Cider Days, Part Two

September 19, 2023September 17, 2023 / Apple Hill Cottage / 5 Comments

Click here to read Cider Days, Part One

The internet search for a local cider press yielded exactly one option: Sally’s Cider Press in Harmony, PA, about an hour and a half away. They only press on Saturdays through the end of October, so on Friday I got busy sorting and packing apples.

Those buckets of apples that had been stored downstairs for a month needed to be gone through, leaves clipped off, and bad ones thrown out. There were surprisingly few bad ones, but unlike when we did our own pressing and cutting, we couldn’t just cut out the bad spots for this cider pressing. Twisted, ugly apples were fine, and so was mild bruising, but any apples with rotten spots were culled. The truck was packed the night before–pressing starts at 8 AM and we figured there would be a line.

*Here’s the truck as we left on Saturday morning at 6:15, both of us about as crabby as those apples in the orange bucket…*

I also picked some now ripe apples from the Winesap tree, some from our old green apple tree that no one knows its variety. (Yellow transparent? Grimes Golden? Rhode Island Greening?–I really need an apple DNA website…) Mr. H.C. had picked the crabapple clean two days before, and I threw in some of the Jonathans and misshapen Honey Crisps that we had left.

We pulled up at Sally’s Cider Press at 7:45 with about ten vehicles in front of us: everything from a dump truck filled with apples to small SUV’s with 4-5 tote bags. Sally’s will press any amount with a minimum fee of $25.

It was a beautiful mid-September day with everyone shedding their hoodies about 10:00. It was just about then that it was our turn…

The owners were so nice to talk to–Mister complemented us on our variety and told us that they have been so busy this year, it’s been overwhelming. We talked about the amazing apple season and he noted that last year they were lucky to press three trucks a day. I agreed. Last year, I said, we had no apples. Sally cheerfully took our photo while we filled the containers. We ended up with 24 gallons of cider, for which we paid $78. It’s a solar powered mill that does UV pasteurizing, so if we wanted to, we could resell it.

Eleven gallons went into the freezer; I’m canning three or four gallons; I’m fermenting four gallons (First timer!); and that leaves 4-5 gallons to drink and give away. (And, of course, later we found another large bin of apples that had been sorted, stashed away, and forgotten.)

So both ways of cider making were fun — and exhausting in their own ways. We’ve still got apples on two trees, but it’s manageable now. And I’ll let you know how my fermenting experiment goes…

Cider Days, Part One

September 17, 2023September 17, 2023 / Apple Hill Cottage / 11 Comments

We knew we would have a huge apple harvest when the tree limbs started bending under the weight of the apples.

I picked off many, many, many little green apples, but I didn’t get the ladder out and cull the high branches. I should have!

This poor Winesap tree used to stand tall and reach for the sky. Now it may be bent and weeping forever…

In mid-August the main Winesap branch broke right off, and we had to emergency-pick seven five-gallon buckets of half-ripe apples. We had to prop up several other branches on other trees and pick others before they were quite ready. By late August I had 10 bags of pie filling in the freezer, yet I had not enough time to even think about making a fresh pie. All I managed were a couple of crisps.

We knew we had too many apples and that the answer was cider.

We had a vintage press that we’d never even thought of using. In fact, a couple of years ago Mr. H.C. varnished a tree round and added it to the top of the press. Suddenly it became a high table with benches out on the porch instead of dust catcher.

One evening as we were staring at it, Mr. H.C. said, “I think there’s another piece to this up in the attic.” Sure enough, within 15 minutes, we were staring at the other vintage piece–a hopper. Both were made by Red Cross Manufacturing Co. in Bluffton Indiana, probably around 1920-40. We spent the better part of the next week cleaning the cobwebs and crud with a garden hose, a power washer, and an air hose. We did a final rinse with vinegar and water; bought some cheesecloth sacks; some sanitizing tablets; and couple of new buckets. We were ready for the grand experiment…

What we didn’t know was that the chopper/hopper was made for grapes. It really didn’t like to chop up the apples as they should be. So we had to chop the apples by hand–the smaller the better–before the hopper would grind them at all. And it really didn’t like the hard, green semi-ripe apples. So we used pears, and the other ripe apples that had bad spots and we just cut out the bad spots. We cut, and chopped, and pounded, and pressed for about 10 hours over two days. And no one got stung.

We ended up with about 2 gallons of pear cider, and about 4 gallons of an apple-pear mix. I canned ten quarts, and pasteurized the rest for half-gallon containers. (To pasteurize cider, heat it to 160 degrees for 30 minutes.)

But we still had so many more apples, and honestly? We were exhausted.

Yes. We did this to ourselves. What were we thinking? But truthfully, this is the first year it’s ever been like this. We think it is a combination of a very good year for Pennsylvania apples (Every wild tree is loaded with apples!) and that our trees are just now coming into a very fruitful maturity–5 to 7 years.

So we started an internet search to find a local cider press… Stay tuned for Cider Days, Part Two

80. A bunch of bad apples…

August 24, 2013September 17, 2023 / Apple Hill Cottage / 5 Comments

Last year I showed you photo after photo of beautiful apples that were all picked from our trees here on Apple Hill.

It was such an amazing surprise because we just didn’t expect such beautiful apples from totally neglected trees.

There are also four pears in here somewhere…

Turns out, maybe neglect was the answer.

This past winter, we pruned the trees.

This past spring, we fertilized the trees.

And it rained.

And this year, this is what our apples look like.

Mildewed. Mutants. Miniscule.

My grandfather, Pa, would have said disgustedly, “Aagh, they’re just little bits a’nuthin’.”

I have such a vivid picture in my mind of him saying this, that he must have said it frequently. Although, I would guess he was talking about the peaches. Peaches are much more finicky than apples. AND he sprayed his apples. (And lived to the ripe old age of 98, despite being constantly around chemical spray, DDT, and other toxic poisons of the fifties and sixties. Plus, he spread butter on his potato chips and used the salt shaker for every piece of food on his well-filled plate!)

Yes, we know about dormant oil spray…Maybe next year we’ll try it.

But this year, we’ll be buying our apples…