Grape Jelly

My excuse (does anyone need an excuse?) for making this jelly is that the grapes were on sale.  Can't help but pickup a couple of boxes for grape jelly making.  Delicious!

Jelly making is so easy with a steamer juicer - no more picking off stems - and a steamer canner - no more huge pots of boiling water. I love my toys and my jellies!

Makes approximately six 500ml jars

Ingredients:

4 L                      Concord grapes

1/2 cup (125 ml) water

6 3/4 cup             sugar

1 pouch (85 ml)  liquid Pectin

Directions:

Wash the grapes and place them in the top of a steam juicer. Fill the bottom of the juicer with water and turn on the heat to bring to the boil for about two hours.  You should have about eight cups of juice.

Alternatively, stem the grapes and combine them with water in a stainless steel saucepan and thoroughly crush. Bring to a boil; reduce heat. Cover and boil gently 10 minutes. Remove from heat.  Pour the prepared mixture into dampened jelly bag or cheese cloth-lined sieve suspended over a deep container. Let juice drip undisturbed, at least 2 hours or overnight. For quicker results, squeeze bag; juice may be cloudy.

Measure 4 cups prepared juice into a large, deep stainless steel saucepan. Stir in all the sugar. To reduce foaming, add 1/2 tsp (2 ml) butter or margarine. Over high heat, bring mixture to a full rolling boil that cannot be stirred down. Add liquid pectin, squeezing entire contents from pouch. Boil hard one minute, stirring constantly. Remove from heat and quickly skim off foam, if necessary.

Quickly pour jelly into a hot jar to within 1/4 inch (0.5 cm) of top of jar (headspace). Using nonmetallic utensil, remove air bubbles and adjust headspace, if required, by adding more jelly. Wipe jar rim removing any food residue. Centre hot sealing disc on clean jar rim. Screw band down until resistance is met, then increase to fingertip tight. Return filled jar to rack in canner. Repeat for remaining jelly.

When canner is filled, ensure that all jars are covered by at least one inch (2.5 cm) of water. Cover canner and bring water to full rolling boil before starting to count processing time. At altitudes up to 1000 ft (305 m), process –boil filled jars – ten minutes.  

Alternatively, place the jars in a steam canner and process for ten minutes.