About two weeks ago, we picked as many apples as our ladder could help us reach in the old apple tree. I then set about making apple pies, which I froze. I also made and canned applesauce, apple pepper jelly, and apple cinnamon jelly. The two kinds of jelly I made using apple scraps. Then came the apple cider. Paul helped me bring the cider press and apple grinder into the kitchen, which I then cleaned thoroughly. We find it easier and more sanitary to press our cider in the kitchen rather than outside. This time of year, there are too many hungry wasps around to be able to press cider outdoors.
Above is the grinder. We bought the apple press and grinder in 2019 and have pressed cider every year since. We bought both from Pleasant Hill Grain, located in Nebraska. The grinder is a Weston apple and fruit crusher, and the press is a Maximizer 36-liter stainless steel fruit press.
Of course, before we could grind up and press the apples, we had to quarter and clean them. I always cut off the stems and blossoms so that any debris found in those ends gets removed.
The white plastic containers I'm using are 12-quart Sterilite washbasin containers that I found at Walmart. They're stackable and sized just right for harvesting and processing produce from our garden, trees, and shrubs.
Once all the apples we planned to press were cleaned and quartered, we moved over to the grinder. Grinding the apples first before pressing them allows you to extract more juice. It also makes the pressing process a little easier. We ended up with four plastic containers full of ground apples.
Below, the ground apples have been placed into the cider press, filling it about 3/4 of the way to the top. That left us enough room to tie the pressing bag closed and insert the heavy pressing plate.
Above, you can see that the juice had begun to flow into a jar before we even lowered the pressing plate.
It only took a few hours to get all the steps done, from cleaning and quartering the apples to grinding and pressing them into cider and putting the juice into the refrigerator. We ended up with about two and a half gallons of cider. We each drank a small glass that evening, toasting our successful effort. The apples we pressed are called winter apples, and the cider from them is a mix of tart and sweet that is delicious.
Over the next two days, I canned the cider so it would be shelf stable. When water bath canning apple cider, it's only processed for a short time, so it retains its lovely flavor and has more nutrition than using a canning process that lasts longer. We canned one batch using quart-sized jars and the other batch in pints. Since there's just two of us at home now, the pint-sized jars are a better choice.
We've got about 16 quarts of apples still to process. I'm not sure what I'll make with them; maybe apple butter? I'm also considering trying to make apple cider vinegar for the first time.
A few days ago, we picked most of the pears from our pear tree, and so soon I'll need to can pears and we'll be pressing pear cider.
Of course, we're also enjoying eating fresh apples and pears. Yum! 🍎😋🍐
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