Fall’s Sweetest Harvest
(Page 3 of 4)
October/November 2007
By John Stuart
The Correll two-basket model uses an electric motor-driven grinder over one basket, while next to it, and on the same wooden frame, a hand-operated screw-press is located over the second basket. With this setup it’s easy for two people to work together. The Jaffrey press uses a hand-operated grinder mounted over a single large basket. With an efficient cast-iron flywheel as part of the handle, the cider fancier can crank with one hand and feed apples into the grinder with the other, or the job can be shared by two operators.
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The actual grinding mechanism is similar on both models, and both produce a similar amount of juice. Slightly overripe apples will make a gallon of juice from 18 to 22 pounds of fruit. Hard, just-ripe apples, which are less juicy, give a gallon per 24 to 28 pounds of fruit. Each press can produce 1 to 2 gallons per hour, including washing, grinding and pressing, depending on how many people are helping.
Our recommendation: If you love the taste of apple cider, you should definitely try making your own. Beg, borrow, build or buy a cider press, then recruit some friends to help, and start making cider!
Best Cider Apple Trees
The best apples for hard cider ripen mid- to late-season and are called “cider apples.” Apples grown specifically for cider can be hard to come by in the United States, but if you want to make cider with just one variety, these are the ones to try.
The following apples are listed as good choices for a single varietal cider by the Mount Vernon Research and Extension Center of Washington State University: ‘Kingston Black,’ ‘Yarlington Mill,’ ‘Dabinett’ and ‘Brown Snout.’ You can read their full report here, which also includes detailed information about different classes of cider apples.
However, most top quality ciders are made with a blend of several varieties of apples, and there are many excellent multipurpose apples grown around the country that are good choices for cider. These include ‘Winesap,’ ‘Gravenstein,’ ‘Jonathan,’ ‘Esopus Spitzenburg’ and several ‘Russet’ subvarieties (including ‘Golden,’ ‘Roxbury’ and ‘Ashmead’s Kernel’). But this is just a starting place. Many kinds of apples make good additions to cider, including crab apples, so don’t be afraid to experiment!
Sources for Cider Presses
