I finally decided to make wild grape jelly.
First you have to find a brave adventurous soul to help spend hours climbing into the "pucky weeks" and prickers to pick the grapes. You have to pick at least 3 lbs of the little suckers! Then wash them a hundred times to get out all spiders, ants, and other assorted yuckies. Then put them into bags to store them until ready to use.
Then you pick them off the stems which takes another 2 hours. Wash them again. Then mash and strain them.
It takes over 3lbs of grapes, making 3 cups of juice, 3 cups of water, 4 1/2 cups of sugar, pectin and lots of cooking and pouring to make 4 jars of jelly! I top them off with hot melted paraffin to store them. It is a LOT of work.
But it is the best tasting grape jelly EVER! I told my handy assistant that we have to pick double next year!
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Wow. I'm not up to that much work any more. I used to go through that to make elderberry jelly. Now I don't know anyone who even has elderberries any more.
ReplyDeleteGreat pictures...
ReplyDeleteDo you remember when I did that when you were little? We lived in Endwell(I think) at the time and had a lot of wild grape vines in the back yard. Drove the car under the trees that had the vines up in then and stood on the car roof to get the grapes. We made grape conserve which has nuts in it...YUM.
Like you said "the best tasting jelly ever". I also made current, strawberry and blueberry jelly and jam. Remember? It is truly a labor of love cause it is not without a lot of labor.
Mom
That was fun! I can't wait to try some!
ReplyDeleteOMG it looks like liquid gold.
ReplyDeleteMmm, looks tasty! But wow, that's a lot of work!!
ReplyDeleteGreat post. I am right into making my own jelly. http://caroleschatter.blogspot.co.nz/2011/11/making-jam.html
ReplyDelete