Conference turris::cooks

    This is a lot of work to make, but in my mother's family everyone
    helped skin the grapes.  My family used to make theese pies every
    fall.
    
    3 c Concord grapes
    1/2 t grated lemon rind
    1 c sugar
    3 T flour
    1/8 t salt
    2 T butter
    9-inch 2-crust pie crust dough
    
    Slip skins from grapes (just squeeze each one; the inside will pop
    out through the stem end.  This si a great job for kids.).
    Boil and sieve the pulp.
    Add skins and sugar mixed with flour, salt, lemon rind to pulp.
    Fill bottom pie crust.
    Form lattice top (well, you don't HAVE to, but it is very pretty!).
    Bake for ten minutes at 450 oF.
    Then bake for 30 minutes at 350 oF.
    Put butter on top whne pie is removed from oven.
    Careful! - pie runs over easily!

    There is an excellent recipe for concord grape butter (like apple
    butter) in the New York Times cookbook (Craig Clairborne).  It
    calls for a bit of grated orange peel and some clove, I think, and
    the resulting spread is intensely tart and fragrant.  It is easy
    to make, too.  Welch's Grape Jelly was never like this!!
    
    Peigi

    I lived in one of those houses several years ago.  My neighbor and
    I made grape jelly with some but we found a really easy recipe for
    grape juice that we made a ton of.  We froze it and reconstituted
    it like the store bought.  It tasted much better than Welchs.  We
    just pulled it out of a canning freezing cookbook.  
    
    If you are interested and can't find a recipe, I'll go home and
    look that one up for you.
    
    Judie
    
    

    	Concord Wine (sort of a chianti)
    
    	Boil two pillowcases you are not fond of, and allow to cool
    	(sterilization). Take five bushels of grapes, fill the pillowcase,
    	and knot the top. Abuse this until most of the juice has drained
    	into a your oak barrel (or sterile plastic pail, whatever).
    	Empty pillowcase and reload until all grapes are juiced.
    	Option: Fortify your wine by adding 5 lbs of sugar - depending
    	on the brix (% sugar content of the juice), this may not be
    	necessary and will produce a very sweet wine if you do. Unless
    	you have the chemistry to do a brix determination on the raw
    	juice, you just have to use your best guess. Among old timers
    	like my dad, brix determinations are for sissys and fools who
    	don't know any better).  Add yeast ( Eneological yeast can be
    	gotten from the Farm Bureau or a friend, or use sourdough yeast,
    	or yeast off the shelf, or let the yeast normally occurring
    	on grapes in the vinyard do the work - this is an art, folks!)
    	Seal the lid airtight, use wax to be sure. Insert a thin plastic
    	hose in the cork bung and seal with wax, drive the bung in with
    	a mallet. Place the open end of the hose in a mason jar of water
    	and make sure it stays there, underwater. This is a CO2 release
    	system, that allows CO2 out but no air in. If air gets in, you're
    	making vinegar. Keep the barrel(s) in a warm place (over 68F)
    	and within hours you will observe bubbles coming out of the
    	hose. In three days, the bubbles will be furious, making the
    	water seem to boil. When the bubbles cease, the wine has fermented
    	to completion. You'll get alcohol concentrations of about 11
    	percent (23 proof or so). There is no tax on up to 200 gallons
    	made for personal consumption - above that, you need to call
    	BATF for tax stamps, and FDA if you plan to sell it. Filter
    	through a Mr. Coffee filter when bottling, keep bottles on their
    	side to keep corks moist, and avoid bright sun or heat. Should
    	be drinkable in a year, and perfect in three.
    
    	To make jack (illegal), place your barrell outside when the
    	weather is below 5F. On a every-two-days basis, open the barrel
    	and remove any ice inside. After to weeks, about 80% of the
    	water will have been removed as ice, and the remainder is
    	'jack' or brandy, at about 100 proof.
    
    	Other method is distilling - very dangerous for two reasons:
    	temperature control must be within 1 or two degrees or you
    	will produce pyrinogens, decomposition products which are highly
    	poisonous. It is difficult to attain this degree of control
    	over a wood fire, so most moonshine is contaminated to some
    	degree or another with toxins, notably methanol and butanol.
    	Don't buy it, and don't make it. Other hazard: Alcohol is
    	explosive, especially as a vapor. Stills blow up, and people
    	are routinely killed or burned beyond recognition. Jacking
    	is absolutely safe, so why distill? Besides, no smoke to bring
    	the revenuers down on you - which is the third hazard.
    
    	They call me the Michigan Moonshiner - but at heart, I'm just
    	a chemist who likes to drink.