Published via Ecency

Hello, everyone! 😎📷

There are a few grapevines planted in my mother's yard, and every year, in early autumn, when they ripen in late September, we face a dilemma. Should we pick the grapes ourselves, or will the birds eat them?

Actually, there is no dilemma, there has never been so little that everyone couldn't eat their fill :) 😜😋🍇

This is a type of table grape, which we call Izabela. It is not used for wine production here, but it grows in almost every yard. Once a year, in the spring, it is trimmed, but otherwise no one pays any attention to these grapes.

My younger son and I spent an afternoon picking these grapes. They are not the best quality, but, as I said, no one else is interested in it, so they are what they are.

It was awkward picking the grapes because the branches were taller than me, and I couldn't reach the highest ones - one hour of work for two.

What shall we do with these grapes? Juice? Yes.

We have a small press, capable of up to 10 liters, for fruit. I bought it because we have a good apple harvest every four years, but otherwise, there isn't much fruit.
We also have a larger press, but now that I'm looking through my posts, I see that the last time we made apple juice was five years ago, and the small press is three years old, which is when we used it for the first time. The second time is now :)

First, it needs to be washed.

To press grapes, it is necessary to add another filter, a mesh, to the press because the gaps between the wood of the press are too large, allowing grape residues, seeds, and skins to slip through during the pressing process.

Before pressing, we had to clean the grapes, so we removed the rotten berries, which took approximately two hours.

And then hand-pressing as much as possible.

At the end of the story:
We got about 9 liters of grape juice. Five liters were placed in the refrigerator, and we froze four liters in half-liter plastic bottles.
The juice was delightful, sweet like syrup, and when I drank it, I mixed it with water. Well, it disappeared very quickly. That's a good thing, because grape juice doesn't keep very well, even less than apple juice. Within a few days, it begins to ferment, even when stored in the refrigerator.