The house behind our 4-plex has grape vines that have gone crazy and grew over our fence. We received the thumbs up from the neighbors to pick away, so that is what we did.
In the past when I made applesauce, salsa, and pear jam, I just stuck the jars in the freezer without sealing them. Well, they took up my whole freezer and we didn't use them fast enough, so I ended up throwing a bunch away. Lame. This year I was going to do it right.
Having never canned grapes before, I turned to the all-knowing Internet for tips. As a result, I purchased a food processor to crush the grapes, then threw them on the stove to boil so as to release the juice from the grape skins. (By the way, my loving husband washed and separated all the grapes off the vines for me! A tedious task that I was glad he did.) I then attempted straining the boiled remnants through coffee filters. Failure! It was too thick. So, I let the mess cool and resorted to a nylon sock (brand new, of course). I ladled it into the sock and began squeezing by hand. Success! But, a very time consuming success. After watching for awhile and wanting to relieve my pain, Paul went to the store to find something better. He came home with cheesecloth, which had about the same result as the nylon. I still was squeezing by hand.
Many hours later, I had enough to can 3 batches of grape jelly. That's 15 cups of juice! Yes, all squeezed by hand. I borrowed a canning pot from my sister-in-law's mother-in-law. (Awesome, I know.) Upon hearing my sob story and seeing my purple stained hands, my sister-in-law mentioned that her mother-in-law also had a steaming grape juicer. What!? Those exist? Tired of juicing by hand, I borrowed it the next day. All you do is put the grapes in (whole - not picked off the vine or put through a processor) and walk away. Genius!
All in all, we ended up with 12 half pint and 7 pint jars of grape jelly and 10 quarts of concentrated grape juice. (That was a lot of canning for me since I am a beginner! - so don't judge!)
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