Fall Food Fun - Part 1 - Apple Cider

Fall means that apples are ripe. Time for cooking with apples. Some people make applesauce or apple butter. We make fresh cider. When we first moved to Virginia, unpasteurized cider was readily available, but public health concerns makes it nearly impossible to sell any more. So about eight years ago, we bought a cider press on eBay and started making it ourselves.

First stop is the apple tree. Sometimes we buy apples, but this year, our neighbors who have two apple trees in their yard let us harvest from their trees.

One of two bushels of apples.

Even though we got them off the tree, and not off the ground, the apples still needed a quick bath before we would process them. The bathtub is the best place to do this!

The apples have to be shredded before squeezing the juice out them. This is about the only thing we use our food processor for.

The shredded apples are placed in the cider press.

As the shredded apples are pressed, the cider flows out.

A closer look at the cider flowing from the press.

We strain the cider before pouring it into storage bottles.

The apple remains will get dumped onto our compost heap.

Enjoy!

Picking the apples took about 45 minutes. Washing took another 45 minutes. Processing the two bushels took about 3 hours. Clean up took another 30 minutes. But now we have five and half gallons (about 20 liters) to enjoy. Since fresh cider starts to ferment rather quickly, we put three gallons in the freezer. We'll probably try one more pressing to have fresh cider for Thanksgiving.