cider time

thanks to generous neighbors and abandoned local factories with trees dripping with apples, we recently picked approximately 3 bushels or so of the fine fall fruit.  some have been dried (and more will be dried) to stock us up, at least briefly, on apple rings.  some will no doubt go into pies, and maybe there will be a bit of applesauce.  mostly though....... cider.

last year papa figured out how to make a simple press out of scrap lumber, a car jack, and some odds and ends.  we made five gallons of hard cider and about three gallons of delicious drink-it-right-away cider.  this year, so far, there's just the five gallons in the fermenting bucket but we think we'll be able to do another press soon to put away a bit of regular cider as well.  considering that last year we didn't press until mid-October, I'm betting we have time for some more apple fun.

first, we give them a quick rinse.  next, they get quartered and then run through the food processor to turn them into more of a pulp.  we fill brewing bags with the pulp and make a kind of layered sandwich out of wooden boards and bags filled with pulp.  and then we press.  repeat this process many times over and voila! a bucket o' cider.

there was plenty of tasting.  yum, yum, yum.