If the juice is a bit tart can sugar be added?

You are right about the sugar. I just made some and it tastes great! It seems to get sweeter as it cools.
Thanks!

why do you wait until late september, early october to pick your grapes. I was always told to wait for the first frost? Is this true?
Thanks for your time, Karen

Here in central Pennsylvania,
Sept. 1 is about the time Concords ripen.
Niagaras are a little later.

When you walk by the arbor and smell Grapes,
you should have picked them yesterday,
but today is ok.

I never use cheesecloth; it drinks too much :)

Health and Happiness,
Handyman Gardener

What are your thoughts about squeezing the cheesecloth with the skins and seeds in them?

Thanks for all the helpful tips. Our grape arbor is full of beautiful purple concords--you can smell the grape perfume rising off of them. Finding this recipe was terrific. My 5-year-old granddaughter and I are going to go out and pick today and make juice. Thanks again.

To, say, a pound of grapes how much juice does this recipe yield? Some homemade grape juice recipes use water. What does water do? Why doesn't this one call for it? The juice on the website looks dark and strong. Is it the cooking of the skins that makes it this dark? Does this make a nice, flavorful juice. This is the best instructional I've found on the net and was thinking about trying it.

I have a green grape growing in my garden and for the past two years I have tried to make wine, with very little success. So this year I have plumped for trying to make grape juice instead, so I picked all the grapes, washed them and put them through a juicer. The juice, in its pure state, is now in containers in the fridge. Firstly, do you think it is safe to drink (i.e contaminants, bacteria etc) or is there something I can add to neutralise any such bugs. Secondly, is it best to freeze the juice before consumption?

I was given some beautiful, plump green grapes. I think they might be pinot noir. Can I use the same process to make white grape juice as is used for the concords?

Im making grape juice for a high school project. Im wondering if the juice can fement into alcoholic "wine" if its kept too long? I dont want to get in troble if it has alcohol content.

Normally, alcohol is only produced under anaerobic conditions (without oxygen). This will happen if you leave your container tightly closed for extended periods of time because the oxygen will be consumed by the aerobic (with oxygen) fermentation process. You could try transferring the juice from one container into another periodically to replace oxygen, but there still are a couple of problems. One, there will be a very small amount of alcohol produced, but it is likely less than that of a non-alcoholic beverage (like beer 0.5%). And two, eventually all of the sugar in the juice will be consumed, which will leave you with a tart or bitter juice. Better to just drink it quickly or preserve it somehow.

I like the juice without cooking it. Will I die if I just make the juice and put it in the refrigerator? I like the cooked juice too but it doesn't taste the same at all.

We have a large Concord arbor in upstate New York and we are about to make juice -- probably this weekend.
We have seen that in the wine regions of France the grapes are stored in huge containers, stems, skin and all, before they are crushed. We have been tempted to try it, but are also considering dipping them first in boiling water to maybe kill off some bacteria before crushing.
Have you tried leaving the stems on? Do you know if it affects the flavor if you crush them that way?
This is a fabulous website.
EH

I want to preserve grape juice now to use for making grape jelly later. Any ideas/recipes available for how to do this? Would it be better to can it or freeze it? Either option is OK.

WHAT IS THE BENEFIT OF LEAVING THE GRAPE MIXTURE OVER THE CHEESECLOTH ON TOP OF JUICE AND LEAVING IT SIT OVER NIGHT.

THANKS PAUL.

Hi:
I just followed your recipe for making Concord grape juice. I then poured it into mason jars and sealed them. Will this keep and for how long? Also, do I need to refrigerate or freeze them? Can they last at room temperature? Thanks in advance.

Does anybody know if cooking the grapes that long and to a boil destroys the antioxidents like vitamin c?

Here's another tip: You can use your KitchenAid standing mixer to stem and crush the grapes. Simply wash the grapes and put them in the mixer bowl, still on the stem. Attach the dough hook, and turn it on to low speed. The hook with pull the grapes off the stems, which will eventually rise to the top, and they'll be easy to pluck out.

I have a recipe for grape juice...filling jars with concord grapes, adding sugar, filling with boiling water...sealing and processing. Has anyone tried this????

What makes grape jelly not jell? I took 5 cups of fresh juice, 4 cups of sugar and 1 pack of pectin and thought I followed the instructions right but the jelly is not firm. I looks like juice instead of jelly. What went wrong?

