Moonshine Woman
I have always loved making things. Food, art, clothing, tools. You name it. I love experiencing creation, developing an intimate understanding of how products BECOME what they are. Today was one more adventure in “experiencing an old-timey craft.” Today I hand pressed the apples from our Cow-Apple-Adventure, made cider, and have set the cider a-fermenting in a glass demijohn.
Girls and Apples? Always trouble.
How to make homemade cider:
Step #1
Pick Apples
Step #2
Wash Apples
Step #3
Core and Chop Apples
Step #4
Pulp ‘em!
This is where it gets kinda funny. We don’t have a food processor, so I used a stainless steel pot as a mortar and a dismantled table leg as a pestle, and went to town beating the crap outta the apples. (I’d washed the table leg, wrapped it in towels, and then taped the whole thing in clean plastic bags). I was inspired by this—
Primitive, yes, but it worked just fine!
Step #5
Press ‘em!
At first I tried pressing the apple-mush between two cutting boards with the assistance of four G-Clamps, but that didn’t seem to work quite as well as my own powerful hands! So I squeezed it by hand– literally– by wringing the apple-mush in cheesecloth.
Step #6
FERMENT!
Without a cap or bung to keep them out of the mixture, natural airborn yeast will find its way into my glass demijohn and convert the natural sugars in the cider into alcohol. The mosty active part of fermentation will happen over the next few weeks— the cider should begin to froth up, and then it’ll settle, at which point I will recap it and let the whole batch mature.
Ideally, I would liked to make a still and turn this concocton into apple brandy. But that’s too advanced for me right now. I’ll just have to deal with hard apple cider. Banjo Boy owes me a still, though, so apple brandy isn’t tooooo far away.
In addition to fermenting cider, last Sunday, Banjo Boy and I started our first batch of sauerkraut! I’ll write more on that as it becomes more lively… but this must be said: I am so glad that we have housemates who are okay with us fermenting cabbage in the house.
