it all started last year when we were invited to our roommate's family's
apple cider pressing party. we enjoyed ourselves so much that ever
since then, we've been scheming how to host our own. the time came this
year, as we are more or less settled into our new home and we have
luke's sister/brolaw/the adorable kids living with us. luke headed out
to
Oregon Heritage Farms,
where a crate of 800 lbs of jonagold apples was forklifted onto the
trailer! they sat at our house, as we invited our neighbors and made a
plan. we borrowed an apple press and chopper from the
kitchen share SE
and scoured our immediate neighborhood, handing out invites.
we
decided to do a trial run of the press (it was much smaller than we had
anticipated) and in doing so, realized that would take FOREVER because
it only pressed like 6 apples at one time. john and luke then started
talking, googling, and dreaming up their own homemade press that was
completed by the time saturday morning rolled around.
they used a
design they found online, which used a
bottle jack
and its hydraulic system to provide the pressure needed to squash the
apples. it worked like a dream. they also used a garbage disposal
(don't worry- it was cleaned and sanitized several times!) to mush up
the apples before we pressed.
by the end, we had quite the assembly
line going and everyone found something to do.
we maybe made it through
3/4 of the apples and ended up with about 36 gallons, not including the
gallons drank that day by all present. we also made tons of
applesauce, froze apples for pie filling and both dehydrators are
still working on apple fruit leather and dehydrated apple rings. we
had 20 families show up to help, and many of the people present spoke
Spanish, so Spanish was heard as much as the work table as English. we
all have had way too much cider this weekend, as exhibited by our sore
tummies, but are definitely already looking forward to next year!
