Making Wild Grape Juice

In order to make grape jelly, one must first make grape juice.

Take three pounds of de-stemmed and washed wild grapes:

Dump them into a large pot and smash them a bit with a potato masher (or other clean instrument suitable for smashing).  Pour 3 cups of water over them and turn the heat onto medium / high, occasionally stirring and gently smashing the grapes.  I simmered my pot for about fifteen minutes.

Take the pot of grape stew off the burner and strain it through a sieve.  I gave it a good smoosh with the masher in order to get as much grapey goodness out of it.  Some people will swear that you have to just let the stuff drip through a jelly bag (or good cheesecloth) in order to get the clearest juice.  But since I'm impatient, I speed things up a bit and smash mine.  I'm sure there's more sediment in my jelly this way, but I'm not that particular on having a crystal-clear jelly.

After straining/smooshing through the sieve, I strain it through the sieve again but this time I line it with a clean cloth.  This will eliminate most of the solid grapey stuff (i.e. sediment).  At first the juice will pour right through the cloth, but very shortly the dripping stalls to a maddening slower-than-molasses drip.  So I rinse out the cloth and strain the remaining juice through the clean cloth.  I have to do this cloth-cleaning several times.

Straining juice after several cloth-cleanings.
Aren't those colors just beautiful?

From three batches (each 3 lbs. grapes to 3 cups water) I got thirteen cups of grape juice.  It's a beautiful, dark purple.  The picture doesn't do it justice.

Those jars went into the refrigerator.  I was going to start right on making jelly from there, but I needed a break (and needed to start on supper).  Tomorrow is Jelly Time!