Apple Day
09/10/23 Filed in: Preserving
A day of picking, washing, scratting, filtering and pressing to produce delicious sweet apple juice
It is the height of the apple season; or rather despite the best efforts of climate and nature there is still a bounty to pick. Apples blossom in April and May and so miss the frosts in our area whereas plums come into bloom as early as March and their flowers are susceptible to damage from late frosts. This year there was unseasonable heat and drought for several weeks in June which stressed the trees. Although rainfall followed steadily afterwards many of our trees had stunted or sparse crops of fruit. The amount of fruit varies each year and some trees are quite biennial - only giving a good crop every other year, but this year was quite bad all round.
The birds and wasps have been more trouble than usual this year. The effect of birds feeding on the top of a big tree has little effect on the crop but for a small tree it can mean the loss of the whole crop. A pecked apple allows an entry for insects like wasps and codling moth caterpillars can bore into fruit without any help and causes the apples to drop. If the fruit falls it is instant food for woodlice, slugs, squirrels, deer, badgers, foxes and birds.
Despite all that there was still a decent crop on some trees. When the fruit is not of good enough quality to store and because there is a limit to how much apple tart, pie or crumble you can eat, juicing is a good answer for preservation.
It is multi stage process starting with picking; then cleaning; scratting - chopping up the apples finely; pressing the juice; filtering; pasteurising - heat treatment to kill microrganisms which cause spoilage and to prevent fermentation; and finally bottling. Freshly pressed apple juice is not a stable liquid. It has a high sugar content and as well as wild yeasts on the skins there are airborne yeasts. Within a few days fermentation begins as yeast start turning the sugars into alcohol with a byproduct of carbon dioxide. If you bottle fresh apple juice without pasteurisation the pressure of gas can cause bottles to explode dangerously.
Picking is a combination of handpicking and climbing up trees to shake off the ripest fruit. Cleaning is the most tedious as each apple is washed and checked for rotten bits and insect damage which have to be removed. We now have an electric scratter which is quick and reduces the apples to a coarse pulp that allows for maximum juice extraction. This is the only powered activity in the process. The pulp is pressed in a traditional oak basket press of Italian make which extracts up to half of the weight of pulp as juice.
‘Many hands make light work’ so we tempt helpers with food and drink for the day, including various sorts of apple cake. Everyone goes home with some freshly pressed apple juice (unpasteurised but in a corked bottle) and cider. The taste of the first juice to be pressed is definitely enhanced by the effort expended to make it. Our first Apple Day this year produced almost 80 litres of juice. We are having another Apple Day in a few weeks time and hope to produce a much again which will then last the whole year.
When it is a better year for fruit I will be making cider again, some of which will be turned into vinegar.
This year we had helpers from a year old and a big thanks to all of them for their help and entertaining company. See the gallery page for a few short videos or click on the links below.
https://vimeo.com/manage/videos/872594183
https://vimeo.com/manage/videos/872594569
https://vimeo.com/manage/videos/872596805
The birds and wasps have been more trouble than usual this year. The effect of birds feeding on the top of a big tree has little effect on the crop but for a small tree it can mean the loss of the whole crop. A pecked apple allows an entry for insects like wasps and codling moth caterpillars can bore into fruit without any help and causes the apples to drop. If the fruit falls it is instant food for woodlice, slugs, squirrels, deer, badgers, foxes and birds.
Despite all that there was still a decent crop on some trees. When the fruit is not of good enough quality to store and because there is a limit to how much apple tart, pie or crumble you can eat, juicing is a good answer for preservation.
It is multi stage process starting with picking; then cleaning; scratting - chopping up the apples finely; pressing the juice; filtering; pasteurising - heat treatment to kill microrganisms which cause spoilage and to prevent fermentation; and finally bottling. Freshly pressed apple juice is not a stable liquid. It has a high sugar content and as well as wild yeasts on the skins there are airborne yeasts. Within a few days fermentation begins as yeast start turning the sugars into alcohol with a byproduct of carbon dioxide. If you bottle fresh apple juice without pasteurisation the pressure of gas can cause bottles to explode dangerously.
Picking is a combination of handpicking and climbing up trees to shake off the ripest fruit. Cleaning is the most tedious as each apple is washed and checked for rotten bits and insect damage which have to be removed. We now have an electric scratter which is quick and reduces the apples to a coarse pulp that allows for maximum juice extraction. This is the only powered activity in the process. The pulp is pressed in a traditional oak basket press of Italian make which extracts up to half of the weight of pulp as juice.
‘Many hands make light work’ so we tempt helpers with food and drink for the day, including various sorts of apple cake. Everyone goes home with some freshly pressed apple juice (unpasteurised but in a corked bottle) and cider. The taste of the first juice to be pressed is definitely enhanced by the effort expended to make it. Our first Apple Day this year produced almost 80 litres of juice. We are having another Apple Day in a few weeks time and hope to produce a much again which will then last the whole year.
When it is a better year for fruit I will be making cider again, some of which will be turned into vinegar.
This year we had helpers from a year old and a big thanks to all of them for their help and entertaining company. See the gallery page for a few short videos or click on the links below.
https://vimeo.com/manage/videos/872594183
https://vimeo.com/manage/videos/872594569
https://vimeo.com/manage/videos/872596805
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