Apple cider

It's been a strange summer over here in Stockholm this year...

Cool and wet even if it hasn't actually rained too terribly much.

This combined with an unusually dry and warm spring seems to be showing in our apple trees.

We've got three apple trees and one is a "Transparent blanc". Transparent blanc is the earliest of what over here are known as "summer apples".





Easily my favorite apple, Transparent blanc has crisp yet soft flesh, paper-thin skin and a wonderful, flowery aroma.

However, due perhaps to our strange summer, the tree caugt me off guard this year. First of all, who would pick apples - even "summer" apples! - in early August? Second, the apples are only about half of the size they normally are. However, something told me to taste one and, sure enough, it's time to pick!

In fact, it's so "time to pick" that I rapidly ended up (with some help from the kids) with, say, 70 pounds of apples.

There was only one thing to do: load the apples and the kids into the car and head over to a cider press.

Our nearest press lies about 30 minutes away but the drive was pleasant and the kids were excited. We even managed to skirt the city center and thereby skip paying central Stockholm's newly reinstated "congestion/environmental toll"...

We were immediately welcomed and directed to the drive-in press when we pulled up. Two young apprentices eagerly took over after the owner had helped me dump our apples into a water-filled bathtub. (The brown spots on the apples are, by the way, perhaps why you'll never see a ripe transparent blanc in the store. Those are bruises from falling off the tree and they appeared over the course of only 30 minutes.)













About 15 minutes later, we had about 7 gallons of fresh, tranparent blanc apple cider!



Which leads me to my question: Anyone know what to do with 7 gallons of fresh, transparent blanc apple cider? I've frozen the small containers but still have too much (even for a family of five) to drink before it starts to ferment. In fact, the half-empty large container had a distinct fizz to it already this morning...

HI,

Several years ago, I met Erik M to collect apples and go to an apple press between Chicago and Iowa. The press was a huge antique press well over 100 years old. It was once abandoned in a farm field, before being rehabilitated and now safe from the elements in a barn. There is more detailed information to be found here.

It was interesting your process began with a water bath. We were somewhat scolded for bringing our apples fresh from the tree. It was expected they arrive to the press already washed. They lent us a hose, though your presses water bath is a much better idea.

Are apple cider presses conveniently located around your area? In addition to the one I visited with Erik, I know of only one more in the Elburn area. Granted there are likely plenty of commercial cider presses, though only these two where people can bring their apples for processing.

Thank you once more for an interesting peek into life in Sweden.

Regards,

There may be a few more presses in the greater Stockholm area, Cathy2, but my impression is that this is the one most people go to. They also had some pick-it-yourself stuff so we ended up picking about a pound of the season's first plums as well as a few cups of blackberries. All this, an ecological cafe and a scattering of goats, cows and hens and the kids were happy, interested and under control for the entire visit.

All in all, the owners of the place were extremely helpful and seemed genuinely happy to see people driving out to use their services.

Which makes me all the more happy to actually use their services!

Bridgestone wrote:Which leads me to my question: Anyone know what to do with 7 gallons of fresh, transparent blanc apple cider?

You could cook it down into apple syrup. That's nice as a cooking ingredient, can be poured over pancakes or ice cream and even mixed with seltzer for an beverage. It should keep reasonably well if refrigerated or frozen.

I rarely have excess apple cider, but one thing I do with small quantities is to brown chunks of smoked sausage and deglaze the pan with cider, cooking it down to syrup and then stirring in a bit of sharp mustard to serve as a glaze for the sausage. This apple-mustard glaze also goes well with pork chops.

Of course, you could also just let it ferment into hard cider.

LAZ wrote:Of course, you could also just let it ferment into hard cider.

This is what I was thinking also, especially because Bridgestone mentioned that perhaps it had already begun to ferment.

So I take it that making hard cider at home is just as feasible as making beer at home?

Darren72 wrote:

LAZ wrote:Of course, you could also just let it ferment into hard cider.

