Homemade Concord Grape Juice
Although you see me using concord grapes today for this grape juice recipe, any type of grapes can be used. Concord's are the variety I have on hand from this year's harvest. I'm using a mixture of fully ripe concord grapes, and the ones that were starting to turn ripe. The green grapes will be turned into verjuice. I will be using the grape leftovers to make Piquette. I will be telling you a little more about Piquette towards the bottom of this article.
I don't add any type of sweetener to my juice recipe. I only use the grapes, water, and a bit of time. First, I picked the grapes a few weeks ago. Then I brought them to the kitchen, where I proceeded to take the stems off, and washed them in the sink.
Since I harvested so many grapes this year; I ended up freezing some of them just to get them off my hands, until I get the time to process the grapes. Yes, you can freeze the grapes whole and then later proceed with making juices, jams, jellies, verjuice, and even wine.
Ingredients:
- Grapes
- Water, just enough to cover the top of the grapes
Notes:
Here's a guide to follow when you are trying to figure out how many grapes you'll want to use to make your homemade grape juice.
- 1 pound of grapes makes about 1 cup of grape juice.
- 2 pounds of grapes make about 2 cups of grape juice, and so forth.
- 4 cups of grape juice will equal 1 quart of grape juice.
- 8 cups of grape juice will equal 2 quarts of grape juice.
- 16 cups of grape juice will equal 1 gallon of grape juice.
- 32 cups of grape juice will equal 2 gallons of grape juice.
Instructions:
Add the grapes to a large stockpot. Since my grapes are still frozen I have added them to the stockpot and started slowly simmering them in water. It will make mine a little bit longer to cook today.
Simmer for 10-15 minutes. Occasionally, stir to prevent the grapes from scorching, and sticking to the bottom of the stockpot.
Midway through the cooking process, mash the grapes with a potato masher, break up as many of the grapes as possible. Smashing extracts the juice from the grapes.
After smashing the grapes, simmer for another 10-15 minutes. When the grapes have broken down and become delicately soft, transfer them from the heat.
Now, transfer the grapes and their liquid with a ladle through a juice strainer, collecting the juice in a container, and place the grape leftovers in another container. The leftovers will be used to make Piquette.
Ladle the juice into mason jars. Enjoy!
I will be making verjuice out of the green grapes.
Notes:
You can also use a clean pair of pantyhose to put the grapes in to squeeze the juice out if you don't have any cheesecloth or a mesh strainer.
Don't throw the grape leftovers in the trash! Instead, do this!
The grape leftovers (skins, seeds, stems) are referred to as pomace. It's been used to make a diluted wine called Piquette for years. Piquette is a low-alcohol drink that is made by mixing grape leftovers and water then going through the fermentation process. The diluted wine becomes a nice fizzy drink. With an alcohol content of 4 to sometimes over 10 ABV; depending on how long the wine is left to ferment. I make Piquette and have gotten the alcohol content of 10 ABV and sometimes over that.
The grape leftovers are also an excellent fertilizer for house plants and indoor and outdoor flower, and vegetable gardens.