Grape Jelly recipes

[Britesea]

Well, I'm sure you ALL know that you can just use pure old grape juice for that jelly. No brag on fresh grapes but, sure will taste as good! Lot less work than picking & cleaning.

True, but it would be nice to gather your OWN grapes, lol

 

[Lazy Gardener]

Mini, are you saying that the bottled grape juice from the store (unsweetened) will make grape jelly that rivals fresh jelly made from locally harvested concords?

 

[Mini Horses]

I'm saying it will make grape jelly. Rivaling your own isn't known until you taste it. I've made both and both were successful.

 

[bambi]

Thank you, it is good to know that unsweetened grape juice can be used. I have never looked for it in the store. Is it found in the jar and canned juice section or frozen?

 

[wyoDreamer]

We made grape jelly from the grape juice in the store when I was in high school. Gotta love Home Economics class. I still have the recipe, and it makes good jelly. We used the jar of ready to drink grape juice not frozen concentrate, but I think the concentrate works also, just remember to add the water to it.
However, it can be pretty hard to find real grape juice in the store now-a-days. Everything seems to be apple/pear juice flavored to taste like grape juice. You don't want "cocktail juice", you need to read the ingredients and make sure it is 100% grape juice.
I made some cherry juice a couple of months ago and am not really sure I like drinking cherry juice. I think I will try making cherry jelly with the rest of it.

 

[bambi]

We made grape jelly from the grape juice in the store when I was in high school. Gotta love Home Economics class. I still have the recipe, and it makes good jelly. We used the jar of ready to drink grape juice not frozen concentrate, but I think the concentrate works also, just remember to add the water to it.
However, it can be pretty hard to find real grape juice in the store now-a-days. Everything seems to be apple/pear juice flavored to taste like grape juice. You don't want "cocktail juice", you need to read the ingredients and make sure it is 100% grape juice.
I made some cherry juice a couple of months ago and am not really sure I like drinking cherry juice. I think I will try making cherry jelly with the rest of it.

Yum!! Please let us know how it turns out

 

[TexasLisa]

WyoDreamer you brought back memories. For my project in Home Ec I made Grape Jelly from my granddad’s Concord Grapes. Time consuming but it sure was good.
The teacher opened the jar, slid the whole thing onto a plate to see if it jiggled. It did! She graded by form, taste, and presentation. I made an ‘A’.

 

[Mini Horses]

I find the pure juices are often in the "end" of the juice aisle, more often in the organic area. You will find the pure juices there. Yep, any can be used instead of the actual fruit. Look, it was fruit and they did the hard work for you! I had an old vine many yrs ago, on the farm when bought. Made great jelly -- you couldn't tell it from Welch's. In fact, the stepdtr would put it into an empty Welch's jar so her kids thought it was. But that from a jug of juice was just as good, IMO.

I eat little jelly. Generally like jam or preserves but, I've made several jars of jelly with various jugs of juice. DH always liked strawberry, so I'd pick and make preserves for him.

The cherry makes a nice syrup -- for pancakes, Ice cream, etc.

 

[Lazy Gardener]

I bet you could buy a jug of juice, and add some smushed berries to make a decent jam.

 

[Hinotori]

We always made jelly from mostly muscadine or concord grapes growing up. My great aunt and uncle have a small vineyard of 3 acres. They used to have around 30 varieties, mostly wine grapes, but they did have some table and juice grapes.

My great aunt brought back a steam juicer on one of the trips to visit Swiss family back in the 70s. We always used that instead of crushing the grapes. Just have to wash them off really good and put in. No need to stem so it's less tedious. We would refrigerate the juice for a few days before making jelly to reduce the tartaric acid crystals. Wine grapes can be really bad on those and crunchy jelly sucks. I just can the juice and make my jelly at a later date now. The crystals form on the bottom nicely.