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Making Cider with the Father in Law

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ChinaVoodoo

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Father in law went and planted 60 apple trees. Silly if you ask me. He decides he wants to make cider on a huge scale after never brewing anything in his life. So I gotta help him out. He had a terrible crop. The trees just aren't old enough and the blossoms blew away before any pollination happened. He has been rescuing apples for a couple weeks now.
Luckily, my friend was selling his cider equipment. The father in law bought it all up.
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Crush the apples with garburator.
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Put in cloth square and turn into a bag with a zip tie to close it up.
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Combining a hydraulic shop press an actual grape press, fill it with bags. Put a plastic disc between each bag , making a stack.
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Five bags stacked, about 2gallons of apples per bag seems to produce about 7 gallons of juice.
Block the whole thing and press. Take time. Eventually get up to 5tons. Etc.
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The leftovers
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SmokesAhoy

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Cool stuff. Is he going to add sugar or ferment it out as is?

Is he growing cider apples?

Yeah 60 trees sounds like a lot in few years
 

Brown Thumb

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Looks Cool, I planted a bunch of apple trees to do the same thing.
Mine All died but 2. I would be Luckey to get 6 small apples off them this yr.
 

SmokesAhoy

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My trees just reached 5 years old this year, so some produced. Deer got most already, daughter got 1 mac, gonna let the rest finish ripening so the deer can enjoy them.

Hopefully they're still checking them out in November so I can put one in the freezer.
 

ChinaVoodoo

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My trees just reached 5 years old this year, so some produced. Deer got most already, daughter got 1 mac, gonna let the rest finish ripening so the deer can enjoy them.

Hopefully they're still checking them out in November so I can put one in the freezer.

That would be perfect. Deer, apples I used dehydrated apples soaked in apple juice and olive oil instead of pork fat in my sausage. It was really good. As for scale, on our second run ever, we had it down to a run of 7gal in an hour and fifteen with two guys doing the work. I'm sure it could be greater. In two short sessions, we had filled two and a half 11 gal primaries. Check out this website. My friend he bought the equipment from is in the video somewhere. Not Kevin. He's another guy. As a matter of fact, you should seriously look at Kevin's website. It's great.

http://www.kevinkossowan.com/episode-55-cider/
 

Jitterbugdude

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Father in law went and planted 60 apple trees. Silly if you ask me. He decides he wants to make cider on a huge scale after never brewing anything in his life.

Kind of like the guy that plants a hundred tobacco plants, having never planted anything in his life.. :)
 

SmokesAhoy

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You guys are nuts, my largest grow was 50, normally like... 20 lol
One day I'll figure out I'm spending more buying it and just buy the right equipment to do large grows...
 

Smokin Harley

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many many years ago (early 80's) when my older sister was in high school she went apple picking up in Michigan ,came back with 10 gallons of pure unfiltered michigan apple cider. My dad took 2 of those gallons (in plastic milk jugs) set them aside (sealed, no yeast ,no added sugar)in a cool closet until almost Christmas , it turned , settled . He put that into the freezer and poured off the alcohol...twice. Came away with a full quart of "applejack" with such a high alcohol content it would burn your nose. and burn your throat. Cured whatever ailed ya, or you could thin paint ...put it in the lawnmower too I'm sure. hahaha. I just think back now and wonder had he stored it in an oak barrel what it would have aged out to taste like.
 

ChinaVoodoo

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many many years ago (early 80's) when my older sister was in high school she went apple picking up in Michigan ,came back with 10 gallons of pure unfiltered michigan apple cider. My dad took 2 of those gallons (in plastic milk jugs) set them aside (sealed, no yeast ,no added sugar)in a cool closet until almost Christmas , it turned , settled . He put that into the freezer and poured off the alcohol...twice. Came away with a full quart of "applejack" with such a high alcohol content it would burn your nose. and burn your throat. Cured whatever ailed ya, or you could thin paint ...put it in the lawnmower too I'm sure. hahaha. I just think back now and wonder had he stored it in an oak barrel what it would have aged out to taste like.

I distilled a 60-40 blend of cider vs beer, then added oak chips. It does come out pretty good. I would have avoided a double freeze distill though. Now, I'm sure every second guy's grandpa drank the stuff daily, but the inherent problem with doing the freeze method is that there's no way to remove the methanol. I've read that cider is relatively high in methanol due to the pectin content. It's worth distilling though.
 
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