At the end of last week I found a great deal on boxes of wine grapes. There were two kinds, Concord and a yellow grape that another shopper told me were called Niagara. I tasted one of the Niagara grapes, and as I did, the memory of being a kid eating grapes in my grandparents’ backyard suddenly flooded over me. These were the grapes they grew, something that I had entirely forgotten about. They were so good!
The grapes were super cheap because they were so ripe – the Concord grapes had some clusters that had mold on them and since I wasn’t interested in having to pick through them, I decided to get 2 boxes of Niagaras instead (they looked very ripe but in basically good shape). The price was $7.50 for two boxes, and each box had about 18 pounds in it, so .21 lb.
They made for great eating and we enjoyed the grapes for our picnic right after our shopping, but we decided to reserve some of them to make some homemade grape juice, something we’ve never tried. When I got home I learned from reading online that it takes about 20 lb of grapes to make 7 quarts of juice – if I’d had any idea of that when buying the grapes, I would have bought a lot more. We used about a third of a box, about 6 lb. of grapes, which made enough to fill a 64 oz jar plus a couple of cups more, about ten cups in all. So my estimate on cost is that it was $1.25 for ten cups; when I get it on sale, I pay $3 for 8 cups. That means that making my own grape juice cost me less than 1/3 of the price I can get it on sale.
Here’s how you make grape juice – this is soooo simple! First you wash the grapes, then blend them slightly in a food processor or blender to break open the skin (yes, this means with the seeds and skins, but make sure all the stems are off, because it will make the juice bitter). Put all of them in a pot with enough water to cover them, and cover the pot. Then heat it until boiling. When it reaches boiling, turn it down to medium low and let it simmer for about fifteen minutes. Then line a strainer with cheesecloth or muslin, and set it on top of a cleanpot where the juice can drain in. Pour the grape mix through the strainer, and bottle the strained juice. If you make a large amount, you can can fruit juice by water bathing it.
This didn’t look or taste like the grape juice in the store; it was much better! It was so amazingly good! Everyone loved it and we all are sorry we won’t have any more. When I encountered the sale, I didn’t want to buy lots of grapes (not that 36 lb is a small amount) that needed to be dealt with immediately, since I didn’t know how much time would be involved and was concerned that it would be a big project that would compromise the commitment I’ve made to myself to be ready for Shabbos by Friday afternoon. (I already had a lot of unpacking for Thursday afternoon to do from my monthly shopping which was putting me on a tight schedule.) Now that I know what’s involved, I won’t hesitate to buy up a bunch more if an incredible sale comes my way again!
Avivah
Well, Avivah, I just canned 61 quarts of grape juice a couple of weeks ago. You sure got a bargain on the grapes – we pay $0.50/lb u-pick and $.70/lb for already picked (we did already picked since we all had the flu and were afraid we’d miss grape season altogether!). And I made a fresh gallon of yogurt yesterday. And tonight we made a first batch of homemade mozarella cheese! Yum. We’re a little bit in sync. 🙂 Fun reading!!
Wow! We make wine for pesach from moscatel grapes, yummy!
If you´re making a large amount, we find it easy to place the grapes in large buckets and let the kids “mash” them with potato mashers.
The process is totally different after that, though.
As always, I love reading your blog!
I briefly (as in for one minute) considered my hand at making wine, but when I said something about it to the kids, they reminded me that we don’t drink wine! 🙂 So grape juice it was.
so funny that we just started to drink our own homemade grapejuice- but i think our recipe might be easier… it involves putting clean grapes and sugar in the bottom of a mason jar, then filling with water. we water bath canned this and let it sit for 6 weeks. then we added water to double the amount we had. it ended up a bit too sweet, but really delicious- with a very fresh clean taste, unlike the more syrupy taste of store- bought. i will try to find the recipe, or maybe someone here knows the excat amounts? anyway, i think you would like it, because we only used like a handful of grapes for each jar, but ended up with 9 mason jars and 3 tall kedem bottles full of grape juice for less than $5 of grapes plus some sugar ( i guess you would use sucanat or honey?)
Gasp – sugar?!? 🙂 It sounds yummy and like a very frugal way to make grape juice.
Kerith and Julie, what kind of grapes did you use? I’m wondering if there are grapes that are easily found in local stores that could be used.
We use true Concords. They’re not in the stores because they have thin skins. A few hours after being picked they start to fall apart, so you have to be able to process them all within 24 hours. Last year we froze half because we didn’t have time, but the juice we made from those grapes a couple of months later wasn’t NEARLY as good! 🙂 We got 150 pounds to make 61 quarts. It’s so yummy (as you know!), and we would have been so sad if we’d missed it altogether because of the flu!
Oh, and I’ll just add that it took running the juice steamer continuously from 5:00-midnight one day and 10:00-5:00 the next to process all the batches. The nice thing about the steamer (costs around $100) is that you just clean the grapes, then toss the stems, seeds and everything into the top basket, and juice comes out the spigot and you can put it right into canning jars. Very convenient!
I love the idea of making your own grape juice especially since it costs so much money even when it is on sale. Where can you find the grapes to make the juice with? Should you just call around to different farms to see who carries it? Kerith and Julie how did you find a place that sold you the grapes? Also is grape juice made from different grapes then wine?
pickyourown.org is a great place to find farms near you. Our area has tons of wine grapes, but only two places that grow concords. I think a lot of grapes would make good juice, but concords are just too good and I haven’t wanted to experiment. 🙂 We’re (still!) hoping to move IY”H this year, and we joke that if we live somewhere w/o access to concord grapes, we’re going to make it a family vacation, drive to where the grapes are and hang out for a couple of days and juice them. 🙂
i feel so uninitiated here, but i just used regular seedless purple (red) grapes from the grocery store that were on a big sale. i think i paid around 99 cents a pound- eek! now i feel like i splurged- but grapes here are usually more like $1.59/lb and up, and there are no u-pick places for grapes around here… anyway, i had just seen the recipe somewhere (wish i could remember where!) and decided to experiment… live and learn, huh?
Does boiling the juice prevent it from fermenting?
I’ve got some rather sour grapes from my father’s garden, and I just ran some through a vitamix, and will strain the pulp out a bit. But I think its going to turn into wine/vinegar…
I would think that since the goal is to kill bacteria and sterilize it, that it wouldn’t ferment afterward, but I’m not an expert!
I guess I”m trying to find a way to keep it ‘raw’ but not ferment… not much luck finding an answer through google.