Do you have grape vines growing around your house? Today’s DIY is perfect for you, Homemade Raisins.
I am very lucky to forage so much of nature’s bounty from my very own backyard. A few Saturday’s ago it was lavender sachet bags.
I heartily recommend making raisins if you have grapes growing on your property or can forage them. I do not recommend buying grapes and making raisins, the cost and time involved would not be worth it.
First Things First
- Make sure they are in fact grapes – spend time researching and comparing leaves and fruit with safe varieties online
- Wash and eat a few off the vine – are they sweet? Tart? Get an idea if they’d make a good raisin-a raisin will be a very concentrated flavor of the raw grape
Our area of grape leaves are in a corner of the yard that hadn’t been cared for in years. Grape vines in the wild stretch and reach across all other trees and surfaces, similar to what I imagine happens to the castle in Sleeping Beauty.
Nature’s beauty.
Harvest the grapes using shears or by pinching the stem off of the branch. Collect them in a bucket or farmer’s market bag.
Collect as many as you want, there are no restrictions or quotas to meet.
How to:
- Rinse them in a bowl of water and remove them from the stem. Note: I did not do that because I thought it would be tedious—boy was I wrong—it was extremely time-consuming trying to separate the dried vine from the dried grapes. Take a few extra minutes and do this when they will easily separate. Thanks to my mother-in-law for her assistance 🙂
- I picked enough that I filled 3 dehydrator trays.
- Dehydrate at 110F for 48+ hours – until they look and taste like raisins.
- Store in a ball jar or ziplock bag – keep in the refrigerator or pantry shelf.
Enjoy!
What do you forage in your backyard?
xoxo
Wow, I was just thinking about making my own homemade raisins and I saw your blog post in my feeds, haha! Vegans must think alike 😉
It must be amazing to have grapes growing in your backyard… how nice! These raisins look so fresh, soft and chewy… they look way better than the store bought brands! I’d love to make my own homemade raisins. Thanks for the inspiration. Love your blog! 🙂
Hey, check out my blog: http://rawveganliving.blogspot.com/
Thank you Miliany. It is so much fun having fruit growing in your backyard 🙂
Nice article! To cut your dehydrator time in half you can “check” your grapes. simply dip them in boiling water for about 2 minutes then into ice water. This will crack the skins and they will dry faster by allowing the moister somewhere to escape. You can also cut your grapes in half to speed up the process (place skin side down on the trays), they still come out fantastic! Here are some white grapes that I dried.
Oh wow! That’s an awesome tip Jeff! Thanks for sharing and the raisins look delicious!