Muscadine Jelly

In two visits to the orchard, we picked about forty pounds of muscadines, so we decided to make muscadine jelly.  We started with washing the fruit.  Then, we covered the fruit with water and cooked it for about thirty minutes.  After the juice cooled a bit, we used a fine sieve and pestle to extract the juice.  This was the labor intensive part of the process.  We were left with a pile of peels and seeds and jars of muscadine juice. 

The next night we made the jelly.  We started by pouring the juice in the pot and added sure-gel.  We prepped the jars by running them through a cycle in the dishwasher and sterilized the jar lids in a small pan.  When the juice came to a rolling boil, we added sugar and stirred constantly for a minute.  We immediately filled the jars with the boiling mixture.  It is important to clean the rim of the jar before you place the lid and ring.  There is nothing worse than jars that don’t seal because of a dirty rim.  After all that work, we only got 6 jars.  But that jelly is so dang good it was worth every bit of work!