Been a Busy Summer –

– Been having a good summer when it come to collecting fruit. I stared the summer picking black cap raspberries. I used half (5 pounds) to make a Raspberry Lime summer time wine, the other half is still in the freezer. This is the first summer I was able to pick peaches off the peach tree across the road. I got enough to make 3 gallons of steamed juice. I’ll do something with the juice during the slow winter months. The only downfall to this was the tree split and most likely will have to be cut down. I finally got blackberries off my plants I planted 3 years ago. I got enough to make 3 gallons of steamed juice which I used to start a blackberry port style wine I’ll post the recipe someday if it comes out good. I also have 4 one gallon bags of blackberries in the freezer waiting for time to steam juice. Last year I got the concord grape vines under control and got 23 pounds of grapes stored away in the freeze. I’m looking at using these with a 96 oz can of Vintner’s Harvest Cranberry to make a Concord Cranberry. I also got blueberries off my brother and juiced them, I’ll be making my Niagara Blueberry during the winter. I’ve been eyeing the apple tree and see it’s loaded. It looks like I’ll be pressing apple cider in the next week or two. Now all I need is some time to bottle last years wine, and empty out some carboys, so I have some to start new batches. That is why it’s nice to have the steam juicer. The juice goes into canning jars and is stored until I have time to work with it. On a side note; while making steam juice I make some pint jars and I found if I add a pint of juice to vanilla ice cream when making homemade ice cream it comes out great. Made raspberry, blackberry, and peach so far. I also use the pint jars to make flavor packs for my wine. One pint of juice to two cups of sugar heat to dissolve and add to taste.