Pressing Cider

Production Line

With deer hunting and winter coming quickly it was a great weekend to do something with my apples which means pressing fresh apple cider.  Picking apples started around the first of October with the Haralson, Honeygold, and Fireside's remaining.  The McIntosh apples are earlier and the Wolf River's didn't turn out very good which is OK as they are not the best to begin with.  Trying to not let the work expand too much we started on Wednesday and finished on Saturday.  Although the process is relatively easy, it's a lot of work to get 3 gallons of cider per pressing.  This year I put together my hopper that fits on top of the apple grinder which really worked well.  I could almost get 5 pounds of cut apples in there. The next best thing I did was to add a crank to the grinder wheel. It came with what looked like a ship's wheel with 4 pegs sticking out to turn the grinder.  It was slow and awkward at best.  A stop at Fleet Farm for an aluminum bar and 2 small u clamps, a cut here a couple of holes there, add the crank handle I had laying around and wow, what a difference.  I had help my neighbor Lory with the same equipment without the crank and it was a lot more work. With the help of my wife Lyn and friends Todd and Mark we set up a production line to try and get the job done quickly.  We set up my fish cleaning board for cutting the apples which is important because I'm not fond of grinding in the worms, rotten and bruised spots, and the apple cores into the pulp that we were going to press.  The commercial guys simply grind up everything because in order to sell to the public they are required to pasteurize it and that really affects the flavor.  Being careful to only grind the best we quarter them, cut out the core and anything else that looks suspicious.  With 3 people cutting you can fill up the press in about 45 minutes and another 15 for pressing.  We would get a little less than 3 gallons of fresh cider a pressing, 2 a night for Wednesday and Thursday for a total of about 11 gallons.  On Friday it rained and with no one around I did the work myself and got about 2 1/2 gallons then on Saturday it was a full court press (sorry) and with the same crew as on Thursday we did 8 gallons for a total of about 22 for the season.  That was enough!!  Mark did his own pasteurization by mixing a little Angel's Envy Bourbon with the fresh apple juice, mighty delicious!  Our neighbor Todd got a pretty serious kit to brew stuff with so we started a batch of home made hard cider.  We were surprised that the sugar content of the pressed cider was high enough to yield a 7% alcohol base.  You can add more sugar and get that higher but we thought it would be best to just try an make some first before we start experimenting.

Apple Blossom Time??? 

One of the more interesting things that I saw this week was one of my apple trees actually had a blossom on it. Man, the exceptionally warm October, maybe it got really confused.  I am not holding out much hope that anything will become of this but it sure was interesting to see this. In addition to getting the cider pressed I also got a chance to bring my boat in for that one last fix on all those pesky issues that you find over the course of a summer.  Things  like cracked trim pieces, a small seam in one seat coming apart, check out the motor sputter at 1600 RPM's, and finish the warranty work on the trolling motor, and fix the short in the trailer wiring, all covered under my warranty.  In addition I am having 2 cleats added to the front of the boat as there is nothing to tie an anchor or secure mooring ropes to the front.  Also I am adding gas spring assists to the baitwell and cooler lids.  It really bothers me that every compartment lid has one except these 2 lids so when you open them they clunk against the inside gunnel edge and it is leaving a crease in the carpet. For the life of me I don't understand why they left them out but I'm sure there's a good reason. I have replaced my HDS 12 Gen 2 Touch with a Gen 3 so if you know anyone looking for a nice 12 Touch, let me know, it's a pretty good deal.  I ordered a device called the Lock n Haul which acts as a stabilizer for the motor while towing.  All my other boats had a transom saver device that went between the motor and the back roller and kept the motor from moving.  Although the Evinrude has a built in trailer support the motor can still move and hopefully this will help keep the motor straight and prevent additional vibration while towing.  As soon as I get the boat back I'll probably order some Ezee Steps for the boat trailer.  This summer while loading up my boat I slipped off the trailer step that came with it and fell back first onto the landing.  Thankfully I hit the water and it broke my fall rather than breaking a few bones but that was pure luck.  The Ezee Steps have quite a few endorsements from guys that are my age which like me, are not as agile as we used to be.  My boat is much larger than my previous one and it's a chore to get in and out easily.

Sunday was spent with Jack checking out our deer hunting areas and I'll probably go back up again this weekend and set up a few stands.  Having the boat out of the way gives me an opportunity to get things more organized in the pole shed.  The lawn mower needs to have the leaf bagger attached as the trees are finally shedding their foliage after a wet year and warm fall.   It's suppose to be in the 60's next week however daylight savings time ends Sunday morning which means I'll just have to leave work earlier to get everything done.