Pressing apple cider

Since H. and R. had picked so many apples on Friday and they were covering most of our counters, it was time for J. to begin his cider pressing activities. He has kind of fine tuned the process this year to make it more efficient. This is a good thing because the apple trees are loaded.

Step one is to grate the apples in a food processor.


The next step is to press them with that guillotine-shaped thing there in the center of the table. 


J. has it set up so that it has a jack pushing down a block of wood inside the strainer which is holding the grated apples. The key piece to this is the paint straining bag that holds the apples inside the strainer. It is so fine that only cider can come out. Plus they're cheap and washable. 


The strainer is sitting in a foil pan with a spout cut out of it.


In probably about an hour J. processed all the apples that had been picked and had about two gallons of cider. These early apples that he's using are pretty tart which makes a great tasting cider. Next up is to start some of it fermenting to make hard cider. The last time J. did this it was really good and we're looking forward to another batch. 

And a bonus picture:


These are the hamburger buns that G. made to go with the sloppy joes we had for dinner. They were very good. When my bulk guy stopped doing bulk orders I had to switch the type of wheat berries I bought. We're still using hard white wheat, but a slightly different variety. We were having trouble grinding them into a flour that we liked. I think we have figured out how to grind it so that it made appetizing bread. These turned out great and it's nice to be back in the bread business. 

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