We were invited to press cider with some of our old friends from high school and some of their friends. The property we were at belongs to one of our high school friends’ grandparents. They don’t live there anymore and don’t grow or raise anything there (besides having a few fruit trees), but they have an old apple press and a lot of other treasures I would love to sift through someday.
The apple press is the double-tub style, very popular in the early 1900’s and very good at extracting a lot of juice from the apples. These types of cider presses were originally operated by a hand-crank, but somewhere along the way, someone in the family attached a simple motor to the apple crushing part of the press to save a lot of time and energy.
I was shocked at how easy it was. We threw in the apples whole, with the skin, stem, and sometimes even leaves on them. The crushing mechanism pulverized the apples and some juice came out at that point. Once the tub underneath was full, we switched the two tubs, and the full tub would then be pressed. This is where we had to do a little work in order to press all the juices out of the crushed apples. I could not believe how much juice came out of so few apples. And the color was phenomenal – almost pink it was so fresh. The juice was delicious straight out of the press, but straining it got rid of some of the larger bits of apple that made it through.
The cider was sweet yet tart, and tasted just like eating a fresh apple. I have no idea what kind of apples we used as they came from various people’s apple trees in their backyards, but they made delicious cider. If you have the chance someday, this is an experience you don't want to miss... and cider so fresh and apple-y, you won't believe how good it is!
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