Rainy Day: Perfect for Bottling Cider

We welcomed rain today: the first real rain we've received all summer. Today is the first day in the four months I've been logging rainfall that the gage recorded more than an inch! When that happens, the central tube fills to the top and lets the overflow bleed into the surrounding volume. Tomorrow morning I'll have to add this extra rain to 1.00 inches to obtain the total. 

Siphoning Dark Hoppy Cider Into a Bucket So Maple Syrup Can be Added Without Disturbing the Layer of Yeast on the Bottom of the Carboy

Decanting Clear Apple Cider That Has Fermented 10 Months

When it's pouring is a perfect time to bottle cider. I chose to siphon both a carboy of hard hoppy apple cider, that also had some brown sugar added to make it around 9% alcohol, and one of pure apple juice, now 6% still cider. I added 11 ounces of maple syrup to each four gallon batch to carbonate these drinks in their bottles. It will take a month or so for the yeast to convert the sugar in the syrup into the carbon dioxide that makes the bubbles.

Illustrating the Color of the Pure Apple Cider 

Basement Shelf Holds 35 Bottles of the Hoppy Cider (Left) and 37 Bottles of Plain Cider

Saving Food: Apples, Cabbages, Peppers and Beans

It's November 17 and we still have a few dozen bushels of great tasting apples on four Granny Smith trees. 

One of Four Granny Smith Apple Tree Without Leaves But with Hundreds of Apples

We've given away many bushels, dehydrated more and have quite a few bushels waiting for processing. The few heavy frosts we've had haven't touched them. It's hard for me to see them go to waste, though they do help deer and other wildlife thrive. We have a year's supply of applesauce canned and 30 gallons of cider brewing or bottled but have run out of brewing vessels. Every few days I slice and dehydrate 40 or so apples into two gallons of chips. I'll probably pick another ten bushels before they freeze and store them under cover in the garage where I dehydrate them. When it gets way below freezing, they and the dehydrator will need to be transferred to the basement. 

Gallon Bags of Dehydrated Apple Slices and Other Drying Experiments

Three 5-gallon Carboys & Two 6-gallon Pails of Juice Fermenting 

Cabbages did not fair as well as the apples. I had to trim off the top leaves that were damaged by frost. The rest of the heads were still very crisp and hopefully will turn into great sauerkraut (white cabbage) and kimchi (red cabbage). The kimchi also has a few pounds each of garlic and sweet and jalapeño peppers mixed in for flavor. We have a total of seven gallons of these raw veggies slowing fermenting in the garage to extend their time to maturity while we eat more than a dozen fresh cabbage heads and pounds of peppers.

A Few Red Cabbages with Top Leaves Trimmed Off

Cross Section of A Red Cabbage

Five and Three Gallon Crocks Filled with Fermenting Cabbage and Other Veggies. Tops Are Weighing Down Plates That Keep Veggies Submerged in Brine.

Beans are easier to preserve than fruits and vegetables that have to be cut, shredded or squeezed. They simply have to be shelled and spread out to dry. Peppers, too, can be hung out to dry, and look good in one corner of the kitchen. Need a little heat in a dish? Pull one off and crumble it into the pot!

Scarlet Runner Beans in Various States of Drying

A Ristra of Alice's Favorite Hot Pepper (from a fellow seed saver) Hanging Out to Dry

Bottling Hard Cider

I finally got around to bottling last year's cider that has been resting in the basement for almost a year. To five gallons, I added 24 ounces of maple syrup before bottling it in 40 flip-top bottles. The most significant work involved washing and sterilizing the glass, removing and scrubbing the rubber washers and then reinstalling them. These bottles have been in storage for years, having come across them, empty, at a large event that featured European beers.

Forty 16 Ounce Bottles of 2014 Hard Cider Ready for Final Fermentation. Extra Empty Bottles on the Counter Behind.

In a few weeks, it'll be time to pasteurize them so they maintain a bit of sweetness and don't explode from too much carbonation. The 6.5 gallon brewing bucket is now ready for this year's second batch.

