Janet - When I make muscadine jelly I cook the berries first (mash them up a bit and add a tad of water). Then I push through a sieve (an old metal cone shaped one with a wooden piece to push everything around). Most recipes for jelly then call for you to strain the juice through cheesecloth for clear jelly. I just scrape the 'goody' from the sides of the sieve and add it to the juice and make jelly from there. I'm not worried about it being clear. I guess it's actually a cross between jelly and jam. So I'd say there is no need to remove the seeds prior to cooking. Hope that helps you.
~ Tracy

We made many 12+ batches of grape jelly this fall. We would take the desired amount of grapes for one batch. Mash them with a Potato Masher, add 1/2 cup water and boil for 10 minutes, stir occasionally. Then dump that mixture into a bowl that was lined with cheese cloth. Wrap up the sides and squeeze out the juice. We usually had one on the stove, one ready to go and one squeezing or cooling before we squeeze. It worked for us. I would have preferred another method, as our hands turned slightly purple!

Could be concords as they grow down to about Z7. They have sweet skins, but the soft centers are a bit tart. In NH and here you see these at the sides of the roads in the country. The Roma food strainer and the optional grape spiral will work wonders with them to extract the juice and separate the skins and seeds. Much quicker than the jelly bag or an other method as it will give you juice immediatly, and no pre-prepping is needed, no crushing, cooking or anything.

Thank you so much for your responses. The metal colander I have has a wooden part also and I think Grandma did mash it around. I feel more confident to give this a try and I will keep my eyes open for the food strainer also. I looked for them yesterday,but couldn't find anything locally. Thanks again.

Janet

This is the device you would want. The very old Victorio had wooden pusher and had big wing nuts to hold the conical sieves onto the housing, which for grapes can get badly stained wood. The newer models are designed much better. They have been on eBay too, but always choose the type that offer twist on strainers held on with a single small thumb screw. They also have an O ring seal at the crank shaft. The grape spiral is an optional item, as its shorter auger to allow seeds to pass out the end without jamming. I also use the Roma for red raspberries and tomatoes with two sizes of strainer screens. Nothing better than seedless red raspberry jam, that can get all the juices extracted in no time.

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