Concord Grape Juice

There are good things and bad things about making your own concord grape juice. The worst thing is that you really will never want to drink regular grape juice again. This is not a terrible shame for me, as I've never been a huge fan of the stuff, but if you love it, you might want to approach with caution. The good thing is that you can learn just how amazing concord grapes really are.

Also: it's so simple. Yes, I almost always say that, but that's because I'm all about simplicity.

Ingredients are: concord grapes. I can get these for about 2 weeks of every year at my CSA and farmer's market. I think I may have seen them at Whole Foods once, but I could be imagining that. This is not a treat you will get often, but it's worth savoring.

Wash them, and separate the healthy, firm grapes from the withered nasty ones. At this stage, try not to eat too many grapes. This is not too difficult, as concord grapes, while chock full of flavor, are also chock full of seeds that must be carefully separated from the tasty bits by your teeth and tongue. After 10 or 15, you start thinking that juice would be an awfully good idea. Of course, you can eat the seeds; that's why the grapes exist. I don't eat them, but you could.

Put your grapes into a food mill, and mill. Wait! Don't mill yet. Concord grapes have a lot of seeds, and if you just mill willy-nilly, those seeds will ping! all around your kitchen and home.

To prevent random grape vines from appearing in your kitchen, dining room, or living room come spring, take two sheets of plastic wrap, and use each to cover half of the circle of the mill. I usually split it along that cross beam.

Now you may mill.

See those dots of grape juice on the plastic? Each of those would have been a seed lost somewhere in your kitchen. When you're done, the mill should look something like:

You might pour the juice through a fine mesh strainer at this point to remove sediment and the occasional crushed seed. I tend just to enjoy the rustic nature of the juice, but whatever makes you happy. Pour juice into a glass and enjoy. Or give to an unsuspecting friend and ruin them for regular grape juice. That is also fun.

Comments

[Ben]

Next week I make Manischewitz, here's a preview:

1. Make Brian's concord grape juice.
2. Ferment.

[Raquel]

My mom used to make us grape juice. Love love it!