First cider
Matt's van, loaded with 715 lbs of apples
I went up to Battle Ground, Washington yesterday morning with my neighbor Matt to pick up about 715 lbs of apples from a grower. These were ‘B-grade’ apples, with some worms, some scab, fully organic, and only costing us $0.40 per pound. Nonetheless, they looked fabulous with only a few worms and a few bits of scab here and there; almost all of the fruit was nice with no bad spots (I only had to cut parts out of three or four). Plus, I was going to make cider, so what did I care how they looked? The three apples types included in the group were Jonagold, Honeycrisp, and one called Golden Carnifex, or something like that. I had never heard of the last one, so have no ideas about it, other than it tasted GREAT!
One interesting point about growing organic apples is the use of kaolin clay to control insects. It’s non-toxic to mammals, but keeps the pests from laying eggs on the apples. The farmer we bought from said that it allowed him to have 10,000 lbs (out of 12,000 lbs) of ‘A-grade’ apples, and was expecting to get up to 95% in the next few years. Definitely something to keep in mind for growing apples at home.
Of the 715 lbs of apples, I took about 215 lbs for pressing into cider, for the final goal of hard cider. We went in on a cider press with several neighbors and their friends recently, and this was our first chance to put it to use. The cider I made had mostly Jonagold (about 185 lbs), which was blended with 20 lbs of the Golden Carnifex and 10 lbs of the Honeycrisp. All told, we got about 13 gallons (roughly 16.7 lbs/gallon) with a sugar content of 14.2% (based on a refractometer reading). This was pasteurized by heating to 145 °F and letting it sit and cool down overnight. My co-worker swears that 140 °F is all you need for pasteurizing cider, so this should suffice for killing off the e.coli bacteria, as well as removing any wild yeasts and acetobacter that can lead to spoilage and vinegar. As of this morning, it’s down to 88 °F, so I added 3 Tbls of pectic enzyme to clear out the pectins. Once it cools down more (to about 66 °F), I’ll add yeast. I read several threads on various homebrewing forums about which yeast to use, and settled on Lalvin EC-1118, which is a Champagne/Prise de Mousse yeast. Ale yeast is also OK, and some people claim that simple bread yeast will work, but most say to avoid it. Anyway, we’ll see how it turns out in a few months…
 The apples had a clay coating to keep the bugs down, which I opted to wash off before pressing. |
 The apples were ground to a fine mush before pressing. |
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