Ciderfest 2023

Well, Folks, we definitely had a good time at the Ciderfest. It was not so big as we had thought (feared) it might become, and that was just as well, because it still took us 8 hours from first press to the last jar sealed.

Of course the process began weeks ago, really, with collecting apples. Some were frozen, but once the freezers were full the rest were just stacked in boxes in the car port, where they were cool enough to keep until cider day.

Then the night before all the canning equipment had to be collected and washed.

We had spent most of the week cleaning up the shop and making it a suitable space, because it was going to be rainy and windy.

We got started about 11:15 with pressing the apples. The frozen apples, as always, were the easiest to press because the cells had already ruptured in the freezer.

The rest of the apples had to be chopped small and fed through the sausage grinder…

Or dropped in the hopper of the big grinder.

The little press is the perfect height for the kids to operate until it reaches a point of too much pressure, and then a grownup has to torque it down the rest of the way.

Very soon we had enough cider made that we could begin the canning process. This is the part that takes the longest by far. Kathleen spearheaded that part of the operation.

It involves heating each pot of cider up until it reaches 190 degrees F, and then ladling it into hot jars. The jars are then water bathed for 15 minutes. The quarts could be done inside in one of the two water bath canners, but the half gallons had to be done outside in the propane turkey frier, and those could only be done three at a time.

Working through the cider, gradually the collection of full jars gets bigger and bigger.

To make things run faster we moved an electric stove that we got for free from offer-up last year into the laundry room and plugged it in to the drier outlet. OF course, it was not quite that simple. It involved wiring it for a new plug to fit the outlet, which Adam had to go out and get at the last minute on Saturday mornign and wire in while we were already pressing the cider, but it worked, it cut processing time in half, and it didn’t burn the house down. Win!

Meanwhile, in the shop, the cutting, grinding and pressing continued.

All of that was done by 2 PM, when we broke for lunch (burgers and dogs). Then it was just a matter of grinding through all the rest of the canning.
Counting the jars sent home with people who stopped by to help, the final count was 34 gallons of cider.

Great day of family, friends, and fun. Hope to see y’all there for next year!