Domesticated Grapes

I learn a lot from failures. And it feels good with successes. I experienced both with my first canning experience.

The yard we have been blessed with in this current abode brought forth some beautiful concord grapes. A friend in the ward suggested I make grape juice with it using a juice steamer. Luckily, my grandma had one that I could borrow! It was suuuuper easy to make the juice. The jelly, on the other hand, was a little more challenging.

I attempted to make 3 batches. Only 1 was a success.

The first batch, I was using liquid pectin. But in my haste to get started I mis-read the two simple instructions (not one of my strong points to begin with, reading instructions) and I mixed the steps up of when to add the sugar and then pectin. With liquid pectin, you put the sugar in first, then the pectin. With powdered, it's the opposite. So, after reading online, I felt I couldn't continue with making it and saved it for a later use. I tried drinking it and it tasted okay, a little bitter. So I decided to make fruit leather in the oven with it. After baking it for 12 hours, it jelled instead of dried. The pectin did that, of course, I should have known it would gel! I had to throw that out. darn it.

The 2nd batch I used the 2nd packet of liquid pectin. I followed the instructions properly this time, or so I thought. After waiting 24 hours (and now nearly a week) they have not "set" yet. I'll have one more chance to re-make those jellies which means I have to buy more lids and pectin (only to use a tablespoon of it and store the rest of the pectin for a later use). My guess for this failure was that I did not let the juice and pectin get to the proper boiling point before adding the sugar. But that doesn't seem right either because it boiled all over my stove! Sooo, I don't know what went wrong.

3rd batch is a charm! This time I used powdered pectin, to see if there was a difference. This batch turned out perfectly and we've already finished off the first jar. I wanted to give these away for Christmas neighbor gifts but I like it too much to share! Selfish, isn't it? But really, it was so much cheaper to make than to buy it in the stores, and I wanted it for my food storage.

I was happy for days after I made this jelly. I felt so domesticated. It was sort of empowering, like a right of passage into the "canning club." or maybe it was just a great sense of accomplishment. Now I wish I had a huge garden earlier in the summer to can all sorts of things. Though I am still scared to attempt making salsa since that has so many steps and gathering the best produce and recipe is important. Hopefully, we'll be living here next summer and we can plant our own garden and start from scratch!

So here they are, it actually yielded one more jar than suggested (and is in the fridge). To learn more about how to make juice/jelly, go to my Bonne Nouvelle blog and I'll post a how-to and helpful websites there.