I don't have the steamer, but do things the old way. I juice them by crushing and straining thru a bag. I use the pulp for jam, and the juice for jelly. I also use the pulp for butters.

He is not brittle. In fact he has excellent control, primarily through diet, and I give him his carb allowance, just like I'd give a kid his money allowance, and let him decide where to spend them to suit his fancy. He usually prefers to do fresh fruit instead, but also will do most fruits I can with water or occasionally splenda. Yes, he does peanut butter often but mostly on some apple slices. We are thrilled that it's been so easy and he seems to have no problem with cutting out the sweet stuff entirely. I cook almost entirely from scratch, and love to bake and that was what led him into temptation in the first place with an otherwise good, healthy diet. I'm an ex-nurse and we turned the diet thing into a fine-tuned program and are not having a problem with having to revert to 'special' foods. But thanks for suggestions. I share what works for us too.

WE just harvested our two grapevines but not for wine - we just make juice with a steamer. They are Interlaken, okay for eating, probably not that great for wine. This year the vines were loaded with fruit but when I sampled, not very sweet. I kept waiting for them to sweeten, but finally the raccoons got most of them! They left a bit for us.

Depends on if they were measured before freezing or not. Say a recipe calls for 4 cups of fruit. If it was measured and frozen as 4 cups then you would need it all. That's why freezing in measured amounts is recommended. If it wasn't measured first there will be lots of extra juice and it may not set as a result without at least some draining. I'd suggest draining it but keeping the juice and adding very small amount of it back to the mix as needed as it cooks. Once you do your freezer dish test to check the set you can then add a bit more if needed. Dave