I will be thankful for help with this question: if i kept fresh grape juice in a room with 40°C temperature when I should expect the fermentation proccess (alcohol production) to start to take place (hours or days)?

Thanks so much for these directions - not one of my cookbooks has anything about making grape juice. My husband planted concord grapes about 5 years ago, but this is the first year with a decent yield. This was so easy! I am straining the mixture as we speak and the entire house smells heavenly.

Thomas, I am in mid-Michigan and our grapes are all purple or dark red, and I picked both today. The reds were a little harder to mash, but I have heard this adds to the tartness.

Just found this URL for easy grape juice canned. I'm going to try this with ours - would sure beat the mess of cheesecloth!
http://www.backwoodshome.com/articles/kelley41.html

Hi, You are able to can your grape juice for long term storage.

I just made grape juice for the first time this year for my self using a steam juicer as decribed by elise above.. While it was still hot I poured the juice into canning jars and tightened fresh canning lids that had been sitting in boiling water on top. All of the lids sealed beautifully and you can store your sealed jars in your basement for about 1 year. My parents have been doing this for years and only had a problem with one jar that didn't seal. (They caught it before the jars went to the basement) We placed it in the fridge for a week before drinking the sweet bubbly mixture. All six of us are alive and well:)

I am so greatful for this site. I just bought a bushel of concords and was given several more. My husband is diabetic so I need to control the sugar amounts. With all the questions everyone has already asked, all mine have been answered. Am bookmarking this site for future referance and also sending it to several friends and family members.
Thanks so much for caring and sharing. Dee

Thank you so much for this recipe!!!!! I picked some concords today and the juice is now going thru the cheesecloth overnight. It was so easy to do. Do you have a recipe for Flame seedless grapes? Mine are ripe now and there's so many, I was wondering about making juice with them.

Isn't there anything I can do with the wonderful quart of "stuff" that didn't sieve through to become juice? It smells so good, I would really like to use it for something other than giving it to the birds!

We were delighted to discover Concord grapes growing wild on our Rhode Island property when we bought our house. We also have wild grapes that look more like champagne grapes. Whenever we use them, we take the grape gunk out to the compost pile, too. Haven't yet found a better use for it.

My mom makes this every year! It makes AMAZING popsicles.

We had concord grapevines in our yard in the Chicago suburbs for a number of years. I would prepare them for juicing mostly as you have described, except instead of the cheesecloth method, I used a bag of sorts, simply sewed up on three sides from two (clean) cotton dishcloths. I hung/tied this from one of the pipes in the basement, and had it drip into the large pot that was in the laundry basin below. This is how my mother and my grandmother and the little old Italian lady next door did it too.

What I didn't use immediately for juice I canned and used for jelly and such later. It lasted for years after it was canned. I miss my grapevines! I used to cut the vines too, and made my own wreaths from them. I still have some small grapevine trees I made from those vines.

MMMMM, the scent of grapes growing in the arbor is one of my fondest childhood memories. I made grape juice and grape jelly as a teenager from the concords and the green slip-skinned grapes that grew in our arbor. One thing I noticed when I made the grape juice was a silvery floating sediment. Did you ever see that in any of your juice making sessions? I wonder what that was.

To make Grape Juice at home we always used a cup of Grapes and a cup of sugar, in a quart canning jar, covered with boiling water, put on the cap and ring, placed all jars in the pressure canner, let vent for 10 minutes, put the weight on, and let it come to 5 lbs pressure turned the unit off and let it cool down.

The jars sealed and you have grape juice, although it is better if you let it set several weeks before drinking.

We most always canned grape juice in 1/2 gallon canning jars, for this we used 2 cups grapes/2 cups sugar per jar.

Anyone ever tried making grape juice with a juicer?

I have made grape juice for years following a Pennsylvania Amish recipe gotten from one of their cook books. In a sterilized qt. jar, I add one cup stemmed clean grapes, 1/3 to 3/4 cup of sugar (depends on indivitual taste), topped with hot water. I use a wooden spoon to dissolve the sugar. Then I seal the jars and place them in a water filled canning pot--the water should cover the jars. Boil for 30 minutes. Remove the jars, cool and check to see if the lids are indented. For any lid that is not indented, refrige the juice and use in week or so. When ready to serve the juice, place a strainer on top of a pitcher and pour in the canned juice. At this point, water may be added to the pitcher if you like a milder flavor. I discard the pulp, but I am told that the Amish in some areas make a pie from the pulp. I have never tried this or tasted it on the many trips we take to the Amish country each year. This is a simple method of juice making and the family and friends love it. It is gone from the pantry shelves by next autumn. Happy juice making!

