Wild grapes at CMuseum! Yum!

Along the west field tree line.  Enjoyed a few as a snack while passing through.  Juicy and tasty, not bitter at all.

Wild grape jelly made!

TLDR:  IT WORKED!!!  It set great!  It's quite sweet, but works well as jam.  I don't really taste much grape though, so next time (ie next year) use a lot less water during the juicing part, so that the juice itself is less diluted.

Day 1:

Harvested 2.5 pounds of grapes from BH.

Put them into sink (stems/twigs and all) where covered them with water.  Swooshed them around.  Bad ones floated to the top.  Put the good ones into the big but low pot, with a bunch of water to almost cover them.  I think I put too much water, as my total at the end was more than it should have been for only 2.5 pounds of grapes (which was ~13 cups grapes with stems setc.)

Heated / simmered them while mashing them with the curvy potato mashes.  The juice quickly came out.  After ~10-12 minutes, stopped.

Let it cool a bit.

Then, used one of the mesh produce bags (with handles) to strain the juice out.  Did a few go's at this to make sure no seeds/twigs in the juice.

Put the juice into mason jars -- ~7 cups total.  Will refrigerate overnight, to see if that deals with the tartrate crystals issue (https://creativecanning.com/wild-grape-jelly and https://practicalselfreliance.com/grape-jelly/).

Day 2

Gently decanted the juice --- didn't really find any crystals I think, unless they were really mini as there was some sediment type of thing at the bottom but it didn't feel crystal-y.

4 cups juice + 4 cups sugar + 1 box Certo powdered pectin

Added 4 cups of juice and 1 box of powdered pectin (used Certo) to my big but short pot -- must use a big pot because it climbs up a lot when it gets boiling!  Stirred to dissolve the pectin and brought the mixture to a boil.

Allowed it to boil hard for one minute.

Then, added 4 cups sugar.

Brought it back to a boil.  Boiled hard for one minute.

Removed from heat and spooned it into jars.

I put some of the jars into the fridge right away, the rest on the counter for a bit.  They all set great!

Wild/riverbank grapes at BHM!!!

How did I never notice these before!  Huge amount of clusters -- one east of the raspberries, one on top of the hill west of that tree.

Tasted a few but didn't do an actual harvest yet.  Planning to try grape jelly and maybe also red wine vinegar substitute!