Step One: Make concord grapes. But not raisins.
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| We have a mysterious malady that gives us just hours between ripe grapes and models for a Raisin Bran commercial |
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Step Two: Spend days fetching ripe grapes-that-are-not-yet-raisins, while avoiding 1)falling off stool resting on rocks; 2)hitting three-foot chimes that trigger sound waves that eat cells in your ears; and 3)tripping over large brown dog with slimy pink ball.
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| Oh, and did I mention wasps? |
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Step Three: Find each ripe purple grape among its green associates...stem by stem. Pick most humid day of entire summer to do this on the porch. Then, clean and mash into pulp and boil for 10 minutes. Strain into juice...drip by drip. Spend the afternoon removing purple drip stains from white counter.
Step Four: Dirty every possible container in the kitchen to extract grape juice from its crystals, bring everything to a rolling boil with sugar, gel with pectin and then ladle into jelly jars. Spend afternoon cleaning jelly drip stains from white counter and review Julie's Law of Canning: the number of jelly jars in the basement will never equal the number of serviceable rings, and will be exactly half of the number of fresh lids. Until you buy fresh lids, at which point, the number of lids will exceed the number of jelly jars by 2.66.
Step Five: The Pay Off for it all.
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| I love eating the foam right off a spoon from the jar. Which explains why I spent the summer losing 25 pounds. |
Happy end of summer, y'all.
Hey Julie, you are not alone in your purple five step end of summer dance. I just got back to New Mexico from a month in San Francisco and our grapes, we figure we have about 100 lbs, are waiting...last year we turned them into raisins as our grandchildren love them. BUT, although the sun does the work, you still have to sort and stem so this year, we thought we could "lighten" the work by also making some wine. My purple five step end of summer dance will be more of a stomp...and the bonus besides wine and raisins will be purple feet. Hey if dyers can have indigo hands, I can have purple feet... Last time I had them I was 8 months pregnant (44 yrs ago), and the place that we rented while we were in college was right across from a vineyard. After it was picked, we were given the leftovers so I became and will again become Lucy and Ethyl doing the grape stomp dance!
ReplyDeleteI love thinking of you doing the Lucy N' Ethel stomp, either pregnant or postmenopausal! Please tell me more about making raisins, since I am already doing the sorting and stemming and my oatmeal loves raisins.
DeleteAnd welcome home, it is good to have you back here, you are so warm.
We have no idea about the type of grapes that we have, they are not Concord but are a red grape, sweet flavored, may make a rose wine. We use old window screens laid out on top of bricks then pick the grapes, give them a good sprinkle and try to get off as much of the moisture as possible. Lay them out, clumps of them spread out on the screens. We cover with a light mesh type cloth, weighted on the corners with more bricks, to keep bugs out and sometimes, we remove the cloth when the sun is high. Leave out for about 2- 3 days, more turns them into pea sized gravel. Transfer them onto cookie sheets and bring them indoors to sort for size and pick stems. After, we place the cookie sheets in a low oven for about 20 min to do a bit more drying and then store in glass jars, etc.
Deletehmmmm....maybe I will send you some grapes and a screen door.
DeleteGreetings from Judith of N. CA...My husband makes all our jams and jellies...but she who does not cook, has to clean..so I understand the cleaning up process. Your post made me laugh out loud..thank you !
ReplyDeleteHi Judith, glad I could make you laugh and please send me the cook/cleaner rule book so I can pass it along to a certain someone who hasn't read it....
Deletewhat a yummy post and love your process!
ReplyDeleteOk, Ms. Gardener, do you know anything about why the grapes shrivel right when they turn black? We found something about a fungus on the internet, but the leaves and stems are fine.
Deletegrapes .... hmmm... you may well live in too humid a climate for grapes to do really well as they prefer a Mediterranean climate with a dry summer. I would say it would be a fungal thing & the fungicides are so deadly you would never use them the best way to deal with it is to harvest as quick as you can on a dry day.
DeleteOr just go with it especuially if it's Botrytis aka the Noble Rot
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Botrytis_cinerea
as it can add a distinct flavour to wine!
Thank you and I too would prefer a Mediterranean climate so we will both rot together, grapes and I. The Noble Rot!
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