One fall thirty-five years ago, my dad made a cider press. We used it once or twice. The press has sat in my parent’s attic ever since. Then two years ago, when my parents moved to West Virginia, so they asked me if I wanted the press. I did, so the press was moved from their attic to my shed where it has sat ever since.
For no particular reason, I decided to try it out today. I collected about 15# of apples from the neighbor’s tree and ground them in a food processor. I then ran the ground up apples through the cider press and got 1 1/2 gallons (plus 1 pint) of cider. The press worked well but grinding apples in a food processor won’t scale.
I added 9 cups of sugar to the cider and stored it in a 1-gallon jug, a half gallon jug, and put the remaining pint into a 1-quart mason jar. To the cider in the mason jar, I added about 1/4 of a package of baker’s yeast. My plan is to use the cider in the mason jar as a starter if the natural yeast doesn’t take in the jugs.
