[Sca-cooks] Verjuice-Finally the results

[bill mayfield]

   Ahhhhhhhh
                After a short time out to tend to the curves life can and 
will throw
  I can finally tell y'all about  the verjuice attempt I made.
    Started with a 5 gallon bucket of not quite ripe,still sour,grapes from 
the vines
where I work. brought them home and gave a cursory washing and then,using a 
very improvised press(a weight,a wooden plate and large strainer) the juice 
was pressed from the grapes using
progressively more weight.after the pressing the juice was sour with-out 
being bitter and not at all  unpleasent to taste,doing a quick thumb-thru on 
a couple of books it was decided to add just a minute amount of yeast(used 
dry wine yeast)I based this on the assumption that grapes pressed for the 
kitchen were most likely pressed where grapes would be pressed for wine.Gave 
it a stir and coverd loosely for a couple of days,then checked it,no 
fermentation was observed and the juice now had a bit more syrupy texture 
and was wonderfully sour with still no bitterness.
After being bottled and lightly sealed,the juice remains unchanged over the 
last week but suspect it may not be good for much longer. I am currently 
trying to decide what simple kind of dish can be made to try the verjuice in 
and compare it to the same one made with one of the suggested substitutes in 
the Medieval Kitchen(page 28).



Æthelwülf

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