Wines I'm Making: Pressing Apples for Cider

Last Sunday we pressed apples for hard cider. Earlier this year, I made cider by fermenting store-bought organic apple juice (Sonoma County is blessed with many apple orchard, so excellent juice is easy to come by), but this year I decided to make cider from scratch. I rented an apple mill to process 200lbs of apples harvested from our own tree, a tree at my brother's home, and a tree belonging to a friend. I used about 70lbs of Golden Delicious apples (sweet, but low in acid), about 90lbs of Pink Lady apples from our own tree (sweet but quite tart as well, very aromatic), and about 40lbs of an unknown, older tree, in Sebastopol, probably planted in the 1960s, although not a Gravenstein, the apple most closely associated with Sebastopol (again tart and aromatic). The result was a good blend, I hope--sweet enough to make a fairly alcoholic cider (the juice tested at 17 degrees Brix, which should result in an alcohol level of about 8.5%), but also with enough tartness and apple aroma to keep things interesting. The top photo shows the raw material.

It took the entire day. Most of the time was consumed washing apples. Apparently commercial juice and cider makers don't bother, but I wanted at least to get the dust and occasional splatter of bird droppings off the fruit.  Once cleaned, it was just a matter of dropping apples into a chute above a rotating masher that pulps them and drops them into a press basket for pressing. Two-hundred pounds of apples yielded about 12 gallons of juice. One gallon I gave to the friends with the Golden Delicious tree. The rest I sulfited lightly and let rest overnight. That juice is now fermenting in the living room, well on its way to becoming cider. The second photo shows juice samples--Golden Delicious, unknown Sebastopol, and Pink Lady, left to right.

I used two different yeasts. On Monday afternoon (November 18) I inoculated five gallons with the same yeast I used to make the cider from store-bought apple juice--WLP775 "English Cider Yeast" made by White Labs, in San Diego (I hope that's not Walter White Labs), a liquid yeast in a glass vial. The remaining six gallons I inoculated with a powdered yeast from Mangrove Jack's--"Craft Series MO2 Cider yeast." It will be interesting to see if the two yeast strains produce different results. The liquid yeast has so far produced a much more vigorous fermentation. I filled the containers somewhat too full. I've had to repeatedly empty the air lock of bubbles and juice spilling out the top of the White Labs fermentation, making something of a mess, but it's all under control now. The juice fermenting with the Mangrove Jack's yeast hasn't been quite so exuberant. I expect the initial fermentation to take about three weeks or so in either case. For now, it's a waiting game.

Wines I'm Making: Cider Again, But This Time Using Fresh Apples

Last February I made some very tasty hard cider by fermenting store-bought organic apple juice. This year our apple tree had a lot of fruit, so I thought I'd try making cider from scratch, using apples from the tree. These pictured are "Pink Lady" apples from our back yard. Tomorrow we pick up a rented apple press and some more apples from my brother and from a couple of friends with trees. I figure we'll need about 200 pounds to make it worthwhile. 200 pounds of apples should yield about 10 gallons of juice. That will translate into 107 12-ounce bottles with a retail value of about $140. Renting the machine costs $45. The yeast costs about $8. So, for a little more than $50 (discounting time and labor) we'll get a more or less three-fold return. Hope it all goes well. More soon....

Plants I'm Growing--First Blooms: Michelia Yunnanensis, Creeping Phlox, "Pink Lady" Apple, Pink Crabapple

First blooms of 2011 on a number of plants in the garden today (finally the rain has stopped). Flowers that had been holding back seem finally convinced there's a point to offering up their pollen. Flowers on Michelia yunnanensis, "Pink Lady" apple, and our pink crabapple all opened today. Some of the creeping phlox in the garden started blooming on Sunday (March 27).

Michelia yunnanensis (first photo) is a small relative of the magnolias native to Yunnan Province in China. It's finally taken off after a shaky start three years ago. It's covered with flowers this year and looks set to grow strongly. I love the deep cinnamon-colored covers to the buds and the creamy white flowers that contrast with the brown covers and the plant's deep green leaves. This plant bloomed on April 1 in 2009 and on March 22 in 2010, calculating botanical years of 355 and 373 days, which average to 364 days, or very close to a year by the sun. 

The "Pink Lady" apple bloomed on March 23 in 2009 and on March 30 in 2010, although in 2010 it bloomed a second time in October after bearing almost no fruit--odd behavior caused by the very cold summer we had last year. "Pink Lady" calculated years of 373 and 364 days, which average to 368.5 days--somewhat long, but I have only three years of data so far. My hypothesis is that over the years, all the plants in the garden (at least those native to this area) will calculate average years very close to actual years. 

The deep pink crabapple in the garden bloomed on March 26 in 2009 but on April 23 last year, almost a month later. I think 2010 was anomalous. The tree calculated years of 393 days and 340 days--both the shortest and longest years any plant have had since I started keeping track, but even these average to 366.5 days--very close to an actual year. 

Plants I'm Growing--First Blooms: "Pink Lady" Apple

First blooms of the season today on the "Pink Lady" apple tree--in the pouring rain. As pretty as the cupcakes I just mentioned.... I can't seem to find a record of when this bloomed last year, but the photo is from March 26, 2009. Assuming that was the date, a year according to this plant was 369 days.

Plants I'm growing: First Blooms--"Pink Lady" apple and "Snow Fountain" weeping cherry

The first flowers opened today on the apple tree, a "Pink Lady," (top photo) and the weeping cherry ("Snow Fountain"). In both cases only one or two isolated buds have opened. The trees are far from being in bloom. On the apple tree, the highest branches haven't even seen bud break yet. Nevertheless, I record the first open blossoms here for the purposes of my botanical calendar. The pink crabapple has many buds, but none open yet.