What To Do With A Five Gallon Bucket of White Grapes

Well, we picked all the grapes we found tonight and we just don't know what to do with them. I could make juice. I could just save all of it for pectin.

Just don't know what to do......Can someone help me?

Barb in Pa.

 

Wash and freeze them until you decide. I'd probably just make jelly. Not enough for wine.

 

Thanks, Maybe I can make enough wine for you and me to have a glass each. LOL

Barb in Pa.

 

mine are concord type but i just bag and freeze mine and make my jelly in the winter. you can also blend the grapes with other ripe fruit then make wine from the blend. thats what i used to do when i cleaned out the freezer. pretty good stuff. like a sangria. i mixed peaches and blackberries with the grapes. you can add a small amount of water but not much. i just threw every thing in a blender to start it.

 

Errr....can come and collect some? Grapes are so expensive here and we can't grow them !!!

 

KK Ng, Poor thing. I would share some with you if you were closer. In fact you could have the whole bucket full. But, sadly you don't so I will have to do something to preserve them for my close family members, that's my hubby. :-D

I can't put them into the freezer today for I really have no space in them. Plus I don't want to put off tomorrow what I should be doing today, so today it is.

I'll let you all know how it turns out. I will be making nectorine jam also today.

Barb in Pa.

 

Barb, I have been making grape juice this week, too. I invested in a steam juice extractor a couple years ago after I borrowed one from a friend for making juice concentrate . I will never make juice without it again. I would let you borrow it if you were closer. Otherwise I used to put 2c. grapes in a jar fill with water and a little bit of sugar depending in how sweet the fruit is put on the flats and do a hot water bath for 20 min. Let sit for a few weeks before using, then strain the juice when you open it. I did this in 1/2 gallon jars when I was making large quantities of juice for my family, but I am sure 1 qt jars would be fine too, just adjust the quantities for the size.

 

my first reaction was to freeze them, but then it was immediately replaced with an image of the 'i love lucy' episode where she is stomping a bunch of grapes!.....(that is just the way my mind works........)

 

carolyn keiper, I have never heard of it being done like that.

After talking to my hubby we decided he would want jelly more than juice. So that is what I will do today.

Barb in Pa.

 

Frozen grapes make great ice cubes for cocktails and wine.

 

Okay Barb, here's what will happen--Annette and I will come to your house, take off our shoes, and get to stompin'. You prepare the wine bottles, and whatever doesn't stick to us or get drunk on the spot you can put in bottles and call "Stewie Wine" !
I love the frozen grapes as ice cubes, Donna. You are inventive!

 

carolyn,, my mother had a salon most all the years i was at home. after she retired she did many of the church ladies hair at home including the preachers wife. she came one saturday to get her hair done for sunday and my mother decided to break out a quart jar of home made grape juice for refreshment. i came in about two hours later and they were laughing and having a pretty good time in the kitchen with hair still not done. mother had picked a jar of juice that had popped the seal and fermented in the jar. mother and preachers wife were higher than a georgia pine on that stuff. for weeks afterward preachers wife bragged about how good that home made grape juice was ! never told her what it really was.

 

Oh Mart, that reminds me of a story told on my daddy. He often put a "tot" into a bottle of Coca-Cola to drink. A friend of his, whose wife was as "dry" as they come and belonged to a church that frowned on fermented beverages, came over. Daddy offered him a Coca-Cola, and by habit added a "tot". After two bottles of the stuff, he told Daddy that he wanted to buy his Coca-Cola where daddy did, because it sure was better than what he'd been drinking. Then he got up and walked straight into a tree.

 

Mart and Jane, those are funny stories. Today I picked another bushel of grapes for juice and I need to get started on it. So, I had best get cracking. But, no funny juice will I be making today, just plain old ordinary juice. Tuesday I made 1 bushel into juice and got 18 quarts of concentrate. I hope to get that today and then I am finished for the year as I am out of grapes now.