Hi, I'm Tricia, an organic gardener. I grow organically. For a healthy and safe food
supply,
for a clean and sustainable environment,
for an enjoyable and rewarding experience.
It's apple season,
apple cider is a great fall and winter treat.
Today we will be making some home blended sweet apple cider.
To make cider
you'll need a crusher,
a press,
some cheesecloth, a five-gallon bucket and some containers to put your cider in.
These half gallon canning jars work great.
Your utensils should be made of glass,
plastic, stainless steel or unchipped enamel.
Other types of metals can react with the acid in the fruit.
Making cider is a great way to utilize some of your blemished apples.
And a bushel which is about forty five pounds will yield roughly three gallons
of apple cider.
One of the fun things about making your own cider is blending it to your own taste.
Apples are not like grapes, a single variety usually doesn't taste as good as if you
blend different varieties together.
Different apples have different flavor profiles often described as sweet,
sharp and bittersweet or bitter sharp.
A good starting ratio is half sweet,
thirty five percent sharp and fifteen percent bittersweet or bitter sharp.
Good sweet cider apples
are ones like Golden Delicious, Calville Blanc
and Ashmead's Kernel.
Some sharp apples are Gravenstein,
Cox's Orange Pippin and
and Spitzenberg.
Bittersweet and bitter sharps are apples like
Dolgo crab apple,
Cortland,
and Newtown.
The most important thing is to use a blend of both sweet apples and tart apples.
Don't use all of one or all of the other.
It's a good idea to keep track of what varieties you've blended in what ratios
and then
you can keep adjusting until your recipe is perfect.
I'm using three pounds of Foxwhelp and 3 lbs of Porter's
Perfection which are the bitter sharp
and I'm using 2 lbs of Winter Banana, nine pounds of Granny Smith which are
the sharp,
and then twelve pounds of Wickson and sixteen pounds of Red Delicious are the sweet.
apples.
Most of these apples are rare heirloom varieties grown right here Nevada County
by Winter Creek Antique Apples.
Use only ripe apples, avoid immature apples or apples that have been
on the ground for more than a day.
To check if an apple is ripe
all you have to do is twist it clockwise and if it comes off readily, it's ripe.
Another test is to cut the apple open,
if the seeds are dark brown the apple is ripe.
Sweat your apples for better flavor and easier juicing by putting them in a
clean dry environment for about a week or so.
If the apple yields slightly to a firm squeeze it's ready.
Thoroughly clean your utensils, crusher and press with hot soapy water,
and wash your apples.
Quarter the apples and cut out any bruises or blemishes if you wouldn't eat it, it
shouldn't go in your cider.
And don't use rotting or decayed apples either.
Run your apple through a crusher,
the crushed apples are called pomace.
Line the tub of your press
with cheesecloth.
This will filter out any seeds or stems or skin
but it will allow the little particles of
pectin
and other flavorful elements
to stay in with the juice.
Place a container below the spout of the press,
a funnel might be helpful if your jar has a narrow throat.
Add the pomace and press it right away.
Fold the cheese cloth
over the pomace
and then add the pressing blocks
like so.
Then place a set of wooden blocks as close as possible to the shaft and perpendicular
to the gap in the plates.
Keep adding blocks perpendicular to the blocks below until they are higher
than the top of the barrel.
Put on the ratchet assembly and rotate clockwise to lower it until it touches the
blocks, you want the lever mechanism to be on your right.
Place the ratchet insert into the slot. The pointed end of the ratchet insert should
be down and to the left.
Rotate the assembly until the lever mechanism is to your left place another
ratchet insert into the remaining slot.
Screw the lever handle into the lever mechanism now you're ready to start
pressing the apples. Don't go too fast this process is going to take about a half
hour no matter what kind of press you're using.
So you can enjoy the music.
When the ratchet assembly reached the top of the barrel,
raise the assembly and add more blocks.
Your pressed out pomace has a lot of uses.
Your fresh cider will keep up to two weeks in the refrigerator. If you want a
longer shelf life you can pasteurize it,
make hard cider or freeze it.
For more information I suggest reading this guide Making the Best Apple Cider.
So plant an apple tree, make some cider and grow organic for life!