Today I needed to go to my parent's house. It was about 8:30 am and high 30's outside. What is my 80 year old father up to? He has drug out grandfather's near century old cider press and is already a few gallons into the cider making process. 5 gallon buckets of apples (and knowing father, a few pears) that have fallen (or forced to fall) from their untold amount of apple trees are ready to meet their fate.
In my younger years, the press was down at grandfather's farm. We used to make enough cider to drown Tremont. There was a way to hook the press wheel via a belt to the power take off on the small Ford tractor and you could crush tons of apples in no time. Now come to think of it, I don't remember THAT many apple trees at the farm...must have been "imported".
The press was old when I was a kid. It is basically iron, wood and tin. Dad says it was old when he first saw it in the mid 50's. It was made in Springfield, OH by the Platt Company and has mid 1800 patent dates forged into the steel grinder parts. You dump one of those five gallon buckets into the hopper. You turn the big handle and the first round of grinders just busts the apples up. The second set does something between chopping them up and grinding them and then the mutilated apples fall into a "bucket". It really isn't a bucket, it is vertical wood slats held together with wire and bits of tin that make it look like a topless and bottomless bucket. You slide this to the far side of the machine and apply the press. As you screw down the press, the apple juice seeps out the sides through the slats, out the bottom and a little out the top. The juice runs down to an opening to where you set a pan, etc. to catch it. The five gallon bucket makes about a gallon of cider.
At this point, it is fresh, unfiltered, unfined, unpasteurized apple juice. A couple days at October outdoor garage room temperature and it starts to ferment a bit and it gets "a bite". Then filter it to get out some of the sediment and stick in the fridge. I'm guessing that is against some health department regulation but I'm sure going to work with the flu is more dangerous to public health.
But this IS, WITHOUT DOUBT, the BEST apple cider made....anywhere. You can have Tanners and all the rest, but once you've had this apple-icious goodness, the rest tastes like apple juice from a can. It more resembles Woodchuck Dark Cider than anything else, but much heavier.
So, out in the damp cold, my father, my nephew and I were grinding the heck out of apples. For my effort sits a gallon milk jug on my counter of this fine nectar, aging, like a fine vintage bottle of Bordeaux (hopefully, the vintage Bordeaux would be in a dark cellar somewhere) evolving into cidery goodness. MMMMMMM...... and you all should be V-E-R-Y jealous.
On a side note. Both of my parents have made funny comments lately. Today, my father quipped several times how
OLD the cider press is. Then he mentioned "It is probably 80 or 90 years old". Obviously, the press is old at 80, but not him. He's still planning on living to 100. Good. That means 20 more years of health department violating apple cider.
Mother said "those older women in their 70s and 80s......". She is 72. I guess she meant
LATE 70's....not the "young hen" EARLY 70's like her.
