Cider Making Days

There is a cider mill 4 miles from my house.  Literally. 4 miles!  I've known about this place for years. 

 

Have I ever visited it?  No. 

 

Why?  Just never got around to it. 

 

Sounds kinda familiar for a lot of things I'd like to do or accomplish in life.  So, at 32 years of age, I knocked this one off my bucket list and visited that cider mill. 

 

And guess what? 

I loved it.  The kids loved it.  The hubby loved it. 

 Everyone who has tasted the cider loved it.

 

I do believe we have just started a new fall tradition.

 

 

Between my friends tree that was loaded, my sister's tree and an uncle's tree, we were able to get our hands on 20 bushels of apples - all completely free and none of them treated with pesticides.  YAY!

 

You pull up to the mill and dump your apples, or watch your dad dump the apples, in the outside conveyor belt.

(nice, Jake, nice.)

 

They travel up the conveyor belt and drop onto a ramp that runs the apples thru a washer and sorter.  How it sorts out the bad apples, I have no idea.  Not even gonna pretend or guess.

 

After their washing they drop onto another conveyor belt that takes the apples up to the third story where they go through a grinder.

 

We weren't allowed to go up the third floor to see the grinder which was a bummer.  But after the apples are chopped into pieces they somehow get pushed down the blue shoot below.  The guy stands there moving the shoot and raking the apples into an even layer.

 

 Here's a video of what happens next:

(the horrible humming noise you are hearing is not your computer.  Its the generator that is used to turn the press.)

 

 

 

 

At the very end of the video you catch a small glimpse of the cider going down the tube into a big vat.

 

From there it is ready to be jugged.  Have a seat.

 

And that, my friends, is how you end up with 34 gallons of cider in 40 minutes time.

 

The best part of the whole experience?  Pressing the apples only cost $1.50 a gallon and one bushel of apples makes about 3-3.5 gallons of cider.  So if you have any friends with apples to spare, treat yourself to some awesome and cheap family time and go visit the Pettisville Cider Mill.

 

In case you're wondering why there are still apples in the van, there is a reason.  Cider made this way is not pasteurized.  It needs to be kept in a refrigerator or be frozen.  We had to go on a delivery spree with just the 10 bushels we had pressed to be sure everyone got fresh cider.  Had we pressed all 20 bushels we would have had to go buy a fridge to store it all.