Wine grape recipes please

[JuzaMum]

Hi

My nextdoor neighbour has a grapevine hanging over my fence. There are several bunches of dark fruit hanging that I can see and more on her side that she doesn't want (she says I am welcome to them). I hate to let these things go to waste but have no interest in winemaking at the moment (breastfeeding baby so no drinkies for a while). Any ideas/recipes gratefully received

Thanks :)

JuzaMum

[trinder]

I ticked the box that said "quick reply " cos that's what this is. I had a quick scroll through the section called Home brew ( bit of a clue there) and spotted this. http://www.selfsufficientish.com/forum/ ... 19&t=24150 but there will be loads of tips throughout that section that will help you to not make mistakes in the first place and or if you spot that you have already goofed there will be a solution. The person that always bales me out is MKG he is one of the many whizzes one here. Good luck.
p.s if there is a Mod on this post might be better moved to that section

so sorry misread this you DONT want wine so my post was rubbish in helping.xx I can only say "I have a cold"

[MKG]

If nothing else turns up, you could simply juice them and freeze the juice.

At least the winemaking option stays alive for later

Mike

[Thomzo]

Hi
I've just picked a whole load of grapes that are not quite ripe so slightly too tart to eat. I found this recipe in Sarah Raven's garden cookbook:

Grape jelly

Granulated sugar , juicy grapes, juice of 1/2 lemon.

Remove grapes from stalks, pop in pan, just cover in water and boil until soft. Strain through jelly bag.

Measure liquid, and add 450g of sugar to each 570ml (1 pint) juice. Boil up with lemon juice until set.

I made some yesterday and it's not bad but there isn't much grape flavour. It's more like the toffee on a toffee apple.

So today I tried juicing the grapes and then boiling the juice up with the sugar (ratio as above). I'm hoping that without the added water, the flavour will be stronger. I've also put it into pots with some of the nicer grapes to look pretty. I've only just finished so it's still too hot to try.

Zoe

[Durgan]

Hi

My nextdoor neighbour has a grapevine hanging over my fence. There are several bunches of dark fruit hanging that I can see and more on her side that she doesn't want (she says I am welcome to them). I hate to let these things go to waste but have no interest in winemaking at the moment (breastfeeding baby so no drinkies for a while). Any ideas/recipes gratefully received
Thanks :)
JuzaMum

My method, since I consider wine making with grapes to be the spoiling of good juice.

http://www.durgan.org/URL/?AZQUW 16 September 2011 Concord Grapes Pictures depicting he method.

Thirty pounds of pristine Concord grapes were picked and made into juice. Twelve liters of juice was made from 30 pounds of grapes. Between two and three pounds of grapes for each liter. There were only about five earwigs found in the clusters.

Method: Cut grapes off the vines and each cluster inspected for damage to the fruit and damaged fruit removed. Washed,Weighed, then the grapes were removed from the cluster support by swiping with minor hand pressure across a one inch mesh plastic screen. This only took about five minutes per ten pounds.

The first batch of ten pounds were simply juiced without adding any water. (The result was considered too thick so a liter of water was added to each ten pound batch to thin somewhat. The grapes were mashed with a potato masher with a liter of water added, then brought to a boil, and made into a mash with the portable hand blender. The mixture was then put through a screen to remove the fiber from the juice. The screen was small enough to prevent any seeds from passing through. Juice was placed in liter jars and pressure canned at 12 PSI for 15 minutes.

This is a superb grape for the table. One of my favorites.

[JuzaMum]

Thanks for the responses - I think I will try some grape jelly and some juice for the table. I like the idea of adding a few whole grapes to the jelly jar to pretty things up. When I am organised and have time (ha ha) I would like to make jams and jellies for Xmas pressies but still haven't finished making my mums last years patchwork trousers present!

JuzaMum

[dave45]

my greenhouse grapes yielded about two litres if juice via steam extraction this year.. I tested the sugar content - 1050 o.g.

so I added apple juice to make grapey-apple cider (eat your heart out Kopparberg!)

its ready for bottling now... will let you know how it turns out

[JuzaMum]

Hi all

picked grapes and followed Thomzos recipe but with minimal water. I got 3.5 pints of lovely tasting and beautifully coloured juice (I wish there was more - it's Shloerish)but am not getting any set. Have boiled and boiled away with the sugar and lemon juice. What next - more boiling or do I add some pectin or more lemon juice?

JuzaMum