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ventaSo what do you do when a friend tells you that they've got a surplus of windfall apples and a cider press ?
Some years ago, Sally borrowed a cider press from a friend. When she tried to give it back, his wife declared that that thing wasn't coming in the house again. So she got to keep it.
It's not seen much action of late, but when I turned up at her house on Sunday the kitchen looked like a strange remake of The Sorceror's Apprentice. Apples... everywhere. Crates of them. Carrier bags of the little buggers. Never tell your family you've got a use for windfalls.
Anyway, we sterilised buckets and stuff. Sally ran up a length of net curtain she'd bought into a straining bag (using a treadle sewing machine, no less!). Apparently she'd already caused quite a lot of confusion in the curtain shop:
Sally: I'd like a metre of that net, please.
Assistant: Certainly, what's the drop of the window ?
Sally: I'm not going to use it as a curtain, I'm going to make a straining bag out of it. I'd like a metre.
Assistant: Yes, but what's the drop of the window ?[*]
Then we went and got the press out of the garage and got it chocked up on breezeblocks. The press is actually quite small (probably three and half feet tall), but is made of some kind of super-dense substance known only to Victorian engineers. That thing is heavy. We more or less destroyed the trolley wheeling it down the gravel path from the garage.
I'd assumed you just threw the apples in the bag, and screwed the thing shut. Oh no. First you have to beat the apples to a pulp. (Enquiring minds note: I didn't believe this. I insisted on doing a pressing of unpulped apples. It was a disaster.)
So... in the absence of a thing which I'm told is called a PulpMaster, we hit them with a stick. A lump of 2x4 taller than me, to be precise. I don't think the being taller than me part was essential, that's just how big the thing was and it seemed the added weight was an advantage. Plus neither of us quite cared enough about the look of the thing to slog over it with a handsaw. I occasionally eyed up the electric hedgetrimmer and figured there must be a better way of making fruit runny. But for the most part I hit apples with sticks. Here's a Venta's-eye view of the process:
Pounding apples is one of those jobs were you start and think well, this is easy. However it uses muscles I clearly don't, and it rapidly becomes quite hard work. Whoever was most pounded-out took over chopping up apples to make the pulping easier. Then you throw the pulp into the bag and begin squeezing.
Screwing the press shut is one of those jobs were you start and think well, this is easy. However it uses muscles I clearly don't, and it rapidly becomes quite hard work. The upper stages - where it has no resistance - are dull. The lower stages - where it's actually pressing - require brute force. Five days later, the base of my left thumb is still a little sore to touch after spending so much time jammed up against the press' wheel.
Eventually Sally suggested we call it a day; I was up for another press' worth of apples until she reminded me we had to get the beastie back into the garage. Despite my best attempts with a spanner, the trolley remained unfixable and struggled stubbornly along on three and a half wheels. We were knackered. The gravel path was still covered with gravel.
At only one point did the trolley move swiftly; Sally was pulling, I was pushing at slightly above ground level. Suddenly, it went forwards.
A few nanoseconds later, I realised that my feet were not moving forwards. My hands and feet were rapidly getting further apart... and there's a to limit how long they can go on doing that for. It's about six feet, tops. I scrabbled briefly in the gravel, like a cartoon character going over a cliff, then the trolley was 6'1" away and I was flat on my face in deep-pile gravel.
The beastie was eventually stowed, and we realised we hadn't killed the apple pile. In fact, we'd barely wounded it. Apples hemmed us in on every side. I've no real grasp of how many apples we did get through. Enough for a couple of gallons of juice[**], tipped into the fermenting bin and left with words of encouragement.
We'll know better for next time. You do have to pulp the apples. More pulp in the press is better than less. A second pressing of the same apples is a waste of time. More people. Many, many more people.
Next time? Sure. In these jaded times we should all give thanks for unusual experiences. Besides, I enjoyed it. I'd do it again. Well, so long as the cider comes out nice :)
The day ended with a lovely sunset. There are some benefits to living under a flight path.
[*] In my family it's customary at points like this to say "I'll just have a bun." I think this is a reference to a radio sketch I've never heard in which a customer repeatedly tries to order various drinks "...and a bun", despite being told there are no buns. Is anyone else familiar with this ?
[**] Yeah, not much :( A colleague tells me he got 2 gallons of apple juice out of his juicer in not much more than an hour. The internet says that juice from a juicer is much pulpier than juice from a press, and makes inferior cider. This had better be true.
Some years ago, Sally borrowed a cider press from a friend. When she tried to give it back, his wife declared that that thing wasn't coming in the house again. So she got to keep it.
It's not seen much action of late, but when I turned up at her house on Sunday the kitchen looked like a strange remake of The Sorceror's Apprentice. Apples... everywhere. Crates of them. Carrier bags of the little buggers. Never tell your family you've got a use for windfalls.
Anyway, we sterilised buckets and stuff. Sally ran up a length of net curtain she'd bought into a straining bag (using a treadle sewing machine, no less!). Apparently she'd already caused quite a lot of confusion in the curtain shop:
Sally: I'd like a metre of that net, please.
Assistant: Certainly, what's the drop of the window ?
Sally: I'm not going to use it as a curtain, I'm going to make a straining bag out of it. I'd like a metre.
Assistant: Yes, but what's the drop of the window ?[*]
Then we went and got the press out of the garage and got it chocked up on breezeblocks. The press is actually quite small (probably three and half feet tall), but is made of some kind of super-dense substance known only to Victorian engineers. That thing is heavy. We more or less destroyed the trolley wheeling it down the gravel path from the garage.
