On Oct 16, I was supposed to have an apple pressing day where I invite the Shire over to learn about cider and do some apple pressing. But since it was my last day of quarantine, I was on my own.
I have 1 bushel of Winesaps (left), 1/2 bushel of winecrisps (left-middle), 1 bushel of roxbury russets (right-middle), and 1/2 bushel of Ashmead Kernals (right). I wanted some unusual apples this time around and as old as I could find. The Ashmeads and Roxburys are those. I like Winesaps so that was a natural. And my apple guy had these winecrisps which are related to the Orange Pippin, not the winesap!
I knew the Winesap would be my juiciest apple but I thought I would get some good acid and tannin from the Ashmeads and Roxburys. I was averaging about 1 hour per bushel by myself. That was too long. The Winesaps did okay in the mill. The Roxburys turned to mush. The winecrisps were too hard and caused the gears to slip. The Ashmeads did okay.
Then I had to press them. I didn’t get nearly enough juice. On average, a bushel should produce ~ 3 gallons of juice. I expected some variation but not this much! The ashmeads made ~ 1.2 gallon. The winecrisps about 1 gallon. The roxburys only about 1.5 gallons. And the winesaps were about 2 gallons. I was expecting about 6 to 9 gallons in total, not ~ 5 gallons.
With clean up, I was out there for about 6 hours. My back, arms, and hand were sore from turning the various cranks. I still have to take SGs and add the yeast to do what I want. I half way decided to give up on mixing and matching. I was expecting at least a gallon from the 1/2 bushels so I could make a few blends.
As it is, I can make 1 750 ml of each varietal, then maybe 1 mix with the ashmeads as 0.5 of the bottle, then smaller mixes. It will have to be what it is.
I then found a better crusher and press. The better crusher uses teeth that rotate into each other, tearing into both sides of the apples! And the hopper can deposit straight into the basket press! The problem with my current basket press is the pressing blocks wander as the big metal screw jack rotates. Better presses I have seen the screw jack is affixed to a wooden block that presses down on to other blocks. It is much more stable. I can certainly spend more money!
