Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Apple Cider!


Shana and Hallel came to the farm yesterday to work for a few days. They are a huge help as we prepare to  tuck the garden in and finish mowing the mulch hay. They brought an apple "slusher" and cider press as well as several hand-picked bushels of apples from a farm near their home in Rindge that is on the market and essentially abandoned. With Naish's new friend, Camden, and Don as the experienced apple presser, we lit a small bonfire and got to work in the wood shop on cider-making last night (a school night to boot!). Great fun and superb cider!
(I apologize for some of the fuzzy pics as I was trying to avoid using the flash in the fluorescent lit space.)

Jack picking the just-right apples
Shana, Hallel, and Art transferring the apple "slush" into the press bucket
Apple "slush" before the pressing
Art monitoring the cider progress
Apple "slush" gets pressed by a board that's hand-cranked
And the "crankers" hard at work
Inspecting the machinery
Adding the last "umph"
And the cider pours out! It rather gushes which surprised me.
A fuzzy pic of the product. When all was done we had perhaps pressed 15 gallons!
So yummy! Shana and Hallel are taking two of these large 5 gallon jugs to ferment for some rip-roaring Hard Cider!

6 comments:

patrice said...

YUM, I can imagine the fragrances!

linda said...

that's what i was going to say....tom & leon & mark got the john deere bucket way up in our trees last week and picked all the rest of the beauties......just baking with them here, thought about apple butter, but no thanks on jars and boiling........some good recipes for apple cake though....lucky yankee boys!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Unknown said...

so exciting! maybe you should have a tv channel or show!
and thanks for your comments jeannie :-), I'm so happy when I see them, hope you like the chinese news! what about having some spanish blogs, or rokeby blogs, hu?

Cappy said...

yes,we will think about a blog from spain and then maybe do something about it,that´s a good idea! love those pics and stories from china by the way lili. how do you really know what you are eating there? does it matter to you? besos,cappy( oh, had to leave this message here as we can´t answer lili´s blog)

Jean Donnelly said...

Hi Cappy et al....
So I think this is how you respond to Lili's blog....first, I joined Tumblr, and then at the top of her blog in the right hand corner it says "Follow" (or unfollow as the case may be) and I became a "follower." Then, next to the "follow" icon is the "dashboard". If you click Dashboard Lili's most current post (along with other folks') shows up and there it gives you the options to "reply" or "reblog." If you click "reply" you can send her a message about her blog!
Would LOVE a blog from Spain! Please do. And one from Virginia too! It's fun, ladies, and I could see what you all are up to as well! Thanks for checking in. xo Jean

Unknown said...

oh thx Jean for that little explanation! actually I don't even really how to do it myself cauz I have such limited access, everything is censored, so I have to use a proxy, but I can't access any settings... I'm not Lisbeth Salander yet!
But blogging is definitely fun! very "short term motivating"!

Btw is that cider going to be like alcohol cider? that's what you mean by hard cider? that's really cool then! how are you going to call it?