I'd assumed you just threw the apples in the bag, and screwed the thing shut. Oh no. First you have to beat the apples to a pulp. (Enquiring minds note: I didn't believe this. I insisted on doing a pressing of unpulped apples. It was a disaster.)
So... in the absence of a thing which I'm told is called a PulpMaster, we hit them with a stick. A lump of 2x4 taller than me, to be precise. I don't think the being taller than me part was essential, that's just how big the thing was and it seemed the added weight was an advantage. Plus neither of us quite cared enough about the look of the thing to slog over it with a handsaw. I occasionally eyed up the electric hedgetrimmer and figured there must be a better way of making fruit runny. But for the most part I hit apples with sticks. Here's a Venta's-eye view of the process:
Pounding apples is one of those jobs were you start and think well, this is easy. However it uses muscles I clearly don't, and it rapidly becomes quite hard work. Whoever was most pounded-out took over chopping up apples to make the pulping easier. Then you throw the pulp into the bag and begin squeezing.
Screwing the press shut is one of those jobs were you start and think well, this is easy. However it uses muscles I clearly don't, and it rapidly becomes quite hard work. The upper stages - where it has no resistance - are dull. The lower stages - where it's actually pressing - require brute force. Five days later, the base of my left thumb is still a little sore to touch after spending so much time jammed up against the press' wheel.
Eventually Sally suggested we call it a day; I was up for another press' worth of apples until she reminded me we had to get the beastie back into the garage. Despite my best attempts with a spanner, the trolley remained unfixable and struggled stubbornly along on three and a half wheels. We were knackered. The gravel path was still covered with gravel.
At only one point did the trolley move swiftly; Sally was pulling, I was pushing at slightly above ground level. Suddenly, it went forwards.
A few nanoseconds later, I realised that my feet were not moving forwards. My hands and feet were rapidly getting further apart... and there's a to limit how long they can go on doing that for. It's about six feet, tops. I scrabbled briefly in the gravel, like a cartoon character going over a cliff, then the trolley was 6'1" away and I was flat on my face in deep-pile gravel.
The beastie was eventually stowed, and we realised we hadn't killed the apple pile. In fact, we'd barely wounded it. Apples hemmed us in on every side. I've no real grasp of how many apples we did get through. Enough for a couple of gallons of juice[**], tipped into the fermenting bin and left with words of encouragement.
We'll know better for next time. You do have to pulp the apples. More pulp in the press is better than less. A second pressing of the same apples is a waste of time. More people. Many, many more people.
Next time? Sure. In these jaded times we should all give thanks for unusual experiences. Besides, I enjoyed it. I'd do it again. Well, so long as the cider comes out nice :)
The day ended with a lovely sunset. There are some benefits to living under a flight path.
[*] In my family it's customary at points like this to say "I'll just have a bun." I think this is a reference to a radio sketch I've never heard in which a customer repeatedly tries to order various drinks "...and a bun", despite being told there are no buns. Is anyone else familiar with this ?
[**] Yeah, not much :( A colleague tells me he got 2 gallons of apple juice out of his juicer in not much more than an hour. The internet says that juice from a juicer is much pulpier than juice from a press, and makes inferior cider. This had better be true.
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no subject
Date: 2008-10-03 01:36 am (UTC)(as for the curtain shop, I think at that point I'd just give up and invent an appropriate drop for the width of netting I wanted...)
no subject
Date: 2008-10-03 08:40 am (UTC)You made all the mistakes we did when we started.
Basically you need one of these:
http://www.vigopresses.co.uk/store/product_info.php?cPath=63_77&products_id=366
It's pricey, but worth every penny compared with whacking apples with bits of wood!
Also a bar instead of a wheel on the press would be more effective.
no subject
Date: 2008-10-03 08:53 am (UTC)However, where you and TheGreenLady are doing the whole applewrangling thing moderately seriously we were just finding a way to fill a Sunday afternoon. By the time you'd spent that kind of money, you might as well have used it to buy a couple of gallons of cider every year!
We also deduced sharpish that a bar would be better than a wheel. Sadly, there is no means of fitting one and again, for a Sunday afternoon's fun, major welding projects were kind of out.
no subject
Date: 2008-10-03 09:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-03 06:46 am (UTC)Enquiring minds note: I didn't believe this. I insisted on doing a pressing of unpulped apples. It was a disaster.
I can imagine
no subject
Date: 2008-10-03 08:22 am (UTC)This is why you get to help run the country and I don't! ;-)
no subject
Date: 2008-10-03 08:59 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-03 08:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-03 08:54 am (UTC)Also, Berkshire/Oxfordshire: not big on local cideries as far as I'm aware.
no subject
Date: 2008-10-03 09:58 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-03 10:31 am (UTC)I know nothing about cidermaking, but I believe she's done it before :)
no subject
Date: 2008-10-03 10:03 am (UTC)My attempt at cider didn't work, though :(
no subject
Date: 2008-10-03 12:24 pm (UTC)This is a solution very much on my mind. The house we have bought has six apple trees, all loaded to the rafters with apples. So loaded also is the fridge. So is the freezer. So are the crates outside the back door, in the kitchen, and in the shed. And STILL the bloody trees look as if we've hardly picked anything.
A cider press is the answer, methinks....
no subject
Date: 2008-10-03 04:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-04 09:23 am (UTC)Easy enough to filter it, though.
I look forward to hearing how "your" cider turns out, it definitely sounds like one for the list of fun one-off experiences.