Apple cider

[denali]

It's a little late but we made about 30 gal. of cider.

 My son took about 1/2 of it to make hard cider, it will be his first time so we will see how that  goes 

we pasteurized most of it (160 deg) but we kept a couple of gallons raw.  It was a lot of fun/work.



 

[gaddy]

looks like some good sider. wonder if you live in my neighborhood though as your kitchen looks just like mine as far as cabenets,counter tops, thermose without the top? havent seen a juicer in mine though. Kenn?

[Sumpnneedskillin]

You're a brave man doing that in the kitchen.  We always do it outside because of the mess that it makes.  It also makes it easier to dispose of the pulp. 

I have the cider press that my grandparents had.  It has two baskets so you can crush apples while pressing the pulp to make juice.  Things go a little faster that with a single basket set up.  My parents neighbor has one like your that they've hooked up to a small motor.  You can fill a basket in about 30 seconds.

We've done grape juice too.  Found that even with filtering you still wind up with quite a bit of sediment which isn't a problem.  However the juice winds up being quite tart and concentrated.  So we usually add about a quart of water to a quart of juice and about a 1/2 to 1 cup of sugar.

[NW-GSP]

Yell your son to do a small test batch for the hard cider, most of mine have ended up with way to high of a alc level, a good hard cider is around 4 percent and one that I made was 10

[the1rod]

Yell your son to do a small test batch for the hard cider, most of mine have ended up with way to high of a alc level, a good hard cider is around 4 percent and one that I made was 10

to high of an alcohol content? what! no such thing! bottoms up!

[BOWHUNTER45]

looks dang good to me 

[CastleRocker]

We hauled our cider press over to Yakima this year and spent the day making cider.  Made 105 gallons out of two bins of apples.  Good stuff, but I'm thinking that I need to put a motor on it for next year!  Lots of cranking, and pressing.  We don't pasturize any of it, I think it kills the taste when you do that.  We just freeze it. 

[denali]

Thanks all for the comments and tips.

Yes CastleRocker,  if I heard it once I heard it 1000 times, Dad you need to fab up a mortar on this thing