Another Thing we do with Muscadines

First off, we were blessed to receive almost none of the effects of Hurricane Ida.  That was mostly felt on the southeastern part of the state.  

Two days ago we were talking about the muscadine harvest that gets bigger every year as our vine grows.  We eat most of them just snacking on them, but tonight I'll show you another thing we do - we make New Wine with them.  New wine is full of flavor, fizzy, refreshing with none of the alcohol that regular wine has.  Here's how we make it:

After picking we thoroughly wash the grapes.

We use a very old juicer.  I think it is called the Juice Man, or something like that.  I think it was invented shortly after Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin.  We feed the grapes into the hopper and it spins into a mechanism that juices it.  The juice comes out one end and the pulp and seeds fill a bucket on the other end.

The juice is pretty thick, with some pulp in it.  It is sweet and sticky.

Here is the bucket full of muscadine skins and seeds.  I like to get everything I can out of it.  I thought about running it through the juicer again...

But instead, I squeezed it through a muslin cloth.  This has an extra benefit as some of the red color from the skins comes out which gives the wine a red tint.

The recipe comes from The Maker's Diet, by Jordan Rubin.

New wine only has 3 ingredients: grapes, whey, and salt.

Add 1/2 cup of whey.  This separates from the yogurt when Tricia is making kefir.

Then you add 1 tablespoon sea salt:

We pour it all into a big jar, cover, and sit it on the counter at room temperature for two days.

After two days, put it in the back of the refrigerator and 'forget about it' for a good while.  We start drinking it when it is about 3 weeks old.  It looks horrible, but the taste is delicious and something that you look forward to every year during muscadine harvest.