G'day Guy's,
Earlier in the weeks SWMBO mentioned 25kg's of cider apples for $20 and when I rang up this morning they were all gone :angry-banghead: anyway she did say the vege store next to woolies in Mt Barker had buckets of apples going cheap. So went in and bought 3 buckets this morning, don't know the variety so just grabbed one bucket of each colour so I did get a variety. :happy-partydance:
Anyway the next step was to crush the apples to get all the juice out and all I had in the shed was my corona mill. So set the plates with a decent gap, cored and cut diced the apples then off I went turning the handle but found the apple wasn't feeding :angry-banghead: Thought I did have that 15" length of 1" SS so went and got that to use as a rammer and that worked a treat. :happy-partydance:
Every 30 apples decided I needed to start filling the 5 litre demi and needed a squeeze bag so went down to the house and my youngest daughter got on the sewing machine and made me one. I ended using 96 apples and got about 8 litres of apple juice. Now when I checked with my refractometer 1065 SG :scared-eek: WTF thats up there :laughing-rolling:
Now the aim here is to make a cider and leave some for my minime to make some more apple brandy as it tastes so yummy after aging on french oak. But it does take time to age so thats why I do this every few months to ensure I keep my supply going.
My plan is to go into town in the morning and grab 2 more buckets so I can get 12-13 litres of apple juice then I can water it down 100% and add a bit of inverted sugar to get back to the 1045SG mark which won't make the ciders a bomb when drinking. The last batch I did 6 ciders and you are on the floor literally :laughing-rolling: :laughing-rolling: :laughing-rolling:
I do intend to use some EC1118 yeast and the goal is go for 30 litres to suit my cider fermenter.
No I did find some of the apple seeds had germinated with little sprouts so potted 3 of those seeds and all the cores went into a trench I dug in the vege patch which I soak with water everyday to see if I can't get some to grow. I mean one can never have enough apple trees when one makes cider and the brandy thats such a treat after waiting and waiting.
Cheers Bryan