This year the wild grape took over EVERYTHING, so I decided it was the year to make grape jelly. Unfortunately, by the time I got out to pick them, they’d turned to raisins in the heat. Sigh. (We were traveling, it is what it is.)
But, as it happens, my son’s place is close to a creek and has a good bit more shade – and when we went out to do some yardwork together, lo and behold, he too has a grape vine. His vine was trying to strangle the tree; it was EVERYWHERE. Clearly, an intervention was required.
So we did what one does: we picked grapes – a lot of grapes. Two full grocery bags of grapes. In fact, this colander is holding only half the grapes:
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Wild grapes? Why wild grapes? As my son said, "they're spicy!"
Wild grapes are a bit on the bitter/sour axis but more "fresh and cleansing" than cheek-sucking sour. We each ate about ten, but over the course of an hour.
So yes, wild grapes: little powerful flavor packets!
Then it was time for the REAL work to begin. (I love me a three-day weekend!)
First you clean the grapes. Then you put them in a pot. (I de-stemmed about half of them, and put the rest in stem-on, which worked pretty well.) Add about a cup of water to the pot, and cook them, mashing them with a potato masher:
Bring it to a boil, turn it down to a simmer, and let it cook for 15 to 20 minutes. Every so often, go mash mash mash. It is, after all, LABOR Day weekend!
Once it’s cooked down and your lovely grapes have fallen to bits, you strain it. I actually did that twice. First with a colander to get all the stems, seeds and “stuff,” then with the cheesecloth to pull out the pulp. (Remind me to buy new cheesecloth!) Squeeze, squeeze, squeeze that juice out of the cloth. I mean, it may be a three-day weekend, but this doesn’t need to be a three-day process. We have standards. And plans. And besides, you picked your grapes; you cooked your grapes. You want every precious morsel of that juice. But don’t wring the cheesecloth – that will get you pulp in your juice. Ugh, more straining needed. Do labor, but don’t labor unnecessarily.
And then, you check the recipes, and think to yourself: no, no, that can’t be right. Because there’s this extra step. Refrigerate your grape juice. We live in this particular algorithmic day and age – none of the top ten recipes for “wild grape jelly” called for this step; everyone assumes you have tame, store-bought grapes. But my memory was: you neeeeeeed to refrigerate the thing if you’re using wild grapes. So I looked up the why – why did my brain think there was an extra step? Search is awful, so I’ll cut to the chase: you cool it and let it rest because of tartrate crystals – the same thing known as ‘wine diamonds.’ They may SOUND pretty, but they can create grit if you don’t strain them out.
So you put your precious grape juice in – well, I used a well-washed disposable soda bottle – and let it settle out overnight in the fridge.
And then, carefully pour off your liquid (and yes, most of my crystals stayed in the bottle, hooray!):
To make it especially “clear,” I poured the juice through my finest metal sieve. Actually, there was a good bit of pulp that had glopped through the yesterday filtering:
(Okay, okay, don’t wring the cheesecloth. I’ve made a note.)
And from there, you’re ready for the grape-jelly making as if it were easy. Boil the juice and pectin and bring to a full boil. Add your sugar, bring back to a boil. Stir stir stir while it boils for a minute. Pull off heat and put into prepared canning jars. If you can find the guts of your canner, do the whole “properly processed and shelf-stable” thing. Otherwise, do as I do and declare it freezer jelly: one small jar to the fridge for fast consumption, one small jar to my son because he DID help pick the grapes, and two to the freezer for winter remembrances – the taste of summer, caught in early fall, to be consumed on toast on a cold winter morning.
The labors of Labor day pay off!
p.s. It isn't laboring for free if you get jelly out of it!
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