Processing Apples

Anticipating the largest apple harvest in over a decade, I modified an exercise bicycle so that I can grind up apples by pedaling with my feet, while cutting up the apples by hand and removing bad parts. We pick apples for eating and those used for pies and baked goods, but it takes too long to pick the dozens of bushels ripening this year. We need a way to squeeze the juice out of apples we pick off the ground that's quick and easy. Adding a second shaft to the exercise bike makes it easy to change the gear ratio between the pedals and the drum that grinds fruit. If it's easy to do, make the drum turn faster than you pedal. If it's difficult, gear it down.

Exercise Bike Closeup Showing Intermediate Shaft That Allows the End Drive to Rise Well Above the Pedals and an Easy Way to Change Gear Ratio.

The drum I chose came from an auction many years ago and is welded to a shaft, all stainless steel. The drum has grooves that quickly grind up apples but then fill up and require lots of hand work to continue working. I tried different thickness plates for the drum to mash apples against, but all three didn't change throughput. They all took a lot of work to enable it to continue mashing apples.

View of Drum Showing Grooves Filled With Mashed Apples

The Pedal-powered Apple Masher Showing Processing Table and Feeding Chute but Not a 5-Gallon Pail that Receives the Mashed Apple

Once you have many pails filled with ground up apples, there is the task of separating the juice from the rest. I built a conventional slat-lined cylinder that I hoped would let liquid quickly flow down to a tray that emptied into a bucket. I used a 12 ton hydraulic press to push on a tightly fitted piston. The first quart came out very quickly but then slowed way down until almost nothing more came out. Even with many additional tons of pressure on the top, very little cider came out the open strips between the slats. With over 5 gallons of mash in the cylinder, less than a gallon seeped out in 14 hours, periodically pumping the hydraulic ram. It seems that the volumes of pulp near the openings between the slats quickly drained away and blocked liquid from the interior from getting through.

Hydraulic Press with Oak Slat Cylinder Filled with Apple Mash and Pressed for 14 Hours. Only Material Near the Openings Lost Liquid, the Rest Was As Wet As It Went In.

 I searched Craig's List for options and found an ancient grape crusher for $50 available two hours away. I brought it home, disassembled and cleaned it, but decided it would take a few days to both connect it for pedal power and also modify it. The two drums that rotate at different speeds are open at each end and were filled with dried grape stems, seeds and skins. These need to be sealed so they can be readily cleaned without disassembly.  

Top View of a Fruit Crusher. The Two Drums Rotate At Different Speeds So They Clean Each Other.

Side View of Fruit Crusher Showing Drive Handle and Spring Loading Mechanism That Pushes One Drum Against the Other.

My goals for the weekend were to start five-gallons of apple cider fermenting and to make a large batch of apple sauce. The quickest way to do both is to use a squeezer that separates pulp from skins, stems and cores. 

"Squeezo" Fruit Grinder That Separates Apple Peel, Stems and Cores From Pulp/Juice.

To remove the apple bits from the juice I made five platens that had hollow cores and tops with lots of holes that allowed juice to flow unimpeded. A gallon of apple pulp was loaded into a frame lined with a piece of cloth ten times the size of the platen. After folding over all sides of the cloth, the frame was removed and another platen placed on top and the process repeated. Once the five sandwiches of platens and wrapped apple pumice were complete, it took only ten minutes of pushing slightly on the hydraulic press to turn the layers of apple to moist fruit leather. It took two pressings using five 5-gallon pails of apples to make five gallons of cider.

Hydraulic Press With Receiving Tray, Five Platens, and a Frame for Holding a Cloth While Filling with Two Inches of Apple Pulp. The Cloth Is Folded Over in Every Direction and the Frame Removed. When All Layers are Complete, A Solid Plate Is Placed on Top and the Stack Compressed by the Hydraulic Cylinder. The Juice Flows Into the White Tray on the Bottom and Drains out a Hole into a Bucket on the Ground.

I had to process about eight more gallons of apples to make enough juice to make three gallons of moist fruit leather into proper consistency apple sauce. Cleanup took only a few minutes to rinse the metal parts in water. The cloths were folded, placed in a plastic bag and frozen until next batch. After adding some sugar and cinnamon, the processed apples made 30 pint jars of applesauce.

Next Year's Supply of Apple Sauce.