Grape Juice & Jelly

Grape Juice

In Madera (just north of Fresno), the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has a welfare farm, a grape vineyard. Members of the church go out and pick the grapes at the end of August (in 100°+ weather, turn them out onto papers and, two weeks later, return to pick up the raisins. The raisins are processed and shipped around the world to those in need. I remember going out from the time I was very little and for most of my life. We would always come home covered in dirt and sweat with pink/purple fingers and memories of these horrible jumping spiders. As much as there were bad memories, we always had a great time, literally, serving in the Lord's Vineyard. (read more here if you're interested)

Photo by Peter Evans 

When we moved up here, one of the first things we found out is that there is no welfare farm in the area. I figured my grape picking days were over...I was wrong! Tamera, one of our new friends, mentioned that she had a source for inexpensive Concord grapes. I was immediatly taken back to my childhood. I remember whenever I got sick, my mom would pull out a canning jar filled with grapes, drain out the sweet juice and give it to me. I don't ever remember drinking the juice any other time, or even ever liking grape juice, except when I was sick. So on Tuesday I went with Tamera, her friend Jen and Jen's daughter Katie out to the vineyard. Because the grapes aren't being made into raisins, the vineyard was a bit different for me. I also had to keep reminding myself I was just taking some for me, not picking the vines bare. I ended up with 30+ pounds of grapes in less than an hour. My fingers were still pink/purple and there were the same spiders, but thankfully the dirt and sweat didn't come with these grapes.

The next morning I loaded up all of my supplies and took them to Tamera's house.

We used two methods to make the juice. 
Method one*: (the way I remember mom's juice)
      1 cup grapes
      1/4-1/3 cup sugar
      then fill with water up to 1/4" from the top of the jar

Then we steamed them (15 minutes once it steams) and they turned out SO pretty!!!

Prices:
        58.3¢ per bottle
        20¢/lb for the grapes
        plus a bag of sugar
I figure there's maybe 1 pound of grapes per jar and at the most we used 1/3 cup sugar that evens out to maybe 80¢ for a can of juice.  Compare that to the stores prices, subtracting all the perservatives, and it's MORE than worth it.  And next year when I won't have to buy bottles, just lids - we're talking maybe 35¢ per can. And aren't these jars so cute?!?!

*Walmart was out of quart jars so my recipes are pint size.

Method Two:
      Tamera had a juicer.  This has to be my favorite new discovery from the whole process.  You dump the grapes (stems and everything) in and turn on the burner until it turns into juice.  That's it!  No sugar, no timing, no steaming or water bathing.  The juice comes out piping hot so you just put the lid on and wait for it to pop.  I didn't take any pictures of this beauty, but it has been added to my wish list.
I ended up with 24 pint and 3 quart jars (thanks Tamera) of juice.  Unfortunatly, she told me I have to wait 2 months to drink these beauties!

& Jelly

In the whole time I've known Phillip, I've never known him to use jam or jelly.  In fact, I thought he didn't like it at all.  When I told him I wanted to get grapes, he surprised me by asking if I would make Grape Jelly as well.  I was floored but told him of course!  (For those who don't know the difference between Jam and Jelly (I didn't) here's an explaination).
For the jelly I also added a 97¢ for a bottle (2 boxes) of pectin to 6 cups of (boiling) juice and then 5 cups of sugar and solidly boiled that for 1 minute.  I could probably have added more but it set up and tasted good to me.  It ended up filling 10 1/2 pint jars, so I think the extra sugar would've taken it up to 12 of the jars.
When I brought home (almost) all of the jars and took them to the pantry, I had to clear off a whole shelf to add all these prettys:

We will see if I can wait 2 months to drink these!