Howdy all, been a while but quite busy lately and not a lot of time for making things. I thought I'd bring you up to speed with my first attempt at apple cider. I've got a lot of friends with crab apple trees and who know I'm handy with alcohol. I got 2 large Rubbermaid totes worth of apples dropped off at my place. Since they did the hard work of picking, they (correctly) figured they could get part of the final product. First thing to do was prep them by coring and quartering them, getting rid of seeds, stems, and leaves. While I was chopping them up I noticed that some of them had damaged parts or potentially signs of pests eating at them. I got rid of those parts, and decided that it might be best to pasteurize the prepped apples. I fired up the burner and brought the apples to almost boil for 10 minutes or so, in batches since the pot is a 20L stock pot. This also had the effect of softening up the apples and giving them a cooked taste. As I'l
