Making Apple Cider

I've been at college for three weeks now. So far, I'm enjoying it. There's plenty of homework, but also plenty of fun activities. I'm really liking my classes too, which is good (well, most of them—I'm still trying to convince myself that I like speech class).

This weekend I am getting away from campus and am in Michigan at my roommate’s house for labor day. Even though I’m not in a foreign country, I’m still having new experiences. This weekend they were food-related (the best kind)!

I made apple cider! I feel like a pro, even though I only helped for a few hours, and I mostly just put the apples in the top of the apple grinder. What’s the apple grinder? Don’t worry, I’ll explain the whole process.

What’s the first thing you have to do when making apple cider? Pick the apples, duh! I didn’t help with this part, but the Smiths have quite a few apple trees on their property that they picked the apples from.

Next, they rinsed them off in some water. No unnecessary dirt in my cider, please!

Then the apples had to be cut into quarters so that they would fit in the masher. If the apples are a little bruised or mottled, no worries! They will still taste good when made into juice. Just throw out the rotten ones—yuck!

The apples then have to be ground into chunks so that they can be easily squished. One person put quartered apples into the top of this machine while another turned a helm-ish looking wheel. The ground apples came out the bottom, and every so often someone had to scrape them down into the bowl.

After being ground, the apples can finally go into the press, a contraption that squishes the apples between wooden blocks; a piece of mesh strains the juice from the squished apples. The juice comes out a tap at the bottom, and flows through a funnel into a bottle.

And that’s it! It takes quite a few people working on this to get it done efficiently. At least four to work at a good pace, but more is always better to trade off when muscles get tired.

We, of course, were doing this all by hand, but most farms will use machines.

Joanna and I got a jug to take back to Bethel as a reward for helping! Apparently apple cider is really good with ginger snaps...

Later that night, I was wondering what the difference between apple cider and apple juice is. Well, it turns out it’s not a straightforward answer. Here are three ways that companies may base labelling on:
1) Apple cider is less processed and less strained than apple juice.
2) Apple cider is made with apples picked early in the season.
3) For some companies, only the label is the difference between the two.

At the end of the day, we sat down together with friends and had an amazing meal of venison burgers and homegrown sweet corn. The Smiths shot the deer and ground the meat themselves for the venison burgers; it was so good that if I had had room, I would have eaten a second! The Smiths also grew the sweet corn in their garden—how awesome is that?! Along with this meal, we had our freshly made apple cider. So much homemade food. It just doesn’t get much better.

If you want to learn how to make your own apple cider, this is a great resource to ensure the safety of the final product.
If you want to make easy, flavorful (but not completely traditional) apple cider, this looks like a great recipe.

Sources: http://www.thekitchn.com/whats-the-difference-between-apple-cider-apple-juice-word-of-mouth-178470