The Cider Pressing Party

This weekend we went to a Cider Pressing Party. I've seen cider made at commercial orchards, but never tried it myself so it was a fun, new experience. We picked more than two bushels of apples from our own trees:

That in itself was fun. My husband climbed the trees and tossed them to me to catch. My son climbed the trees too and my daughter stood next to me posing to catch apples too. Adorable. Then went to a friend's house where they had some cider presses ready for guests to use and make our own apple cider.

My son helped me work the manual cider press. He tossed in the apples and I turned the crank.

Turning the crank chops up the apples into little chunks (skin and cores included) and collects them in a cheese cloth lined bucket.

Then, when it's full (or you're out of apples), you use the cheese cloth to wrap up the apple chunks, then put the bucket under the press. You then turn another lever to press the apple pulp....

and out flows the cider!



But it still has some apple pulp in it, so it gets filtered through some more cheesecloth before coming out the spout to fill your containers with the sweetest, freshest cider ever.

We ended up processing only half of our original 2+ bushels of apples, but here were our spoils: more than 4 gallons of apple cider to share and freeze.

We left our remaining apples at the party for others to use for their own cider. I'm looking forward to next year's cider party!



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