Listening to: Surgical Steel – Carcass

Find a vineyard to pillage to make some condiments for your morning toast.

Grape Jelly- Yields eight 1/2 pint jars

• 5 lbs grapes, green or red, make sure they’re good
  OR 5 cups of grape juice (fuck Welch’s, get the flavorful organic bullshit). I’m gonna assume you’re using fresh grapes, learn a little bit ya dig?
• 7 cups of sugar (less if you use the no-sugar pectin)
• 1 package of Sure Jell pectin, regular or reduced sugar. Keep a second package on hand in case your jelly doesn’t set in the allotted time.
  Special equipment: sieve or jelly bag, heavy bottom stock pot, stock pot or water bath canner

0. Get the water bath ready: Fill the stock pot or canner with enough water to cover the tops of the half pint jars with at least 1 in of water.
1. Prepare the grape juice: a) Pick the grapes from the stem. If there are little pieces left, that’s okay because they’ll be strained out later. b) Mash the grapes in the heavy bottomed stock pot with the blunt end of your favorite battle axe. Add a little water to cover the grapes and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to a simmer for about 20 minutes. This softens the skins to release more juice. c) Strain with a sieve or jelly bag. Get something to catch the juice, even better if it holds the strainer by itself. Mush most of the juice out, but don’t go crazy. Discard the leftover solids, throw them at an ex or neighbor you don’t like. Wash out that stock pot you just used, you’re about to use it again.
2. You should have about 5 cups of fruit blood, any more and you’ll have to scale up the amount of pectin and sugar you use. Not my problem bud, figure that out yourself. Bring the juice to a boil and add the pectin, mix that for a few minutes. 
3. Add all of the sugar to the pot and bring it to a hard boil. It should look like the most barbarous mosh pit of your life. Cook for about 5 minutes, carefully use a rubber spatula to scrape the bottom and sides to prevent any scorching. It should start jelling at this point,keep a metal \m/ spoon in the freezer in little dish of water to see if it sticks to the spoon. If not, add more pectin, or accept that you’ll have grape pancake syrup. Skim the foam off. It won’t hurt anyone to keep it on, but if you’re doing all this work, might as well do it right. It’s not A E S T H E T I C to open a jelly jar with foam. 
4. Ladle the hot jelly into the clean jars, leaving 1/4 in headroom. Give them a quick rim job before placing the two part lids on, securing them finger tight. Process in the boiling water bath for 10 minutes. Listen to the song of the lids popping, it’s your new anthem. Store with the rings off in a temperate, dark spot. 

Adapted from a tested and USDA approved source

I have never had grape juice or grape jelly that I enjoyed until I finished this recipe. I’m thinking more and more of either jury rigging or buying a steam juicer for next year, so I can make all sorts of juice and expand my scope of projects.

My jelly didn’t set until the next day when th jar were all the way cool, but I should have kept more pectin on hand for times like these. I was willing to accept grape waffle spread, and not the perfect jelly texture. I live a charmed life, I picked my grapes for free from my day job so I wasn’t too worried overall about wasting money on this project. I was also ever-so-slightly blazed and kept focusing on Jeff Walker’s tasty jams, not on the jelly.

Seriously though, try this out. Find some nice grape juice or go the whole nine yards with making the juice and make yourself some jelly. Gotta have something to eat before your photo shoot in the woods with your favorite black metal buddies, right?