Grape Jelly

Having made lots of raisins and given away baskets of grapes, I was still left with quite a lot.  I swithered between making juice and jelly.  When my daughter recounted how she'd turned her grape harvest into jelly, I decided to give that a try.

The first step was to pick the grapes off the bunches and crush them.  I shortened that step by picking them into my food processor and whirring them up with the plastic blade as opposed to the sharp metal one.

Boiling the crushed grapes with a little water

Then I boiled them up with a little water (instructions I found online suggested a cup of water to 10 cups of crushed grapes) for 10 minutes.

Straining the juice

I then draped cheesecloth in a large measuring bowl and poured the mess into it.  The cheesecloth was gathered together, tied with string and finally suspended over the measuring bowl.  I strained the grapes for a couple of hours.  The resulting juice was cooled in the fridge overnight and the required amount carefully poured off leaving the sediment behind.  I needed 4 cups for the jelly.

In a large Dutch oven, I combined 4 cups of grape juice and 7 cups of sugar, brought it to a full rolling boil for a couple of minutes.  Then I added a package of liquid pectin and boiled it for another minute.  The resulting jelly was scooped into sterilized glass jars, lids added and screwed down.  I got 8 jars of pretty pink grape jelly.

Pretty pink grape jelly

I still have another basket of grapes left and these were processed to juice and will be frozen in 4-cup ziplock bags for making into jelly during the winter.  Outside I see there are still a few bunches which have escaped the ravages of the raccoons.  It's been a good year for grapes.  I have my fingers crossed for another good year in 2015!