We have grapes that look like concords but ripen in Michigan in the beginning of August. Does anyone know what they are?
We tried the juice recipe with the cheesecloth this year and liked the juice so much better than putting whole grape in the jar.
I made fruit leather out of the pulp. Its a good snack and I think woud be a good flavoring for baked goods, kind of like dried blueberries. I pressed the pulp through a food mill to get rid of the seeds, then spread it very thin on saran wrap. Then I dried it at a very low temperature in the oven. Be careful not to melt the saran wrap. Then, I rolled it up, saran wrap and all. To eat, just unwrap and enjoy. It stores very well in the freezer.

Like Darlene above, I followed the procedure outlined and juiced about 20 pounds of early muscat grapes, and put them through cheesecloth. I then put the juice in the fridge overnight to let the sediment settle. What I got was cloudy juice with silvery crystal like sediment all over the top and stuck to the sides of the bowl. What is this? I'm not sure if I want to drink it. At the same time I don't want to waste the grapes. It's a enormous vine that yielded about 300 pounds of grapes this year! Anyone have any ideas?

I have only made grape juice once and am getting ready to make it the second time. The first time I made it I mashed and boiled the grapes.
Afterwards I put the mixture through a hand food mill to separate the pulp and juice from the seeds and skin. This worked well. I was/am a beginner and didn't know what to do and was just trying things out.
I strained the liquid through a cheese cloth and canned the juice after adding some sugar.
I couldn't bear to throw away the pulp (I did put the seeds and grapeskins in my compost) so I decided to make jam with it.
Jelly is made with the juice and jam with the pulp....at least that is what "I" thought.
The jam turned out so well that my neighbors and children have begging for more.
I hope that I can reproduce my first year's wonderful results....as I did not write down how I made it all.
So....for all of you who want to know what to do with the pulp...if you can put it through a siev or a food mill to separate the seeds and skins from the pulp....then you can make jam with the pulp!

Just to let you know, I fill my quart jars up 3/4 with grapes that have been washed and picked thru. I put a light syrup over them and can them according to fruit recipes. When I open a jar, I strain it right then into a pitcher. It is a heaven sent taste and EASY.

I answered my own question (see above) about using a juicer. It made quite a mess. It also cut up some of the seeds. I did use a Braun small blade mixer and that worked very well. I had been smashing the grapes in a pot.

Hi, I'm very interested to make this grape juice recipe! However, I'd like to add sparkling water. I understand one pound of grapes equals to about one cup of juice. How much sparkling water should be added to the juice? Also, will sparkling water extend the refrigeration life of the juice due to being deluted? Thank you in advance for your comments!

Hi Rose, I would add the sparkling water as you are serving it. The bubbles will definitely not last if you try to store the juice combined with the sparkling water. Add just as much water as you want. It really is a matter of personal preference. ~Elise

I use the pulp left from the juice to make grape jam.It's better than
the jelly. I use to throw it away and a friend thats been canning for
years told me thats the best part of the grape. So now we have jam and jelly.

An old fashioned way to preserve grape juice is to cook it down into more of a syrup and then dilute it a lot when you drink it. I used your recipe for grape juice last year and did that, and it worked like a charm - lasted months and months. Here's the place I found out about how to do that:

http://www.biblicalperspectives.com/books/wine_in_the_bible/3.html

Jennifer, will you share your recipe for the jam using the leftover pulp? I just picked 34 lbs of grapes from the one vine that I have in my backyard. It was a very good year :)

We have all the crushing equipment for wine. Can we use that instead of crushing by hand? If so do we still have to cook it can't we just crush, press and freeze?

No idea. I think what you're asking is can you just not wait for the wine to ferment, but drink it as grape juice as is. I think the answer to that is probably yes. As to freezing, we've frozen grape juice and it just isn't nearly as good as fresh, so we don't do that any more. We drink up what we make fresh. What I like about the cooking part is that it kills any harmful bacteria that might be hanging around. And the process I've described here works fine with concord grapes. ~Elise

I have inherited a steamer juicer from my mother! I remember her using it 30 years ago. Alas it has come without instructions and I cannot find the company that made it. Are there some basic instructions for making grape juice? I'm assuming the process is similar to the cheesecloth strianing except with the juicer you don't have to strain... but I don't know how long I should steam the grapes before putting the juice into the hot jars to seal... any ideas?

