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Sep. 21st, 2005 09:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
which_chickOkay, so I made with the grape jelly tonight. Because I was short of jars AND because I am a complete and total bitch, I did Liss's grapes first. I also called Liss and asked her if she had any of my pint canning jars from last year. She said yes, and I allowed as how she'd better get them over here in the next two hours or so and to please not forget because I was going to need them. She allowed as how she would do that. I made with the making of jelly and, because I am not entirely stupid, I stopped when I ran out of jars, ate dinner, and waited for it to be three hours. At that point I called again.
If I were not a complete and total bitch, I would have done my grapes first so that I would not have that guilt card to play. If I were not a complete and total bitch, I would have bought more jars at the grocery because I know damn well that expecting jars to be forthcoming from there is pretty Pigs In Space territory on the implausibility scale. If I were a rich man... Anyway, setting other people up for failure so that you can yell at them is probably not a very nice thing to do. I should try to do it less.
Not bad. Liss's grapes are sweet and concord-y but noncomplex. They LOOK like plain regular blue concord grapes like the ones I have, but they don't taste the same. I used the same methodology for rendering the juice, so it wasn't a procedural difference. I dunno. Mine were fucking spectacular this year, though. They really tasted wonderful.
The teensy wild grapes are sour and more complex. They have a wild tang to them and I'm pretty happy with how they came out. I got four and a half jars of that (the recipe on the box says it makes "eight cups". It does not make eight cups. It makes just about nine cups. You will need five pint jars, four of which will fill completely and one of which will be half full. I KNOW this is how it comes out. I've done four batches exactly the same this evening (that was when I ran out of jars) and every batch makes nine cups of fucking jelly. Ignore the packet. It claims "eight cups" for people who would whine like hell if it claimed "nine cups" and really meant "eight cups and seven-eighths of another cup". For jarring purposes, understand that the recipe makes nine cups of jelly.
My grapes are proper. They're sweeter than the wild and, oddly, more complex than either of the others. It's not necessarily a *better* flavor, but it's a more grape-y flavor and a more complex, interesting flavor. I think it's better, but that's me. Anyway, the fact that her grapes and my grapes both look to be yer standard blue concord grape vines but they taste different enough that I can tell which jelly was made from my grapes and which was made from hers leads me to believe that maybe the whole French thing about the dirt being important in determining how the grapes taste is maybe not entirely bullshit.
I've run one batch through the pressure canner. I have two more to do and then I'm going the hell to bed. I am way, way too tired for this.
If I were not a complete and total bitch, I would have done my grapes first so that I would not have that guilt card to play. If I were not a complete and total bitch, I would have bought more jars at the grocery because I know damn well that expecting jars to be forthcoming from there is pretty Pigs In Space territory on the implausibility scale. If I were a rich man... Anyway, setting other people up for failure so that you can yell at them is probably not a very nice thing to do. I should try to do it less.
Not bad. Liss's grapes are sweet and concord-y but noncomplex. They LOOK like plain regular blue concord grapes like the ones I have, but they don't taste the same. I used the same methodology for rendering the juice, so it wasn't a procedural difference. I dunno. Mine were fucking spectacular this year, though. They really tasted wonderful.
The teensy wild grapes are sour and more complex. They have a wild tang to them and I'm pretty happy with how they came out. I got four and a half jars of that (the recipe on the box says it makes "eight cups". It does not make eight cups. It makes just about nine cups. You will need five pint jars, four of which will fill completely and one of which will be half full. I KNOW this is how it comes out. I've done four batches exactly the same this evening (that was when I ran out of jars) and every batch makes nine cups of fucking jelly. Ignore the packet. It claims "eight cups" for people who would whine like hell if it claimed "nine cups" and really meant "eight cups and seven-eighths of another cup". For jarring purposes, understand that the recipe makes nine cups of jelly.
My grapes are proper. They're sweeter than the wild and, oddly, more complex than either of the others. It's not necessarily a *better* flavor, but it's a more grape-y flavor and a more complex, interesting flavor. I think it's better, but that's me. Anyway, the fact that her grapes and my grapes both look to be yer standard blue concord grape vines but they taste different enough that I can tell which jelly was made from my grapes and which was made from hers leads me to believe that maybe the whole French thing about the dirt being important in determining how the grapes taste is maybe not entirely bullshit.
I've run one batch through the pressure canner. I have two more to do and then I'm going the hell to bed. I am way, way too tired for this.
