Grapes and Jelly!

I have a grape vine in my backyard and it had several grape clusters this year.

Some supports to hold up the heavy vines and they turned out beautiful!

I decided to make some grape jelly if the grapes turned out and it was a bit of a process, but so worth the trouble.

I did this over several days and was so glad we didn't try to finish in one day. I made jelly several years ago with my grandfather; however, it was not as time consuming as working with grapes. I cut the grape clusters off the vine and washed them and set them out to dry. I bought and washed the jars and let them dry overnight. The next day, I boiled the jars and lids and again let them dry overnight.

Removing all of the grapes from the stems was more time consuming than I thought. The fruit has to be examined to ensure that underripe (or overripe) fruit is not included with the other grapes. The grapes were absolutely beautiful! To make the juice for jelly, the grapes are smashed and water added and brought to a boil.

I didn't take a picture of the actul process, but I did take a picture of the fruit colander that was used instead of cheesecloth for straining. My grandfather gave me the fruit colander and I'm not sure where these can be purchased. I did see some mesh strainers at Williams Sonoma, but not quite like the one that I own.

The grape skins and seeds were seperated from the juice and then I was finally ready to start the jelly!



The jelly was prepared with SURE JELL and it turned out wonderfully. 

I used burlap for the lids with pretty tags. The jelly is awesome! I will definately make more next year.