What a wonderful blog this is! So much information...thank you! For the last few years I have steamed gallons of grape juice and turned it all into jelly. I am going to try to juice to drink this year. maybe mix it with cranberrry. YUM!
I also have a QUESTION: I've noticed that in some NON-GRAPE jelly recipes (for instance, blueberry or raspberry jelly), a suggested alternative for sugar is using concentrated grape juice. Has anyone tried the fresh grape juice for that purpose? If so, how much do I use?

I have just extracted 5 gallons of concord grape juice, I want to can it in quart jars at full streanth, I know I have to bring it back to a boil and then put the lids and rims on the jars, but do I need to water bath them or use a pressure cooker to process them. I have understood that most fruits can be water bathed for processing, if this is ok then how long should I leave them in the water bath before removing and putting them into storage for winter and how long will this juice last?

I have been using a juice extractor for a few years now. (I bought it at a garage sale!) It is great for extracting juice, especially from my green Concord grapes of which I always have too many. I have tried for about eight years to make good wine out of them, with varying degrees of success or not. I take them off the stems, pick out the bad ones, break the skins with a potato masher, steam them and drain it into a glass carboy. It comes out grey green. What I do to make wine is add about half a bag of a good wine concentrate like chenin blanc, chardonnay, anything white I can find. Right away the juice changes color and smells wonderful, like commercial white concord juice. Then I use my hyrdometer to measure the specific gravity and add sugar to take it up to 1.095. That is the starting point for wine. That might be a little high for juice. The concentrate may sweeten it enough to taste. To round out the taste, I add pectic enzyme (to break down the pectin--it just wants to become jelly), yeast nutrient, acid blend to .65% tartaric, (which this year may be no acid blend) and grape tannin, and yeast.
But this year, because I am not happy with the white wine of previous years, (still tastes like green concord), I am sticking to making juice. I have it in the steamer right now. This year was cool summer, a hot September and we got plenty of grapes but they aren't sweet and they are dropping to the ground. (We live on the West Coast of British Columbia, Canada.)
Of course, I won't add the yeast, and the sugar level will probably be good at about 1.060 on the hydrometer, but the taste will be good, and clear yellow color like Welsh's Grape Juice.
As to canning it, I can my apple juice, in a water canner for 15 minutes for quarts, timing after the water comes to a boil.
I hope this helps someone make better juice or wine. Thanks for all the tips on this blog.

Doreen - if the green grapes you were given are Pinot Noir they are not ripe. Pinot Noir is a red wine grape, therefor when ripe they are a deep red colour - almost black - and about the size of a large pea. Pinot Noir grapes also make a very tasty and refreshing grape juice, but you need to pasturise if you want to keep it, which destroys some of the flavour.
Pinot Noir is so well regarded and sought after for wine making that it is far too valuable (expensive) to make commercial non-alcoholic juice.
Whilst Pinot Noir is a 'red wine variety', white wine is also made from red grapes. The red colour in wine comes from leaving the juice in contact with the skins after they are crushed. To make white wine, remove the skins immediately after crushing the grapes.
Pinot Noir is one of the 'better' grape varieties used in making 'champagne' style wines.
The best thing you can do with unripe grapes of any variety is to make verjuice, which has recently regained popularity for 'trendy' cooking.

We have had a bumper crop of small purple grapes in our French garden this year. I don't know what type they are but taste a bit too tart for eating. So I've just tried the juice recipe with four big bunches and got a pint of really lush juice. Not too tart and not too sweet. A really easy process.

I live in Bulgaria. Have just tried this recipe with 2 different grapes given by our neighbour. It is absolutely delicious. I may try freezing some. Would be really wonderful on a snowy winters day. Bringing back memories of summer.

We just make grape juice from 14# of concord grapes. We used a strainer for one batch, which is more tart and cheesecloth for the other. I am going to try making fruit roll ups with the pulp. I use date fines for all my sweetners, so will see how that tastes instead of sugar.

My grandmother and mother always used what they called a jelly bag to strain the grapes (or berries) after cooking them down. I found that a clean pillow case works great for straining the grapes. I alow the fruit to drain over night. I heard that squeezing the bag makes cloudy jelly, but I have never had that problem.