Pressing Matters

Fall just wouldn’t be complete without a cider pressing, so I  managed to finagle it in to the hustle and bustle of life last Friday evening by renting a press from our local homebrew supply shop with some friends.

Everyone jumped in and enjoyed turns at different stations. My friend’s daughter enjoyed getting in the thick of things and getting sticky with us, taking a break ever so often to sip a glass of fresh juice from the press. 

I had rounded up apples here and
there from some of my old gleaning spots around town, and then
discovered to my delight that we had about five old apple trees hiding
in the brush on our homestead from which I managed to round out enough
to get a couple carboys filled with juice. Our friends ended up hitting
the apple jackpot, stumbling upon an orchard who’s owners had more than
they could pick, and bringing bags and bags full. It’s always fun to see where everyone’s cider apples come from each year. I don’t know that I’ve ever had the same mix twice.

We kept the grinder grinding, and the juice a-squeezing, until we had every last apple pressed. This went a bit later into the evening than I had anticipated, but like I said, these were pressing matters.

We managed to squeeze out over 20 gallons of juice from those apples, with everyone’s carboys filled to make various versions of hard cider, and some gallon jugs for our friends’ fresh cider enjoyment.

And I am enjoying the little “blurping” sounds of my two carboys fermenting away. One with a high gravity Trappist yeast like last year, and one with a cider yeast awaiting the addition of ginger in the next day or so. It’s going to be good stuff.

Even when life gets busy, as it is given to do in the fall, I remind myself to take time to take care of pressing matters, for the rewards are sweet.