Grape Jelly

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Monday morning my phone rang with a phone call I’d been waiting for since early this summer. It was Millstone Creek Orchard calling to let me know my concord grapes were ready for pick up. There are not many places around that you can find concord grapes to make jelly with. So at the beginning of each summer, I call the orchard and put in my order for 7 lbs. of grapes; which is enough for two batches of grape jelly. There is nothing wrong with store bought grape jelly, but homemade is so much better.

The process of making jelly is not that hard, especially if you use pectin. You can find recipes in the Ball Blue Book, inside the box of pectin, on pinterest, and many church cookbooks. I typically use either the ones inside the box of pectin or in the Ball Blue Book. Quite often they give you the option of using pectin or using the natural pectin in the fruit to cause the jelly to set up after it has cooked long enough. I typically use pectin, just because with two little ones underfoot it’s easier to set a timer than check for jelling.

So if you’re feeling adventurous, here’s what you need

• 3 1/2 lbs concord grapes (you’ll need enough to get 4 cups of juice)
• 6 3/4 cups of sugar (just about all of a 4 lb bag)
• liquid pectin
• washed jelly jars with new lids and rings
• water bath canner
• small and medium sized sauce pans
• large stock pot
• long wooden spoon
• canning funnel
• tongs
• damp paper towel
• small spoon or measuring cup
• 1 cup measuring cup

Day 1

Did I forget to mention making grape jelly is at least a two day process? Your juice has to refrigerate overnight, I’ll explain why later, but you need to plan on two days to do this. Thankfully the juice can sit a little bit, so if you don’t have two days in a row you can come back to it later in the week if needed.

Rinse your grapes in the sink and make sure you don’t have any tagalongs. Fruit grows outside so sometimes you may find a bug. Once they are rinsed off, pull them off the stems and place one layer of grapes at the bottom of a tall stockpot. Use a potato masher to crush the grapes and then add another layer on top. Continue crushing one layer of grapes at a time until all the grapes are in the pot. I typically try to add 1 quart of grapes at a time. For every 1 quart of grapes you will need to add 1/4 to 1/2 cup of water as well.

Once you have all the grapes crushed and water in the stockpot, cover and cook on medium-low heat until the grapes are soft. That takes about 10 minutes.

Now all thats left is to separate the juice from the rest of the grape mash.

The picture below shows the only setup I’ve ever used. You can buy a kit here that comes with just about everything you need. I like to set it up above the bowl it is staying in. The legs screw in to the circle top piece that your bag hangs from. Fold the top of the bag over the rim and pull the draw string tight to keep the pulp from falling in the bowl. Do Not do this somewhere you don’t want berry juice splashing! We plan to refinish our kitchen eventually and our paint is very good about letting me scrub with a cloth without messing it up.

Very carefully pour the contents of your stock pot into the bag. Remember it was just boiling so it’s hot! You also want to be careful not to tip the whole thing over. Yes I have done this and it equals a lot of cleanup and a very grumpy me. You will get the majority of you juice in the first couple minutes. I typically leave it sitting for at least a couple hours to drip through.

The hard part is not squeezing the bag. Nice, clear, perfect grape jelly is made with no sediment. You will have cloudy jelly if some of the sediment is squeezed through the seams of the bag into your juice. You can scrape the outside of the bag lightly but very carefully. Then throw the leftovers in the bag to your chickens or pigs, if you have them. ** The picture below shows a very full bag. This is a double batch of 7 lbs of grapes, not the single batch recipe I’m giving you

Tah-dah! That’s just about a wrap.

Now put a lid on your bowl or pour it in something to refrigerate overnight. That’s all for today. You can pick this is up tomorrow or a couple days later if needed. I had planned on doing it the next day, but ended up saving it for two days later.

Day 2

Why do I have to refrigerate the juice at least overnight? Grape juice has sugar crystals in it. When the juice sits overnight the crystals settle instead of getting cooked into your jelly. Sugared jelly tastes ok, but is sharp on your tongue. Smooth and clear jelly is obtained by allowing the crystals to settle and not get cooked into jelly. The safest way is to pour the juice through cheesecloth or a bag like you used yesterday to catch any crystals that don’t stay attached to your bowl. You will need 4 cups of grape juice per batch. I strained my juice all at once and put one batch in a bowl for later on.

My jelly making day started way too early. My youngest decided sleep was optional, as he is teething, so we were up a lot overnight and then started our day at 6 am sharp. Normally I would say let’s save this for tomorrow. However, my to go groceries we would be picking up after lunch needed somewhere to go in the fridge, so thus jelly was getting made.

Read your jelly recipe ahead of time carefully

Each recipe is different and simple mistakes can cost you a batch of jelly. My strawberry jam recipe did not set up last year because I added the pectin and sugar in the wrong order. Jam and jelly have you do things in different orders. The other thing to do is prep your battle space. Have everything ready to go for making jelly before you turn on the burner. Once the jelly starts boiling things happen quickly and wasting time to find something or rushing can cause little mistakes with big consequences.

