Hello Friends! Today I will be sharing how I make muscadine juice. This past weekend my FIL was kind enough to let me harvest from muscadine vines. These vines were planted about 40 years ago and despite some neglect the past decade they are still producing muscadines.
There are two varieties of muscadines growing together: dark purple and bronze. I spent a little under an hour harvesting 3 gallons of muscadines. I harvested more bronze muscadines than dark purple. The juice will have a lighter color but it will still be delicious 😊
Turning Muscadines into Muscadine Juice
When preparing to make juice, the muscadines will need to rinsed thoroughly and any remaining stems will need to be removed.
I used clean warm quart size canning jars.
Place 1 cup of muscadines in each quart jar and top with 1/2 cup of sugar.
I made sure to mix the bronze and purple muscadines to allow my quarts to be a more consistent juice color.
Next, I topped the muscadines and sugar with boiling water.
Gave the water a little stir to incorporate the water and sugar.
Readjusted water to insure the quart jars had a 1/2 inch of headspace.
Water bath can the juice for 20 minutes. Once the juice is canned it will need to hangout in the pantry for about 2 months to allow the juice flavor to fully develop. The color will be light pink after canning but will deepen over the 2 month period. They will be ready just in time for Thanksgiving dinner!
The jar on the right had more purple muscadines and the jar on the left had more bronze muscadines 😊
When we’re ready to enjoy our juice, we open a jar(or two). Strain out the muscadines and place the muscadine juice in a clean pitcher. The juice is wonderful on its own but is also delicious mixed with sparkling water 😊 I have been using this method for years – originally found and adapted from this blog post.
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