Homemade Grape Juice

[signseeker]

I'm making homemade grape juice for the first time. We have some of the green seedless grapes (very strong sweet flavor) and my friend's neighbor has a large row of concord type purple grapes (with seeds) that do not want to use them.

The usual recipe (for the method I'm trying) is ...

1 cup cleaned and stemmed grapes
1/2 cup sugar

Fill the quart jar with boiling water and then water bath for 20 min.


Some comments I've heard were that this was too sweet for some people's taste and that it is safe to omit the sugar.

I did 2 cups of grapes instead of 1 and added no sugar. I was thinking, Why not do 3 cups? When we are ready to drink it, we strain it out of the bottle, add water to make it just right and we can add sugar then if we want to, to taste. It takes up just as much room in the storage jar, so why not have it a little more concentrated?

You let this sit for at least a month before you drink it... some people say 6 months is the optimum flavor.

I'll be trying it with the purple grapes this week.

Any thoughts or experiences with homemade grape juice, I'd love to hear them!

[prairiemom]

All we can grow around here are the Concord-type grapes. If I had seedless I would dehydrate them because there is nothing yummier than homemade raisins!

When I make my grape juice, I boil the grapes for 10 min then put them through a Victorio Strainer, using the Grape Spiral. If you've never seen or used a Victorio Strainer, you don't know what you are missing. You put the soft fruit in the hopper, skin, seeds, stems and all and turn the handle. All the juice and/or pulp comes out one side and all the waste--seeds, skin, etc--goes out the other side. Perfect for apple sauce, tomato sauce, berries, etc.

Anyway, that's how I do it. Then I put it into one quart jars with about 1/3-1/2 C sugar and process in a water bath. It's pretty concentrated, so when I open the jar I mix it with about 2-3 C water, making 1 1/2 to 1 2/3 qts juice. Even with 1/2 C that's still a lot less sugar than is in commercial fruit drinks.

[signseeker]

Too bad I don't get into raisins. :pukey:

[mirkwood]

We had a nasty hailstorm roll through our neighborhood a couple months or so back. It looked like someone had unloaded a few dozen rounds of buckshot through the garden. We had no grapes this year because of that storm.

[threepercent]

If anyone knows where to get some concord grapes I would love some.


I use the 1 cup/1/2 cup method and it works great.


you can also use 1 cup grapes/ 1/4 cup honey.


the longer they sit the better they are.

when ready to drink take the quarts and empty them into a strainer and return the juice to the jar. then top off jar with water. this give a good mix.

please pm me if you know of a source for grapes.

thanks.

[LarnaE]

Does anyone know if red seedless grapes grow good in Utah.

[waif69]

Making your own grape juice sounds like a great idea! However, I have yet to grow grapes. We typically have black thumbs at our home, so my question is: can people with black thumbs grow grapes?

[Earthling]

My inlaws grew many varieties of grapes in Utah including red ones. I have canned a lot of grape juice for over 30 years. Here is my method:

Wash the grapes and put them in a Victorio steamer. The steamer is like a huge double boiler. There is water on the bottom that hot steams the grapes on the very top. As the grapes steam, the juice falls through the collander type holes into the middle section. There is a tube that you open to drain the juice into your mason jar, and then clamp when you want it to stop.

The juice is concentrated and you can add sugar to taste. Every year the grapes have a different amount of sweetness so you have to adjust it accordingly. Pick the grapes after the first hard frost when the sugar goes into them - before that they are not as good and bitter. You can always add more sugar to taste when you reconstitute it but as we found out the hard way, you can't take out the sugar when it is too sweet!

The juice coming out was hot enough to seal the jars and I have never done a hot water bath in addition. I now hear that it is wise to also run the bottles through a hot water bath. Check the extension service on that.

[signseeker]

My friend called our extension and they "have to tell people that call" that they need to do the water bath in addition... even if the cans are sealed. I thought once the bottles are sealed, you don't need the water bath, but I really don't know much about canning.

I do have 32 quarts of white grape juice waiting for me this winter, though!:w00t:

[Max140]

I have canned the grape juice with and without sugar. I like the freedom of sweetening it to taste when we use it. I also like the color better when there is a little sugar. I usually add one to two tablespoons per quart. We used the last of our grape juice last night. Too bad I didn't can some this year...I will miss it.