If you put the cut apples in the cider press without crushing them first, not very much juice will come out of the apples when you press them. My husband made a pounding stick with a couple of feet of fence post. If you have any really bad apples just throw them away.Īfter all of the apples are chopped up into several pieces, use a broader stick to crush the apples so that the juice starts coming out of them. You will be straining out all the apple pulp later. If your apples are bruised and not really rotten, you don’t need to worry about cutting those parts out. We placed a bunch of apples in a 5 gallon container and then used the stick with the blade on the end of it to chop up all the apples. My husband took the blade from a (clean) paint scraper and attached it to the end of a wooden pole. It turned out cutting them up this way was extremely time consuming because we had lots and lots of apples to cut up. We started out by cutting them all up into chunks with a paring knife, removing any of the bruised spots. There are a couple of different ways you can do this. When you are ready to get started, you need to cut up your apples. But hopefully sharing these tips will help make your experience with cider making fun and enjoyable. The first time we made cider we definitely didn’t know what we were doing, and made a few mistakes. If your cider does turn out too sweet, it’s fine to add some water to it to thin it out a bit, and that should help make the cider less sweet. You might find that if you use a really sweet apple, your cider might end up being really sweet even if you don’t add sugar to it. I made my cider from some apples that were a little on the sour side and the cider turned out perfect without adding any sugar to it. If you don’t have access to a lot of different varieties of apples, don’t worry, your apple cider will probably turn out just fine. The resulting combination is supposed to make the best cider. They say that you should use at least two different types of apples, one variety that is sweet, and one variety that is sour. Some people say not to use just one variety of apple for your homemade cider. I have read lots of different ideas about choosing apples for making your own cider. You need something like this to pound the apples as much as possible before putting them through the press so that you can get out as much juice as possible. My husband used a several foot piece of fence post that he cut off and attached a handle to at one end. To crush the apples you will need some sort of a pounding stick. You could also use a small, clean garbage can. You will also need a large bucket such as a 5 gallon plastic container to crush your apples in. We screwed the metal legs of the press to an old wooden pallet, and that worked great. We found that we did need to bolt it down. The cider press we purchased has metal legs that you can attach to something else to keep it from moving around on you. Setting up Your Cider Pressīefore you get started making cider, you need to get your new cider press set up. Here is a list of all the different cider presses that Amazon offers for sale. This press holds enough apples to make 3 gallons of apple cider at one time. There are cheaper, smaller presses than the press we chose, but we decided that we would like to have a slightly larger one to make more cider at one time. We are also using the apple cider we made to make homemade hard apple cider. Besides using it for cider making, you can also use it for making other types of homemade juices and also for wine making. This is the cider press that we purchased.
I think it took the longest to figure out which cider press to buy! Choosing a Cider Press The first time you make homemade apple cider with your new cider press it will definitely be a learning experience. Where we live there are apple trees all over the place with apples just laying on the ground going to waste. If you don’t have an apple tree in your backyard, see if one of your neighbors has an apple tree, or look around town to see if there are any apple trees on public property. Making cider from these apples is a great way to keep them from going to waste. Apple cider is often made from the apples that have fallen on the ground and gotten bruised, the apples you would normally throw away.
One fruit (orchard) box full of apples will make a little more than one gallon of apple cider. You can buy fairly inexpensive cider presses on Amazon. Some people make their own apple cider press, but I didn’t want to go to all that effort. People make apple cider in a variety of ways.
Making apple cider is easy if you have the right equipment.