Grape juice

A friend called: "Hey, we have some grapes that need a home - would you be interested?"

We used to can grape juice every year. A trip to Eastern Washington, coming back with a pickup load of plump purple Concord grapes. Boy, was that good juice! A steam juicer and some quart jars, and we had a winter's worth of tasty shirt-staining juice.

These are NOT Concords. But they aren't "table grapes", either. I suspect they might be wine grapes - there's actually a vineyard a ways up the road. No matter, they are grapes, they have juice, and even though the punks are skeptical ("Gramma, they taste kinda....bitter." - yes, I know; don't bite the skins, OK?) they willingly started the first step - getting the grapes off the stems.


Max happened to walk in just as I was ready to start putting grapes into jars, and immediately took over. Have I mentioned, this punk LOVES to HELP!! No matter what you're doing....

This is the quick-and-easy grape juice method: grapes into jars, fill with boiling water, slap on a lid and ring, and process 10 minutes in hot water canner.

Kinda pretty. Hey, Max! It's PINK grape juice!

Empty a jar through a sieve into a pitcher, give the grapes to the chickens and enjoy some summer sunshine in the sweet juice.

We'll do a taste test with lunch. The punks are betting we'll be adding some honey to each pitcher of juice. Hope they like it - we have 32 quarts!