When I was growing up we always went in the fall to pick grapes for canning grape juice. I have been looking around here and called several vineyards to see whether they have u-pick grape options, but they all said "no". Their are a few farms that grow grapes for people to pick, but they are $2.99/pound. In upstate NY it is only about $0.35/pound. (My mom said that it was $0.11/pound when she was picking them). I finally decided that it was worth the trip. Once you have had real homemade grape juice, no other store made juice is even close. We visited with my dad, Goomie, and Gma J for a day and then left first thing the next morning to hit the vineyard.
We got a late start because it was pouring rain and we had to stop to buy some ponchos.
The landscape was beautiful! The owner was sweet and had some funny stories about people picking grapes in the rain.
We picked 213 lbs. of concord grapes. The kids did a great job of helping.
I bought a steam juicer and my friend from our ward gave me her old one. My mom had advised that it was good to have two going at once. It did work great, but it was still long and messy. It takes about an hour for 6 lbs. of grapes to cook down all the juice. Every half hour I was able to fill 3 quarts, alternating between the juicers.
I got a late start because the tube was broken on the one my friend gave me. I had to go get a part at Home Depot. I started at 10am and canned all day and all night until 6am the next day. Our boxes were squishy from the rain and I knew that the grapes would ferment quickly.
I filled a whole rubbermaid bin with the skins and stuff. I know that people use them for fancy things, but I just put them in my compost pile.
We ended up with 90 quarts of beautiful grape juice for our efforts! (We usually dilute it about 2:1 for drinking because it is very strong). The taste is fantastic. And my kitchen smells wonderful. Totally worth the trip and the work.
No comments:
Post a Comment