the jars, I discovered that the bit left in the pan had jelled in those few minutes of putting jars in the canner! Aaaaack and aaaargh. I’d wasted quite a bit of time that wasn’t necessary. Now I know to go with “when it boils check it in the freezer.” It’s a bit sticky and a little scorched flavor, but livable. I have 6 half-pints of jelly.
I bought a jelly bag for straining the juice since I always made quite a mess with cheesecloth. The jelly juice had no sediment to speak of.
Tuesday, I stayed home and canned juice. The juice–just a tiny bit of sediment. I hope it really did all get out, because the juice I froze before always had crystals and sediment in the bottom (I didn’t know about straining to prevent that.) This time, I added sugar right away. In the past, I’d add it when drinking it, and you always get sugar at the bottom of the glass, which I don’t like. The recipe suggested 1-2 cups per gallon or to taste. I added about 2.5 cups. It’s still on the tart side, just like grape juice should be. (Actually, I had to ask Eric that question. I don’t recall the last time I had commercial grape juice.) I made 9 quarts of sweetened juice along with 3 more quarts unsweetened to make jelly again later. Counting the jelly juice from Monday, I got about 14.5 quarts of juice from the one hour and one+ bushel! Not sure why, but the 1/4″ headspace turned into about an inch, although there was no loss of juice to the canning water. Maybe the jot juice takes up more room than room-temp juice?
There was just a bit of unsweetened grape juice that didn’t fit in the jars, so I added a bit of sugar and Maggie and I drank it Tuesday for a snack. It can definitely be cut with water! Which means I actually have more than 9 quarts of sweetened juice to drink. (I found the same thing the last time I juiced it. It’s great to have it concentrated for preserving because it takes less space than if it were full strength.)
I’m very tempted to go get another bushel of grapes tonight or tomorrow, but I really need to concentrate on taking care of other things I already have to around the house like hot peppers, carrots, potatoes (the later two still need to be dug out of the garden, for instance!).
Grape juice: Heat to 190F. Add 1-2 cups of sugar per gallon of juice, or to taste. Fill hot jars to 1/4″ headspace. Boiling water canner for 15 min, quarts or pints. (Every canning book.)
Grape jelly: 1 c sugar to 1 c juice. Prep and cook as for any jelly, boiling rapidly to the jelling point. 1/4″ headspace, boiling water canner 5 minutes, 1/2-pints. (Joy of Cooking: All About Canning)