This is my typical setup when canning things

The water bath canner will need to be filled with simmering water that is at least 1 inch above the top of the jars you will be using. Inspect the tops of the washed jars. Chipped or dirty rims will not seal. Once you have simmering water in the small sauce pan, add the lids you will use alternating them right side up and upside down. I always add a couple extra because sometimes you end up with more than you think. I wait to add a jar to the medium sauce pan until the jelly is ready.

Make sure to use a tall stock pot

I know, you’re looking at this container of 4 cups of juice and thinking I really don’t feel like washing my largest pot later. I’ll just use a smaller one. Nope don’t fall in that trap. Learn from my painful mistakes. Any time you make something with large quantities of sugar, that is going to come up to a rolling boil you cannot stir down, it WILL GROW!
If you’re never made hard candy before it’s basically the same concept. The first time I made hard candy I used my large dutch oven. I got it up to a boil and watched in horror as my orange candy grew, and grew, and grew, and poured over the sides of my pot onto the glass top stove and extremely hot burner below. It was a stinky yucky disaster that resulted in no candy that day and a clean stove after lots of work.

The point being: use the tall stock pot and thank me later. Pour in your 4 cups grape juice you made yesterday and strained earlier. Then add 6 3/4 cup sugar. I know it’s a lot. Stir it until the sugar dissolves, you’ll know because it will be a lot easier to stir. Then turn your burner to high and bring it up to a boil while you continue to stir. Make sure it is a good boil, not just a stray bubble here or there coming up. It always seems to take forever for it to get up to a boil. Just keep stirring and waiting.

This is your liquid pectin. Have it sitting in a cup with the top open so it’s ready and waiting to be poured in.

Pour the liquid pectin into the boiling grape juice and sugar. Make sure to squeeze all of the sticky stuff out of the bag and continue to stir. This is where it really starts to grow. You want your mixture to be at a full rolling boil that cannot be stirred down. So continue stirring and wait until it looks about like so.

Set your timer for 1 minute. Continue stirring for that minute and then remove the pot from the heat. I place it on the burner in front of my water bath canner. Don’t forget to turn off the eye it had been cooking on. Let it set just a moment and place your first jar in the medium saucepan that has simmering water in it. The top of your jelly is most likely going to have a layer of foam. You want to get that off. I have a 1/8 cup measuring cup I typically use and I dump the foam in whatever I have handy.

If you need to see pictures of the entire process click here and my strawberry jam recipe has step by step pictures. Just like with the strawberry jam you need to leave 1/4 inch headspace between the lid and the jelly. Use your little measuring tool to make sure you leave the right amount of space. I make sure as I am working on filling a jar, that the next one is in the hot water ready to be used.

Fill each jar leaving 1/4 inch headspace. Once the jar looks filled, remove the next jar from the boiling water and place the funnel in it. Put another jar in the water to warm up while you work on the two you have out. Find that damp paper towel I listed earlier and use it to clean any jelly off the rim and sides of the full jar of jelly. Use the magnetic tool to grab a lid out of the small sauce pan and then tighten a ring around it.

First jar is done!

Place the jars as you fill them in the rack that hopefully is sitting above the water bath canner. I never can seem to get mine to sit up there. So I put my jars next to the hot eyes to keep them warm while I finish the others. Once all of the jars are ready place them on the rack and into the water bath canner. Make sure to leave space between them so they don’t bump up against each other and break. Double check that the jars are covered by an inch of water. If not pour the boiling water from your saucepans in to get it to the right height. Put the lid on the water bath canner and adjust the heat to medium-high.

Once the water is at a rolling boil, set your timer for 10 minutes. Half pint and pint grape jelly jars need to process for 10 minutes. When the time is up turn off the heat, remove the lid, and let the canner cool for 5 minutes. I lay out a hand towel and place the jars to cool on it after the 5 minutes is up. Then you just wait to hear the sound of the jars sealing.

DO NOT PANIC when you remove the jars from the canner. Yes it is still liquid and no you did not mess up. The jelly will set up as it cools. The recipe states to wait a full 12 hours for the jars to cool and seal. After 12 hours if they do not seal then the jelly needs to go in the fridge. It’s not bad, you can eat it, it just isn’t safe to store out of the fridge. Label your jars and store them where works best for you. Just do not stack them on top of each other.

What if I did not have enough jelly to fill a jar?

Yeah I had that problem too. If you have enough in the jar that it sits in the water bath canner without floating around, then go ahead and process it. Many times it will seal but if it doesn’t just throw it in the fridge to use right away. Now if it decides to be a pain like the little fellow below and bobs like a cork when you put it in the canner, then just throw it in the fridge without processing. It’ll last a little while and taste just as good.

There you have it; see not as bad as you thought.

Yummy, semi easy, grape jelly that you made yourself. Keep it to use on your own biscuits and pb&j sandwiches or use them as yummy Christmas/birthday gifts. Either way a yummy option for you or whomever you decide to share with.