Time sure passes quickly. At this time last year, we were just taking our little boys home from the hospital. (See post archives for comparison photos). Now we're trying to figure out how to keep them out of stuff. Oh well, life is life. Fall is a wonderful time, it brings to mind pumpkins, the smell of cinnamon and....apples. There is nothing like biting into a crisp, sweet, juicy apple to remind you that fall has arrived. This year, we wanted to do more with apples than to pick them and eat them, we wanted to enjoy the taste of fresh apples all year long. So we decided to make apple cider.
First, we canvassed the neighborhood for people with apples on their trees. Then Aaron would knock on their door and ask if we could pick their apples. All of them said yes. It isn't too surprising that they would. What was surprising is how many people just let their apples go to wast. The picture above is Aaron up in a tree picking apples
David and Donald were our quality control specialists. They tasted a random selection of apples to make sure they were tasty enough to use.
After picking all our apples, we cleaned and dried them. This wasn't a hard job, but it was kind of long, and my fingers got kind of cold. We picked a truckload of apples. Well, Aaron picked a truckload of apples
The last steps were to grind the apples and them press the juice out of them. Luckily, one of our neighbors let us use their apple press. We would put our apples in the hopper in the top, then we would turn a handle which would then grind all the apples. The ground up apples would fall into a bucket (one in the back). When that was full, we would transfer that bucket to the front of the press. Then, you guessed it, we would press the apples. The juice would travel to the front of the press where there was a hole, it would then fill our five gallon bucket. After we had enough juice, we would fill up our jugs and the last step was to freeze it all. All in all, we got 22 gallons of apple cider...so if you're ever in town, stop on by, we love to share.
We celebrated the boys' first birthday on the same day that we made apple cider. I'm sure they enjoyed their party. It wasn't much, but then we decided, hey, how much are they actually going to remember? Also, we didn't take many pictures, because we were rushed, Aaron went back to work on the same day as the birthday.
First, we canvassed the neighborhood for people with apples on their trees. Then Aaron would knock on their door and ask if we could pick their apples. All of them said yes. It isn't too surprising that they would. What was surprising is how many people just let their apples go to wast. The picture above is Aaron up in a tree picking apples
David and Donald were our quality control specialists. They tasted a random selection of apples to make sure they were tasty enough to use.
After picking all our apples, we cleaned and dried them. This wasn't a hard job, but it was kind of long, and my fingers got kind of cold. We picked a truckload of apples. Well, Aaron picked a truckload of apples
The last steps were to grind the apples and them press the juice out of them. Luckily, one of our neighbors let us use their apple press. We would put our apples in the hopper in the top, then we would turn a handle which would then grind all the apples. The ground up apples would fall into a bucket (one in the back). When that was full, we would transfer that bucket to the front of the press. Then, you guessed it, we would press the apples. The juice would travel to the front of the press where there was a hole, it would then fill our five gallon bucket. After we had enough juice, we would fill up our jugs and the last step was to freeze it all. All in all, we got 22 gallons of apple cider...so if you're ever in town, stop on by, we love to share.
We celebrated the boys' first birthday on the same day that we made apple cider. I'm sure they enjoyed their party. It wasn't much, but then we decided, hey, how much are they actually going to remember? Also, we didn't take many pictures, because we were rushed, Aaron went back to work on the same day as the birthday.
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