After taking a year off in 2022, we decided that we were going to make cider again this year. Three crates of apples were ordered which allows us to make roughly 150 gallons of cider.
We invite a few friends and neighbors over and get to work. In four to five hours we will have 200+ jugs of cider pressed and filled with plenty left over for making hard cider.
The press is vintage, but we have upgraded it to be hydraulic. That makes pressing the apples so much more efficient. We drop a bushel of apples into the hopper to grind them up, that then falls down onto our filter paper. I’ve been buying maple syrup pre-filter paper for this (60″ x 36″ sized). After 6 layers of apples, or 6 bushels, we then move the stack under the press and slowly squeeze the apples to let the juice flow.
After the juice gets squeezed, it then gets transferred into a bottling bucket and from there placed into 1/2 gallon jugs.
Make sure to leave some head space, maybe 80% to 90% full. We then freeze the cider to preserve it. I’ve thawed cider two years after making it and it tastes just like the day we made it.
You can get a good idea on how much we fill the jugs from these photos. They will freeze perfectly.
Once finished, a quick clean up with a power washer and then we divvy up the spoils of our labor. There is always too much and we usually have to force people to take the jugs! Two cases will get me through a year and then some.
Always a good time and many of us look forward to it every year. Sometimes just a good excuse to get family and friends together and gathered doing a fall exercise is all that is needed.
Until next year!
