Fresh pressed juice from your apples
Starting Labor Day weekend each year, usually until Christmas, we offer our skill and facilities to preserve your own fruit harvest by turning it into an excellent, all natural, unfiltered juice. This juice keeps well frozen, but if you don't have freezer space, it can also be pasteurized and "vacuum packed" in glass containers. This is similar to home fruit canning, and we can supply simple directions for it. Alternatively we offer custom pasteurizing if you don't want to undertake it yourself, (by appointment only - phone first) and we can supply bottles if you don't have them.Bring your clean, mature fruit and clean bulk containers (10 liters or over for fresh pressing) in the morning (see schedule below) and you'll get the juice back later the same day, ready to drink, preserve or ferment. While you don't need table-quality perfect fruit to make excellent juice, the condition of the apples will affect the quality of the juice. Over-ripe, soft, shriveled or pulpy apples make for oxidized, poorly flavored juice, lacking the rich characters that result from the full range of acids, esters, enzymes and pectin that are the living components of good fresh fruit. Sour apples make sour juice. Under-ripe apples make starchy juice. And of course rotting apples make rotten juice! Spots of light brown watery rot (not just bruises) have started to ferment, and the high yeast and bacteria content will affect the flavor of your juice, and contaminate our facilities, and result in a juice that won't keep long. If you don't want to eat it, we won't make you drink it!
If you're not sure when the variety you have is ripe, pick one that appears ready, cut it and check the seeds. They start out white and by the time the starches are turning to sugar, they should be a uniform light brown. The later the variety, the darker the seeds will be by the time the apples are really mature. Don't pick your whole crop just because you see a bunch falling off! Only the earliest apples drop when ripe, and the latest varieties will rot hanging on the tree. Taste one from the inner area of the north side before you decide the whole tree is ready to pick.
When we're open to the public:
September & October
Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays, &
Mondays
Apple Receiving: 8am to noon
Juice Sales: noon to 6pm
November & December
Fridays & Saturdays only
Apple Receiving: 10am to noon
Juice Sales noon to 5pm
January to September
Fridays only
Juice Sales: 9am to 5pm
Cider Press Natural Fruit Products
We produce pure natural apple juice in recycled, refillable 2 & 4 litre glass jugs; pear juice in 2 litre only, and The Best Apple Cider Vinegar in the known universe. In season (Labor Day to Christmas) we also sell the freshly pressed juice (sweet cider) by the liter - bring your container for some "flavor of the day"! If you want to make some hard cider and don't have apples, bring your carboy and we'll fill it, give you our recipe and supply the yeast.
We use sound ripe fruit, simply pressed, to produce a delicious opalescent juice, with nothing added but care, and nothing removed but the crunch. We use a wide range of apple varieties for our juice, and the flavor of our juice reflects the many "heritage" types that come from the backyards of the Valley, and the old orchards on the early farms of this area. Unlike commercial processors, we do not use additives and clarification to produce a cosmetically uniform but nutritionally void juice. Our juice contains all the healthful properties of the whole fruit, including the pectin, which is one of the most beneficial components of fruit and fruit products (it must be eliminated to clarify the juice). Even if you think you don't like "apple juice", but you like apples, you'll like our juice!!
Our pear juice is primarily from Bartlett's, as that's the type dependably available, but frequently we find heritage varieties to include: from Bosc to Comice to Flemish as well as Seckel and Winter Nelis. Pear juice is super as a sugar substitute for canning peaches and pears, and is normally tolerated by those with allergic reactions to other fruit juices, as it is low in the acids that are usually the cause of reactions to apple and orange.We also use our juice to produce an excellent, naturally fermented and aged Cider Vinegar. This process involves fermenting the juice (fruit sugars) to a good alcoholic cider, then allowing acetic bacteria to convert the cider's alcohol to acetic acid (vinegar). The aging then insures that the natural processes take place which balance the naturally present apple acids and minerals, and result in a richly flavored vinegar not unlike balsamic. Commercially, the process is forced in a short period, and some commercial cider vinegars are actually white vinegar (from grain alcohol) with "apple essence" added. Our cider vinegar is at least 2 years away from the apples it came from! Real Cider Vinegar is very beneficial for the body's natural acid balance and mineral metabolism, and is reputed to be good for many ailments, including calcium deposit problems involved in arthritis. We sell our products direct from the plant at specific times (see schedule above), and at selected outlets in the valley.
The pressing floor, ready for another season
| home || about || apple faq's || vinegar || recipes || pictures || links & friends || old trucks |
-[
Text Site Index
]-