For a while, there was an schtick about ‘Will it Blend?‘. It was a marketing campaign for Blendtec, blending all kinds of things in there product. Some of it was pretty impressive. I set out to find out if my new to me apple press would press grapes to make grape juice.

I do have a device that is marketed as a ‘juicer’ and it does work. However, with grapes that have skins on them, this device plugs quickly and hard. The last time I made grape juice, I spent several hours cleaning it. I also had to disassemble frequently just to keep it going. I know traditionally, grape juice could be made by stepping on the grapes, I don’t see why an apple press wont do the same thing. So this is what I set out to do, plus, I want to use it.

Because I have been both lazy and busy, I haven’t done as much preserving as I should. Admittedly, a lot of blueberries and raspberries went to waste while I was focused on the siding repair. We are nearly out of jam as we haven’t done any in several years, this year I think I will make grape. I do know that this is one of the least popular choices in my house but we have it, so lets use it.

It’s hard to compare yields and efficiencies because I don’t have a lot of baseline to compare but I got about a quart of juice from roughly 3 gallons of grapes. Looking at the jelly recipe, only 2 3/4 cup of juice is required to make a batch, which is 7 cups yield. I will probably at least double it.

As coincidence would have it, the guy I bought the press from stopped by the day I was trying this. He said absolutely they have used it for juicing. Now, I had no fears, I just needed to figure out how it worked.

The truth is, it was a lot of work for a little yield. That being said, I am happy that my grapes didn’t go to waste. I got enough juice to make some jelly so that is something. I am planning to get going with apple pressing soon. I am running out of time to do this as well.

End Your Programming Routine: It has been a long held dream to have an apple press. Now, I need to get some use out of it. This may not be the best ‘production model’, but just like I keep talking about, I cant get caught up in the ‘toolbox fallacy’. Let me get some use out of it and figure out what I like and don’t like, then I can upgrade.