How to Make the Easiest Canned Grape Juice
Learn how to make the easiest canned grape juice with fresh grapes. If you want an easy canning project and fresh healthy juice for your family, this is a great place to start.
Have you seen the price of high quality organic grape juice? So much money!
Until I found out how to make this easy canned grape juice, we were not really drinking much grape juice. It was more of a special treat or something I kept on hand when my kids were sick and needed to have some juice to take their tinctures.
So when my neighbor asked if we wanted to come pick the rest of their Concord grapes on a bumper crop year, I was there with my five gallon buckets real quick.
Using Concord grapes for this easy juice recipe is a good choice. They are full of seeds and not great for plain eating. They can also be a bit tart, but make a nice sweet juice.
Other types of grapes can be used too. We have also made this recipe with a couple types of heirloom green grapes. The flavor is much lighter than with the Concord grapes, but still tasty. I am a big fan of using what you have when it comes to recipes like this.
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Where Do You Source Your Grapes?
I wait to make this juice until I have a good source of unsprayed or organic grapes.
Look around for u-pick farmsor maybe an ad on Craigslist or Facebook. Sometimes people have grapes growing on their property that they can’t use and are willing to share for free or a low price. If they are established vines, a lot of time they grow well on their own. This means they were most likely not sprayed. You might find some on an abandoned property even.
Grapes have also come up in price a lot at the grocery store so making grape juice with store bought grapes can be quite expensive. And since they might have been picked weeks ago, they will not make the best grape juice.
But if you happen to score an amazing deal on store bought grapes, this canned grape juice recipe would be a great way to use them up.
How to Make Home Canned Grape Juice
you will need
- Clean quart sized jars, lids, and rings
- Sugar (we use organic unbleached cane sugar)
- Filtered water
- Water bath or steam canner
Step-by-Step instructions
Take your clean quart sized jar and fill about 1/2 full with washed grapes. I take off the stems, but have seen others that leave them on for the most ease.
Then add 1/2 cup sugar to each jar.
Fill the jars with filtered water, leaving 1 inch headspace.
Use canning best practices – wipe rims, put on clean lid, and screw on ring. Water bath or steam can for 20 minutes.
Once the time is up, remove the jars from the water bath or steam canner and place on a towel on the counter. Leave them there for 12-24 hours. You should start hearing the ping of the jars sealing.
After the initial 12-24 hours, move your jars to the cellar or wherever you will store them.
Let them sit for at least 4 weeks. The sugar will dissolve and pull the juice and flavor from the grapes.
After 4-6 weeks, get the jars out you want to drink. Shake the jar up and strain the grapes to enjoy the juice.
When we have strained out all the juice, we compost or feed the leftover grapes to the chickens.
How Long Will the Canned Grape Juice Last?
Stored properly in a cool dark place, the jars should last at least 12 months, but many times longer. Check for a solid seal when you open the jar.
More Canning Recipes
Chocolate bar marzipan jujubes jelly-o carrot cake caramels. Tootsie roll cookie jujubes powder icing lemon drops. Pastry brownie topping oat cake chocolate cake jelly candy gingerbread tart.
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