Low Tech Cider Making at Home

Last weekend we made 15 gallons of cider.

We saved out one gallon, and put the rest in the basement.

(That is a story for another day.)

But we have almost finished that gallon,

so we decided to see if it could be made in the kitchen.

We started with gemini apples.

(D has named all the apple trees - this is a twining pair.)

They are not very pretty, but they made a nice apple pie.

We chopped the apples and put them into the blender with a little cider.

Then we ground them to a fine texture in the vintage Osterizer.

The slurry was poured into a straining cloth in a colander over a pot.

The cloth could be cheesecloth, but I don't have any.

But I do have lots of old curtains.

A good wash, a brief bleach soak, and there you go.

It works really well.

In this case, it's folded over to quarters.

Once we had enough pomace, D began to squeeze.

Notice the before and after pictures.

This is the final squeeze.

After we were almost done,

D suggested we could have used the antique fruit press. . .

We'll save that for another time.

We got quite a bit.

We didn't pay attention to time,

but we think about 1/2 hour from start to cleaned up.

This will hold us until we do the next batch of cider this weekend.

This is a banner year for apples, so go pick some wild ones, and

do try this at home.

We recommend not using fallen apples

-

too much risk of picking up bacteria left by our wild friends.

Jelly Time

It's time to make jelly.

D picked two kinds of grapes.

The one on the left has a wonderful flowery flavor.

The other is like a concord, but green. . .

When I picked the last of elderberries, I started to brush off a leaf.

It wasn't a leaf!

It's a not-very-pretty butterfly.

Hurricane Irene and the Week without Power

Hurricane Irene

Well, we survived.  We weren't expecting any trouble - just figure out which way the wind will blow and move the vehicles so that a tree won't land on them.  Put aside some water - just in case.  Enjoy the weather.

Well, it didn't turn out quite like that.  Oh, we were safe.  The vehicles were not struck.   The 5.2 inches of water did not wash us away - did not even flood the basement taking out the hot water heater.

What did happen is that a tree - a half-mile away - took out a power line.  Easy fix. . . 

Except for. . .

The power company had deployed their crews to closer to New York City to be prepared for the hurricane hitting the urban area.  It missed NYC, but made a mess of the Catskills, 

so they moved their folk to the Catskills and the Albany area.

That meant no one was here to fix the lines.

We have a pump and well outside, so we had water - just had to carry it.  

After the first day, the power company provided bottled water and a bit of dry ice - one to a person - pick-up at the fire station in town.  As the outages continued, they did provide enough dry ice to keep the freezer frozen.  

That's where the fun comes in.

There was not enough dry ice for the big freezer - which is full of a year's supply of corn, peas, blueberries, chard, kale, etc. - and the kitchen refrigerator/freezer.  The result was that the kitchen fridge stayed cool but not cold - and when we were pushing a piece of dry ice into the kitchen freezer, a pint of elderberry juice popped out, and it demonstrated it was not frozen by spraying elderberry juice all over the hardwood floors.     And all over us.   What a mess.  While trying to catch the elderberry container,  a second container was dislodged, demonstrating that it, too, was not frozen.  Now we had a quart of elderberry juice on the floor.  I guess that will teach me not to procrastinate making jelly!

There is plenty to do even when there is no power.  Everything takes twice as long in the house - to bathe means heating and carrying water.   I needed to keep the ipod powered, so I had to go to the library every day to check email and the web and to recharge everything.

We used the time to pick the corn for the chickens for the winter.  The corn is Mandan Bride.  It is just lovely.So that is fun to do.

I also picked beans.

These are "Hutterite Soup Beans".  They are delicious.  The entire bean dissolves, so it makes a cream soup with no cream.  Adding garlic croutons and shrimp makes a spectacular dish.

Now that power is restored, we need to clean out the refrigerator.  Well, by not paying attention, I knocked the coleslaw onto the floor - and it opened - and . . .   At least we had water to clean with this time - and the chickens loved the coleslaw - and the leftover meats, cottage cheese, sour cream, and whatever else was there.

D is building a little house for making cider.  He couldn't get much done when we had no power, so he worked on expanding the strawberry and raspberry beds.  

And that is how we spent our week before Labor Day.