In this post we’d like to share with you how we make our own mustang grape juice concentrate, (also known as muscadine grape), while we’re out camping – or when we get back home. This delicious summer treat is packed with antioxidants and vitamin C and the wild grapes that it’s made from are found in abundance in certain areas across the South and Southwest.
The flavor of this American wild grape is like nothing you’ve ever tasted before. It’s a refreshing summer treat that beats the heat on a hot summer day and can make delicious jelly! In our next series of posts we’ll be discussing wild foods that you can forage for when overlanding and camping, starting with wild grapes.
Please Note: Foraging for wild foods while camping is something that must be done with care, as well as with an understanding of the environment from which you are removing plants – so that we don’t interfere with the important food sources that wild animals need to survive.
Picking Wild Mustang Grapes, A Family Tradition
Throughout the South and Southwest, you’ll find mustang and muscadine grape vines growing high into tree canopies along the banks of rivers and creeks. There are several species of this hardy grape, including Vitis mustangensis, (mostly in Texas), Vitis rotundifolia, Vitus munsoniana, (Florida), and all have a very similar flavor.
Foraging for this delicious wild fruit is something our family does every summer when camping just south of Austin on the “other” Colorado river in Texas. It’s part of a long family tradition of wild food gathering on camping trips. Mustang grape juice is something that I grew up drinking as a summer treat. Every year, our family collected mustang grapes by the five gallon bucketful, along the banks of the Frio river in South Texas. My mother used the fruit to to make big batches of wild grape juice and jelly.
It’s super easy to make mustang-muscadine grape juice concentrate and you can enjoy this yummy drink on your next camping trip or all year long if you store it in the freezer.
Mustang-Muscadine Grape Facts
Mustang/muscadine grapes are uniquely North American. They have 40 chromosomes, as compared to the European variety, which has only 38. They have been an important food source for Native Americans for thousands of years. A valuable source of vitamin C, potassium and other nutrients, mustang grapes also have one of the highest ORAC – Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity – ratings of any fruit, so they’re really, really good for you as well as being delicious.
When to Pick Mustang Grapes
The best time to pick mustang grapes depends on what climate zone you are in. For those of you living in Texas, Arkansas and Oklahoma, it is typically middle to late July, but for those farther north and east, peak season may be later. When the berries are dark purple, almost black, full and plump, it’s time to pick them.
How to Pick Mustang Grapes
After you’ve determined that it’s okay to pick those grapes you’ve just found (not on private property or restricted public land), all you need is a pair of gardening gloves (to avoid purple hands), along with a sturdy bucket. A step ladder may come in handy for some vines that are hard to reach. Be careful to watch for snakes, as well as wasp and hornet nests, and aim to collect about two gallons of grapes. Try to avoid green ones, rotten ones and leaves, although you can sort through them later.
How to Make Mustang Grape Juice
Items Needed: 8 cups of Mustang grapes, two large boiling pots, potato masher, strainer(s), sugar or stevia. Any heat source, including campfire, instant pot, etc. will do.
Stain alert! Mustang grape juice stains almost everything that it touches! Boiling a big batch of the juice outdoors in a big pot over a campfire and taking home the concentrate to finish might be less messy! That’s what we usually do!
Step 1: Fill the container that you’ve collected your grapes in with water, then skim off any floating fruit and leaves. Then, drain off the water and measure two quarts (8 cups) of wild grapes and place them into a large boiling pot or instant pot. (We like to use an instant pot, set on the “soup” setting for 50 minutes of cook time). Add enough water to more than cover the grapes and bring the pot to a boil. After the water is boiling , let it simmer for about 30 minutes, then cool off for about an hour.
Step 2: After the mustang grapes have boiled and the skins have become dislodged from the fruit (the skin will turn pale when cooked enough), use a potato masher to reduce the fruit to dissolved pulp. Next, get a second, larger pot and place a pasta strainer over it and pour the contents into it, a little at a time. You may need to use your potato masher to help the juice drain through. After all the juice has been strained into the pot, let it cool off.
Step 3: If you like your grape juice without pulp, strain the contents of the second pot again through a fine strainer or cheese cloth; otherwise, now you can add sugar, stevia, or other sweeteners. We like to use a mix of stevia and sugar. You’ll be making a concentrate that will be added on a ratio of one part mustang grape juice to 6 parts water (or thereabouts), so you’ll want your mix to be fairly sweet.
Do this to your own taste by adding more sugar or sweetener until you get the desired sweetness. Each batch of grapes has its own degree of acidity and tartness, so it’s hard to know exactly how much sweetener you’ll need beforehand.
Step 4: After your mustang grape juice has thoroughly cooled, use a soup ladle and fill quart Ziploc bags, about half full. Remove the air and place them in a spill-proof container that will fit in your freezer. Alternatively, you can fill quart jars, which you can store in the fridge for about 30 days – any longer than that and you may make wine, so be careful how long you store unfrozen mustang grape juice!
Step 5: Enjoy! After the packs of mustang grape juice concentrate are frozen, all you have to do is empty them into a pitcher, fill with water and stir to dissolve the concentrate – once they have thawed.
When camping you can make a smaller batch using the method above, skipping the last steps to make a batch of juice for your bunch that’s much healthier than Kool Aid. Having an onboard freezer, we sometimes make the juice packs while we’re out camping and freeze them. See this post for our solar powered fridge/freezer install. Installing a fridge/freezer in our overland vehicle.
- Holden, Eddie (Author)
- English (Publication Language)
- 184 Pages - 06/30/2022 (Publication Date) - Mert Ruso Publishing (Publisher)
Making Mustang Grape Jelly
If you would like to take it one step further and make mustang – muscadine grape jelly, you can use the same procedure listed above in steps 1 and 2 and then follow the directions on a package of Sure Jell to make jelly or jam.
Note: Always try to practice “leave no trace” and don’t forage camping food in areas where wildlife may depend on scarce crops for survival. Respect state and national park policies on foraging for camping food and always avoid trespassing on private property.
In our next article we’ll talk about some other foods that we often collect while we’re out camping, including wild onions, prickly pear cactus (nopalitos) and “tunas” – cactus fruit, blackberries/dewberries, yucca blossoms and cattail roots. Again, please only forage for wild foods in those areas where it is allowed, and only when there is an abundance of the crop, so that you don’t deprive wildlife of a vital food source!
