You can use any kind of pectin or none at all. Grapes have a great deal of their own pectin.

If grape jelly is what you want then the directions for it are in the Sure Jel package or you can use the directions linked below.

If you want grape jam (much easier because you don't have to make all the juice first) then no pectin is needed. See: http://nchfp.uga.edu/how/can_07/grape_jam_without_pectin.html

I suggest you stick with NCHFP rather than that other site for the best instructions.

Dave

Here is a link that might be useful: Grape Jelly with powdered pectin

Dave, maybe you could tell me.....why do I have to take the skins off? Can't I run the stemmed grapes thru the food mill? The grapes I have are really only about marble size.

If the grapes are very ripe they won't have much pectin. I had that problem last year, with the drought the grapes didn't have enough pectin, were very sweet, and I didn't have apples that I normally mix with them so my jelly using the couple jars of apple pectin I had left from previous year didn't set and I had to remake it with liquid pectin.

If you want to make jelly don't worry about slipping the skins since you're putting everything in a jelly bag anyway, I'd use the liquid pectin for that, it will turn out clearer.

You might not have to use pectin if you make just the jam (and I think the NCHFP calls for cooking the skins separately so that the pulp doesn't get overcooked). But if you find that the grapes were too ripe, you could also use the liquid pectin in the jam since it's added after the sugar - powdered pectin should be added before the sugar so you wouldn't have a chance to check the gel you got from the natural pectin and then decide if you wanted it thicker.

But what I've done in the past (when I had apples - last year was a bad apple year) was to cook apples and grapes together, drain through a jelly bag for juice to make my less-intense Concord grape jelly, then run the pulp through a food mill, cook some plums (mill those too), then combine all the pulp with sugar and spice for Autumn Fruit Jam, somewhat like the recipe in Small Batch Preserving. You could probably do the same thing with just grapes, though I recommend adding the powdered pectin to the milled pulp to make grape jam if you have drained the pulp for jelly first since you will be removing pectin with the juice (the plums help add more pectin to the drained pulp in my recipe, and I cook it so it's more of a "butter" than a jam I guess).

So if you wanted to make both, I'd use the liquid pectin added to the juice for the jelly and the powdered added to the milled pulp (before adding sugar) to make the jam.

I'm a Yankee and I hate to waste anything (though composting isn't a "waste" I guess)!

the food mill will take care of the skins, or it has for me over the years. I found that the darker the sweeter. I would use the recipe with the most, since your grapes are probably more ripe than most.

You can grape butter, not the most usual treatment, but good. Leave everything except stems on and cook down, then after cooking awhile, run thru the food mill to remove skins and seeds. Be sure to wash the fruit well.

Thanks everyone. I made 1 batch of grape jelly and it set up pretty good I think. I used the SureJel. I may try a batch of grape jam, just to see if I can.
I poured the grapes into a sieve with some cheese cloth and smooshed just a little!

I've had many batches not jell immediately, but within the week. So if yours jelled well, congrats.