Caroenum Redux

Remember when I said that my sister had a grape arbor, and that come fall she might be persuaded to give me some grapes (assuming she had them)? Well, she did have some grapes, and she did let me have them. So I went over there yesterday and we picked all these:

Those faux-tupperware things are about eight inches square and three inches deep. I don't really know how many pounds of grapes that was, but once I picked out the good ones this is what I got, a full-sized colander full:

Which I washed as well as I could to get rid of the ants, and then threw in a large pot to squish with a potato masher. (By the way, if you're going to try this at home, a word of advice: wear old clothes.) I can see why grapes are the wine making fruit—they sure do make a lot of juice.

Which, eventually, after a lot of squishing them through a strainer, then putting them in a tea-towel and wringing (which was a surprisingly visceral experience), I ended up with just shy of eight cups of juice:

Which I then boiled down to make another batch of caroenum, the syrup the ancient Romans made from must (fresh grape juice) to use as a sweetener. I'd made a batch before with store-bought unsweetened grape juice, but wanted to try it with fresh ones. If you don't have access to fresh grown grapes, I don't see why it wouldn't work with store-bought fresh ones, though I imagine eating grapes and wine-making grapes are probably different varieties.

It needed a lot of skimming, I'll say, as there was quite a bit of foam, but it eventually reduced down to about a third of its original volume, which I let cool down before funneling it into the same pretty bottle that had held the first batch. I ran it through a sieve first to get rid of any pulp and remove the last of the ants (I hope).

Given they were blue grapes (I have no idea what variety, and neither does my sister, as they came with the house when she bought it; probably the usual Concord) the color was a lot different, coming out a lovely ruby red rather than a brownish amber like with the white grape juice. It also tasted very different, with the unmistakable tang of fresh grape juice. It was quite sweet and did make a syrup, but it was still a little on the tart side. I'm not sure how it did that, but it's got a lot more personality than the kind I made from store-bought.

Just look at that color!

I can't wait to use it; I might try those marinated mushrooms again to see the difference.