We were fortunate to get 2 bins of apples, including Gala and Yellow Delicious this past week. This was a bit more than we had anticipated, about 75 bushels and luckily we had lots of helper this weekend!
We used our antique apple press (literally over 100 years old, but upgraded with an electric motor) to shred the apples, which were captured in food grade, sanitized buckets. Though the old apple press can be used for pressing, the capacity is so small that it would have taken us days to get this done.
For pressing, we use our wine basket press instead. And just as we would with grapes, we added rice hulls to the shredded apples, to increase the efficiency of juice extraction without the danger of pressing stems or seeds.It took all afternoon and late into evening before we had them all processed.
It made a lot of cider!
