MAKING GRAPE JUICE
Any girl with a little experience in canning fruit can make for home use and for sale a harmless and delectable beverage out of the surplus grapes. Every good grape year on the farm there comes the question of what to do with the grapes. A little jelly is made when the grapes are green but most people prefer currant jelly or blackberry or crab apple. Canned grapes are pronounced "no good" by all the family, and grape marmalade is full of "splinters of glass," though how they got there who can say?
The housekeeping magazines give receipts for preserving grapes but cold storage alone gives good results and few farms have cold storage plants. Those grapes hang there by the bushel and try as you may you do not get them all eaten fresh.
Grape juice is not wine. If you should try to make wine you would probably fail. But unfermented grape juice is easier to make than jelly and as it needs no sugar your investment is small. Grape juice has food value, as it contains more solid matter than milk, and is recommended as a drink for children and for invalids. In many European countries "grape cures" have long been popular. In the pure, unadulterated, unfermented juice of the grape we have a palatable, nourishing food and a refreshing drink in one. It is highly recommended as a preventive of some diseases, a cure for others, and as a restorative of general health.
So much for the product. Now how is it made? It is possible to make grape juice from start to finish in the open air. If the grapes grow on an arbour what more delightful occupation can you imagine than spending a day or two converting the perfect fruit into nectar? Idling in a hammock may appeal to some, but a row of shining fruit jars worth seventy-five cents apiece looks better to an enterprising girl than a finished novel.
You will need a table, a rocking chair, a large basket and scissors, granite pans and double boiler, an oil or gasolene stove, clean jelly bag and flannel filter, jars or bottles, corks, rubbers, etc.
When the grapes are just right to eat out of hand they are right for grape juice. Green or over-ripe grapes are not worth working over. Discard all unsound fruit, wash, and crush. Put into a freshly washed bag of coarse, strong muslin, tie securely and twist and squeeze it until the juice is all out. Two people can work to advantage at this job.
The juice should now be put into a stone jar set in a pan of water or heated in a double boiler. It is just at this point that most people make a mistake and destroy the fine flavour of the grape by boiling the juice. It should never boil. If you have a thermometer use it now. The object of heating this juice is to destroy the yeast spores and other organisms which have alighted on the grapes as they hung in the arbour and which are so small that they came right through the mesh of the muslin bag. A temperature of one hundred and eighty degrees to two hundred degrees Fahr. is high enough. Take the juice from the fire when the two hundred Fahr. is reached. A thermometer is not absolutely necessary. When the juice begins to steam it is getting close up to two hundred and twelve degrees Fahr., the boiling point, which you must avoid.
Making prime quality unfermented grape juice requires two forenoons. If you want your jars to be clear from top to bottom instead of muddy with sediment you will set the juice away in an enamelled or glass vessel until morning, when you will see why this precaution is necessary. With greatest care dip the clear liquid off and filter it. A flannel bag made in the shape of a cone with a stiff wire or wooden ring at the top to hold it open, is the best filter. Several thicknesses of flannel or felt are better than one. All the tiny particles of sediment will be caught in the woollen meshes and the juice will be pure. The last traces of settlings, will be removed and the liquid will be clear. The colour and flavour will depend on the kind of grape used.
Put the filtered juice into bottles or fruit jars that have been sterilized by boiling in water. Do not fill them quite full. Wiping is unnecessary. Fit a false bottom made of a thin board or slats into the bottom of the washboiler and set the jars of grape juice with rubbers and covers on but not screwed down in on this. Put water into the boiler till it comes up to the shoulders of the jars. Heat now until the water is on the point of boiling, but do not let it boil. Remove jars from the water and screw down the covers. If bottles are used, clean, sterilized corks must be put in, while the juice is still in the hot water. If the corks are very tight further sealing is not required, but wax or paraffine is put over them by cautious persons to make assurance doubly sure.
Quart jars are probably most economical and will find a ready sale. Grape juice will ferment very soon after unsealing and should be used immediately. Even a small family will have no difficulty in consuming a quart if given the opportunity. Many delicious desserts can be made with this juice combined with sugar, eggs, gelatine, cream, lemons, and other fruits.