Grape Jelly help

Soubrette

It all started out so promisingly. I had some free grapes and flush with my jam making successes (albeit in the breadmaker) and seduced by someone's description of the rainbow coloured jellies that they make (as well as someone else saying jelly was easier to make than jam) I thought I would give grape jelly a go as the grapes were small and pippy (I think they are technically a white wine making grape).

I boiled the grapes then strained the resulting liquid overnight. It smelt fragrant and delicious.

I added the sugar - 2lbs as there were 2 pints of grape nectar.

I dissolved the sugar on a low heat then rolling boiled until the setting point was reached - wrinkly on a cold plate (that bit took ages though).

I think it was this rolling boil stage where something went wrong though . I was expecting a fragrant delicate green jelly but appear to have got a fragrant toffee with a runny but thick honey consistency - it is also a dark brown. Nothing appears to have caught or burned on the pan though.

Where did I go wrong?

Sou

thriftlady_2

I've never made grape jelly. I don't think it is particularly well known in the UK -isn't American?

I don't think anything has gone wrong with your jelly, it's just that some fruits change colour quite significantly when cooked. Quinces are yellow when raw but turn pink on cooking as do crab apples. Gooseberries are a lovely fresh green when raw and then go khaki when cooked.

Soubrette

thriftlady wrote: »

I've never made grape jelly. I don't think it is particularly well known in the UK -isn't American?

I don't think anything has gone wrong with your jelly, it's just that some fruits change colour quite significantly when cooked. Quinces are yellow when raw but turn pink on cooking as do crab apples. Gooseberries are a lovely fresh green when raw and then go khaki when cooked.

Well, I had the inspiration from here reading about crab apple jelly and blackberry jelly - the recipe was on an English website.

I did read somewhere that concorde grapes go a lovely deep red - but this is definitely more of a deep brown colour and they aren't concorde grapes

Perhaps jelly in general has a more honey like consistency - it's actually very reminiscent of the dandelion honey that I made last year (although I overboiled that and it had a very hard consistency - like a hard chewy sweet).

Sou