Most of us know that graves make fantastic wines. They are delicious, pleasant, and they look amazing. Grapes are one of the fruits that millions of people appreciate every day all over the globe. Grapes are not only delicious when they become wines, but they are also great for making grape juice. It’s delicious and healthy as well because grapes contain high levels of antioxidants like polyphenols that help out body neutralize free radicals that can damage our body’s DNA. Grape juice is a drink that can provide you with a lot of health benefits and essential nutritional values you need on a daily basis. That is why in this article, we are going to teach you how to make grape juice in the comfort of your own home.
Benefits of Drinking Grape Juice
- Grape juice can help improve heart health – Research shows that purple and red grape juices can help promote good cardiovascular health. It can also maintain good cholesterol levels, healthy blood pressure and help protect your blood vessels, decreasing the risk of blood clots.
- Grape juice can prevent urinary tract infections – Most of us probably heard that cranberry juice is excellent at fighting bacteria that can cause urinary tract infections. Well, research shows that drinking grape juice works in the same way.
- Grape juice can help promote good gut health and aid digestion – Adding grapes to your diet along with high-fat foods can help change your gut microbial environment. The polyphenols that are found in grapes can help protect your digestive system against oxidative stress, pathogens, and inflammation. Aside from that, drinking grape juice can also strengthen your stomach’s barrier integrity because they help stimulate the growth of helpful intestinal bacteria, enhancing assimilation and digestion.
- Drinking grape juice can help nurture and protect your skin – Grape contains resveratrol, which acts as an anti-mutagen and antioxidant. It can help slow down the development of skin edema and decrease the formation of free radicals.
- Grape juice can help detox your body – Grape juice is a non-alcoholic alternative to red wine, which means that whatever benefits you get from drinking red wine, you will also get when you drink grape juice. Making grape juice a part of your diet can help delay or prevent the onset of diabetes, heart disease, stroke, and obesity.
How to Make Grape Juice at Home
It would be best if you had the following when making grape juice at home:
- Water
- 2 lbs of grapes
- Sugar
- Mesh strainer
- Blender
Once you got all of these, the first thing you need to do is wash the grapes and take them off the vines. Then you’re going to put water and sugar into your blender and add your grapes. Remember to blend on your juicing or smoothie setting and run it for two cycles to ensure no clumps.
After blending your grapes, there will be bits of pulp and skin in the juice. It’s wonderful to drink the grape juice just like this, but if you want to remove them, use a fine strainer and pour the liquid through it to remove the pulp.
Homemade grapes juice does not have a lot of processed preservatives, and sugar added. That is why it can only last for about 5-7 days after you make it. Remember to keep it chilled always. After 5 to 7 days, your grape juice will start to ferment.
That is why if you want to drink grape juice 5-7 days after you make it, make sure you place it in a tight container or bag and freeze it. You just have to thaw it before drinking it.
Interesting Facts About Grapes
- In botanical terms, grapes are defined as a type of berry. Being in the berry family means that each fruit comes from a single flower on the grapevine.
- Most of us like to assume that wine is made from the grapes that we see in your local grocery store. No, it is actually made from wine grapes which are smaller and have lots of seeds as well as thicker skins. On the other hand, the standard type of grapes that we can buy in the supermarket are called table grapes, and they have thin skin and tiny seeds.
- According to a scientific review that was published in Trends in Genetics journal, most researchers believe that grapes are about 65 million years old. In fact, some of the grape varieties that we know today are direct descendants of these ancient grapes.
- There are about 8,000 different types of grapes that are known to scientists. These types of grapes include table grapes and wine grapes. Most of the kinds of grapes originated in the Americas and Europe.
- It actually takes 90 pounds of grapes to make five gallons or 25 bottles of wine. Mathematically speaking, a bottle of wine contains about three and a half pounds of grapes.
- Juicing, eating it fresh, and making wine are not the only ways to use grapes. You can also make it into a jam or dry it to make raisins.
- According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, about 29,292 square miles of the Earth’s surface area is dedicated to growing grapes. China, Spain, Italy, and Turkey are the world’s largest producers of grapes.
- Grape skins naturally contain yeast organisms. The type and amount of yeast in the skin varies with the kind of grape as well as its growing conditions. The riper the grape, the more yeast it has on its skin. This may be why ancient people thought of using this fruit to make wine.