Making Raisins from Home grown Grapes

                Dehydrating home grown grapes! Today I will show you my grape vines I have at home.

We have an old dog coop which is not being used for any dogs. Three years ago we ordered 8 grape vines from a seed catalog. The fencing was a great way for the vines to crawl up and grow. After three years we have a nice batch of grapes to work with. I use the grapes for making homemade juice, jams, raisins, and just to eat fresh. A couple of days ago my daughter and I took a ladder and picked grapes for an hour.

Today I am going to show you how to make raisins out of your grapes.

1.       Take your ladder and a pair of scissors and cut off your grape bunches.

2.       Take off your grapes from the stems and place in a colander. Rinse off your grapes.

3.       Make sure you have the seedless grapes to dehydrate.

4.       Place your grapes on your dehydrating trays and poke a little hole in them so they dehydrate 

correctly.

5.       Check your dehydrator for correct temperature and start dehydrating your grapes.

6.       My grapes took over a day to dehydrate.

7.       Place the raisins in a sealed container or zip lock bag and date them.

Another option is buying store bought grapes. Watch for the grapes to be on sale then buy a good amount to dehydrate. Take your grapes and cut them in half and place on your dehydrating trays. I find the home grown grapes to be much sweeter than the store bought grapes. Making your own homemade raisins is so much healthier and cheaper. This would be a good project to do with your children or grand- children. As you can tell I like to have home grown food because it is so much healthier for you. I love to grow, pick and process what I grow. Have fun making homemade raisins from Suzie Homemaker.