Making Concord Grape Jam

After seeing those beautiful Concord Grapes at the farm stand I just knew I had to make some jam.  I used just the one quart I bought and here is the recipe:

Ingredients:

1.75 lbs Concord Grapes
1.5 cups sugar
2 teaspoons lemon juice

Tools:

Canning tools and pot
3 half pint jars or 6 jelly jars
Food processor
Strainer

Prepare a water bath canner.  Bring the pot to a boil and sanitize the jars and lids in the canner or dishwasher.  Keep the jars warm until jam is ready.  It should all be done at the same time.

Skin the grapes.  Place the skins in one bowl and the pulp (aka: inside of the grape and seeds) in another.  Discard the stems and any grapes that are bad.  Once all the grapes are done, place the skins in the food processor with 1/2 cup of sugar and process with the steel blade for 1-2 minutes until smooth.

Place grape pulp. 1 cup sugar, 2 tsp lemon juice and processed grape skins into a sauce pan.  Place pan onto the stove and bring mixture to a boil.  Lower the heat and simmer for 25 minutes, stirring occasionally to ensure it does not burn or stick to the bottom of the pot.

Once it has been cooked down, pour the mixture into a fine strainer placed over a bowl.  This may take more than one batch, depending on the size of your strainer.  Using a rubber spatula, push the liquid through.  Push on the pulp and seeds until it has all passed through the strainer and nothing is left but a bit of pulp and seeds.  This should take 10 minutes.  Use a clean spatula to scrape the remaining jam off of the bottom of the strainer and place that mixture into the bowl as well.  Discard the pulp-seed mixture.  Mix the jam that is now in the bowl and fill the prepared jars, leaving 1/2 inch of head space.  Place the filled jars into the water bath canner for 10 minutes.  Remove and place the jars upside down.  Store for 1 day in a draft free area.  Check to ensure the lids have processed and store for up to one year.

Here is how the jam should look along the way:

1 quart of Concord Grapes, about 1.75 lbs

When skinning the grapes no tools are needed.  Simply squeeze the grape.  The skin will crack and the inside will come out.  It is not like skinning an apple.  It is simple.  Save any liquid that comes out with the pulp and use it in the jam as well.



Skin the grapes

You should have 2 bowls that look like this:

One bowl with skins

One bowl with pulp (inside of grapes and seeds)

Take skins and 1/2 cup sugar:

Process:

Place the pulp, remaining sugar, lemon juice and processed seeds in a pan and cook for 2 minutes:

Remove from the heat and pour into a fine strainer over a bowl.  Be careful, this is hot.

Push the mixture through the strainer until there is only seeds and thick pulp left.

Scrape bottom of the strainer to get the last of the jam mixture into the bowl. You do not want to use the same one you used in the strainer because it has seeds and skins on it that you do not want in your finished jam.  Mix up the jam in the bowl.

The mixture should be thick.  It is now ready to put in jars and process for 10 minutes in a water bath canner.  Process for 10 minutes.  Remove and store.

This is an easy to make jam.  Use it like you would any other grape jam.  If you buy more grapes, it is OK to double or triple the recipe.