I used to like grapes.

Thursday, my wife headed out to pick some grapes with the kids.  A friend of a friend has a bed and breakfast with a few acres, including some concord grapes.  My wife had a deal she didn't feel she could turn down: 25 cents a pound.  Only catch was there was a 60 pound minimum. 

No problem...off she ran with a few of our big Rubber Made totes, and started picking with the kids, figuring those two totes would add up to 60 pounds.

She was wrong...those two totes added up to 135 pounds. 

It more than she planned on coming home with, and since then we have made several trips to the store for MORE JARS!!!!!

Luckily she has a friend with a steam juicer, or I wouldn't have been able to sneak out of the kitchen yet long enough to post this.  The first night, we started the old fashioned way...placing grapes in a sauce pan, adding some water, then mashing and boiling them for half an hour before straining them.  We did 4 quarts of juice that first night in 3-4 hours worth of work. 

The steam juicer was not as fast as I pictured it being, but it was faster than the smash and boil method, and a LOT less work.  I helped through out the evening, but my wife stayed up until 2:30am, finishing the last 40 pounds herself.  All total, we got an additional 31 quarts using the steam juicer. 

 

 

I think close to 80% of this is going to go in the pantry as just juice, with the other 20% being turned into jelly as I type this. 

 

The last two quarts my wife did she put in the fridge in one of our pitchers, so I got to have some today...and it's pretty good.  When buying from the store, I prefer white grape juice...it's more refreshing.  This stuff though...I'm not sure I would grab a glass when I came in from mowing the lawn on a hot day, but, as part of a 'complete balanced breakfast'...yum, yum.

 

And yes, a steam juicer is now on the Christmas list.