This is what I was thinking also, especially because Bridgestone mentioned that perhaps it had already begun to ferment.

So I take it that making hard cider at home is just as feasible as making beer at home?

I was thinking hard cider, too. It's really much easier than making beer; you don't have to bother with mashing grains to turn the starch into sugar. You can let the natural yeasts do the work, or for a little more control, pick a beer or wine yeast with a flavor profile that suits your tastes.

I like LAZ's idea of boiling it down to a syrup, which you could also use as a glaze. It would be nice on fowl or even a pork roast. I would think apple cider should thicken up without much added sugar.

I would let some of it go beyond hard to sour and make vinegar. Here is a link to a University of Georgia bulletin about apple cider. It has some (limited) instructions on making sweet cider, hard cider, and vinegar.

http://www.uga.edu/nchfp/publications/u ... er_uga.pdf

Applejack

http://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=8711
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index ... 952AAnvw8c
http://homedistiller.org/notstill.htm

d4v3 wrote:I like LAZ's idea of boiling it down to a syrup, which you could also use as a glaze. It would be nice on fowl or even a pork roast. I would think apple cider should thicken up without much added sugar.

No added sugar needed. Just boil till thick.

Bridgestone--

Get yourself to a winemaking store, posthaste. Use campden tablets or metabisulfate to about 75 ppm (easy to compute) and stop the natural fermentation. Then begin a controlled fermentation with good, traditional cidre yeasts, available at the winemaking store. Your containers in the photos will work just fine for primary fermentation.

You could end up with some absolutely wondrful stuff. If you have any questions, just PM me, no need to bore the rest of the folks with details!

I used to make cidre 1000 gals at a time. :^)

Geo

Geo wrote:If you have any questions, just PM me, no need to bore the rest of the folks with details!

It certainly wouldn't surprise me if someone else found it useful!

Hi Aaron--

No secrets here, just a lot of semi-tedious detail for them what ain't in the market. Be glad to share with any and all.

I should tell you, in your KC connection self, that the 1000-gal batches of which I earlier spoke were, indeed, the house apple wine for Stephenson's Apple Farm. :^)

Geo

So much help and so many great ideas! Thank you, everyone.

I don't think I'll be making any alcoholic beverages out of this batch. I'm just beginning a 5 month stint of paternity leave and my hands are too full taking care of 3 kids to allow for the intricacies of home brewing. We're also in the middle of what Swedes call "Rötmånaden" - the rotting month - and the unusually high humidity right now is reaping havoc with all of the preservation recipies I've been toying with. Actually, it was right in the middle of throwing out 3 pounds of cloudy, smelly homemade dill pickles that I realized I wouldn't be making any hard cider...

Geo's recent answer did actually help me out a lot. Everyone I mentioned my large batch of cider to thought I should just let it ferment and drink the resulting hard cider. I was personally under the impression that one needed to do as Geo advises (stop the natural fermentation and start a controlled one) but was starting to feel a little lame for not just letting the stuff "make itself"... In the end, I suppose that both methods would work allowing for the opportunity/free time to keep an eye on things.

We've got a two large apple trees, though so I may give hard cider a try later and when I've got the kid-taking-care-of routines down.

What I've actually done is frozen all of my small containers of cider. This was the "best" option according to the nice folks at the press. After debating between adding a preservative (the first person's recommendation) and pasteurizing (the second's), I decided to pasteurize by heating the cider to 75 degrees C. I really didn't want to pasteurize the cider and was preparing myself for a large impact on the cider's flavor. However, I was pleasantly surprised to discover very little impact from the heating (at least, not nearly as much impact as the natural fermentation was having...). It worked, too. All bubbling has stopped and our last 5-liter bottle is waiting patiently in the refridgerator for us to drink.

I will definately be boiling some of the cider down to make a syrup. This is a fantastic idea and I'll be posting the results of my attempts as I get around to making some.

Thanks again, everyone!