Cider Rules!

This Friday, August 13th we-- ( my mom, dad, Adam and my sister in law Kim) decided to make some apple cider! We wanted to make the most of what we had in the orchard this year and used up the rest of the Transparent apples to make apple cider. There were about 3 more buckets worth of apples on the tree and we were able to pick those up off of the ground after my Dad shook the tree several times. Adam had fun putting them into the buckets!

Then, we took the apples in the house to wash them with soap and water since they had been on the ground near where deer and bears frequent the orchard looking for extra apples and other goodies. We wanted to make sure they were clean before proceeding.

After that my Dad fired up the motorized cider press that my great grandfather Ernest Huffman built long ago! It still works great! You throw the apples into a hopper in the top and they are chopped into small bits which go into a slatted wooden barrel. Later, after the barrel is full you turn off the motor and begin to manually press the juice out of the apples. Adam got a chance to throw an apple into the hopper! He seemed to enjoy watching the press work when the motor was on, but he was a bit afraid of the pressing part!


Here is my Dad Dale pressing the juice out of the apples:


Later, after you press all of the juice out of the apples then it is time to strain, pasteurize and can the juice. We did all of this outdoors with 2 propane camp stoves.


One stove had the boiling lids, rings and canning jars on it and the other one had the juice on it.


This system worked quite well! We ended up making 16 quarts of juice that day! My sister in law Kim also helped us. It sure was fun and the juice was delicious!