On two different days, between hikes, Bible Studies, Beth Tephila activities, etc. Ron Smith & I used our apple press to make homemade apple juice/cider. This was our 4th year to do this together. We work well as a team. Ron does the hard manual work while I wash the apples, cut out the bad spots, load the hopper on the press, help change the buckets collecting the juice & then pour the juice into our milk cartons after it's filtered through our linen dish towels. I also feed the left-over apple mash to our horses & sheep.
The apples are cut into little chunks when put through the hopper. When the chunked apples fill the wooden barrels, we put a couple of wooden tops over the barrel & start pressing the juice out of the apples. In the photo above, we had just finished the pressing, so the large screw was raised so we could remove the wooden tops & then the apple mash.
This was the finished product on the first day... 11 gallons & 16 half-gallons of juice. We have to leave quite a bit of head space in the milk cartons as the juice expands as it freezes. We didn't leave enough space once & I had a sticky mess all over my chest freezer to have to clean. We had nearly this much on our second day as well. Family & friends of Ron's & ours end up getting most of this juice/cider for gifts. It's a labor of love, organic & a wonderful purgative if you drink more than one glass at a time.
On two different days, between hikes, Bible Studies, Beth Tephila activities, etc. Ron Smith & I used our apple press to make homemade apple juice/cider. This was our 4th year to do this together. We work well as a team. Ron does the hard manual work while I wash the apples, cut out the bad spots, load the hopper on the press, help change the buckets collecting the juice & then pour the juice into our milk cartons after it's filtered through our linen dish towels. I also feed the left-over apple mash to our horses & sheep.
The apples are cut into little chunks when put through the hopper. When the chunked apples fill the wooden barrels, we put a couple of wooden tops over the barrel & start pressing the juice out of the apples. In the photo above, we had just finished the pressing, so the large screw was raised so we could remove the wooden tops & then the apple mash.
This was the finished product on the first day... 11 gallons & 16 half-gallons of juice. We have to leave quite a bit of head space in the milk cartons as the juice expands as it freezes. We didn't leave enough space once & I had a sticky mess all over my chest freezer to have to clean. We had nearly this much on our second day as well. Family & friends of Ron's & ours end up getting most of this juice/cider for gifts. It's a labor of love, organic & a wonderful purgative if you drink more than one glass at a time.
4 comments:
Cary, you are amazing! Your world is so intriguing!
A neighbour of mine grows concord grapes -- she called the other day to let me know she was going away for a month and the grapes will rot on the vine. Kinza and I went over and picked two huge bags of them but then we city kids had to figure out what to do with them before they turned to wine! We went online and learned how to make grape juice. It was such fun and tasted every bit as good Welches! Very satisfying!
How did you press out the grape juice?
Well, we set up an old galvanized iron drum in the garage, lined it with heavy plastic, dumped in the grapes, took off our shoes and socks and jumped in! Umm ...
Actually, we mashed them with a potato masher, simmered them for ten minutes, mashed them again and drained them through cheesecloth. I'm sure we only got out about 2/3 of the juice that was there but we got one large pitcher full and were satisfied!
Your juice sound wonderful and refreshing.Oh to come and enjoy a glass of it.It was nice to see how you and dad work at doing the process.
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