Grape Jelly from Neighbourhood Grapes

So. There are a few spots in my neighbourhood where the grape vines have gotten… a little out of hand.

Which is perfect, of course, for opportunistic gleaners such as myself.

I went out wandering the other day and collected about… 3-4 cups worth of really quite delightful, so ripe they were starting to (significantly – the ground was covered in them) rot off the vine, grapes. Probably “valient” breed, but I could be wrong.

I mashed them up and boiled them down and came up with about 1 cup of actual grape juice. Which isn’t much, but it gives me an idea of how what the fruit:juice ratio I can expect, at least with soft fruits (I do tend to prefer to make jam. Much less waste. But with something like this, where the seeds are small enough to be hard to get rid of, but big enough to be extremely unpleasant to actually eat – think rose hips, rowan berries, and maybe crab apples, too – then jelly it is!)

So.
1 C grape juice
1 C sugar
1 tbsp red wine vinegar
1 tbsp pear cider vinegar

1 pkg pectin powder

Boil the juice mixture hard for 5-10 minutes, add the pectin (scatter it lightly over the top of the boiling mixture, and be aware that it will probably bubble up like crazy at this point) and continue to boil for another 10 minutes.

Do the Frozen Plate Test and, if your jelly gels, you can get on with pouring it into steam-sterilized mason jars, and then processing those jars in a boiling water bath (for a good 5 minutes).

Easy. Easier, even, than pie. 🙂

TTFN,
Meliad the Birch Maiden