Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

Discussions of fruits, veggies and grains other then just mashing

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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

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I finally got around to bottling the cider from the free canned apple juice I got last year.
2021 cider #1A - C.jpg
I forgot one of the carboys was 6 gallons and only prepped 75 bottles so a little bit will be added to the 10 gallons I have ready to distill.

I have been accumulating bottles for this for a while. I really like these particular bottles because they are Champagne bottles but can take the bottle caps I already had. It isn't as elegant as a corked and wired bottle and a good portion of these are going to be given away at Christmas but it's $1.50 for 50 caps Vs 29 cents per cork plus 19 cents per wirehood. I know 48 cents per bottle doesn't sound like much but multiply that by 75 and it's $36 Vs $2.25. Now $36 for 75 bottles may not seem like much but I also have 10 gallons of the wine made from cranberry cocktail to do so that's another 48-50 bottles and the sugarplum fairy, if it came out, to bottle. Then there is the cost of labels which is something like 15-25 cents each and everything starts adding up to a lot of money just for something to give away...although I won't give away much of the sugerplum fairy and I will probably make those bottles look as special as possible so they will likely get corks and possibly wax dipped.
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

Post by Bushman »

One of my apple sources is not panning out this year, time for me to check the other sources.
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

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Bushman wrote: Tue Sep 13, 2022 2:11 pm One of my apple sources is not panning out this year, time for me to check the other sources.
That's a shame Bushman, but last spring really hurt the apple harvest this year.
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

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Same here east of the Rockies. Almost no apples this year. Good thing I fermented out 80 or so gallons last year. That dry and late spring also did a number on my honey harvest. 777 lb last year, 290 this year. Oh well, experiment with a few different grain bills this year and finish my reflux column.
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

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Well, it is official. Fermenting and distilling plums on the stones and pulp is awesome.

We finally did the spirit run from our plum adventures this year. My still buddy actually had a little of our last effort from two years ago and a little bit of Jelinek slivovitz. Our product from two years ago was fine but just one dimensional compared to the new make. The slight bitter and almond from the stones is really an amazing addition. While the new make compares favorably with the Jelinek I have to admit that it the Jelinek is still a better product. However, our new make is approaching the Jelinek and is just plain fantastic.

Only half of our must was distilled on the the pulp and stones because we were using a glycol bath and it was very slow and possibly dangerous. We have a thumper approaching completion and so next year will be able to use that. I am looking forward to tasting the slivovitz with it all distilled on the stones and pulp. They plum flavor from the Jelinek is different than ours and I think that may be due to the varieties of plums. I planted a couple of Damson plums this spring, perhaps in a few years they will come on line and provide that flavor.

One thing about plums is that it seems that more of the tails is really tasty compared to apples or whisky. So you get to keep more than you do from apples or grain. It just doesn't do that rapid transition to unpleasant. In a way that makes it harder to make the cut as you keep thinking "hmm, still pretty good" and so it is hard to start tossing it into the feints.

I racked about 6 gallons of plum wine yesterday into glass. Today I am making 5 gallons of raspberry wine. Then tomorrow canning salsa verde. It is the harvest time of year, truly my favorite time of year.
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

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This evening Mrs Cranky and I were sitting on the deck watching the sunset when I decided to pick a few plums. While we sat there eating them I decided I'd check the sugar on them.
SUGARPLUM BRIX A  - C.jpg
Yes, that's 31 brix and that one was slightly under ripe, Mrs Cranky had already eaten the ripest ones :roll:
I love those sugar plums.

While I had my camera out I figured I'd show you guys my strawberry plants.
STRAWBERRIES 16 SEP 22 A - C.jpg
Last year I stopped at a post yard sale free pile and got a 5 gallon bucket with strawberry plants in it. That single bucket has become 8 buckets in one years time and are still sending out runners which will make even more if I find some dirt to put them in :ebiggrin: I have real hopes for the strawberry harvest next year :D
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

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Looks like one of my orchards that I have access to is still producing. Tomorrow we will pick apples and next Tuesday make apple juice. I will try to take pictures, hoping for 30+ gallons. No where near what we put up last year but it is good to get something.
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

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Bushman wrote: Thu Sep 29, 2022 1:59 pm Looks like one of my orchards that I have access to is still producing. Tomorrow we will pick apples and next Tuesday make apple juice. I will try to take pictures, hoping for 30+ gallons. No where near what we put up last year but it is good to get something.
I'm glad tour getting something this year :thumbup:
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

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Todays picking:
682C680B-7376-43EA-877C-6CB64D32CDC1.jpeg
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

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Saw this driving around for work yesterday.
I was able to get a closer inspection of the property today and I do believe the house is abandoned, hard to tell :problem: If not they’re a pretty rough bunch..I’ll try the neighbors first.
The apple I picked was small but sweet. It should yield a decent juice.
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

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Bushman wrote: Fri Sep 30, 2022 3:24 pm Todays picking:
682C680B-7376-43EA-877C-6CB64D32CDC1.jpeg
I'm glad to see you got some this year Bushman :thumbup:
Stonecutter wrote: Wed Oct 05, 2022 4:33 pm Saw this driving around for work yesterday.
I was able to get a closer inspection of the property today and I do believe the house is abandoned, hard to tell :problem: If not they’re a pretty rough bunch..I’ll try the neighbors first.
The apple I picked was small but sweet. It should yield a decent juice.
That's a nice find I love finding trees loaded like that. Smaller apples tend to have more flavor.
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

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Did the first real pressing of the year. I say real because we did do a few gallons of sweet cider earlier. Here is the first collection of apples.
20221017_101359_resized_1.jpg
20221017_101355_resized_1.jpg
Only pressed 15 gallons for hard cider. We had a good raspberry year so I put 8 pounds into 5 gallons of cider. How bad can that be? Next week we pick some more and press the remainder of what we have for brandy. Then the harvest season will be complete. Thank goodness, we have been canning or some damn thing a couple days a week for two months now. However, we will enjoy the fruits of our labors over the winter!

Forgot to add: The new apple scratter is FRICKEN' AWESOME!!! So much faster. Like on the order of 30-40% faster. Only a very few extra large apples had to be cut. The scratter grates instead of grinds and makes it take MUCH less force to get good extraction from the press. The pommace is dry and the deers aren't even interested much! And you can barely feed it apples fast enough. It wasn't cheap but well, well worth it.
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

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I'm glad someone managed to do something with apples this year.

The only thing I've really done is picked one or two here and there and maybe 2 dozen Karen's Delights. I'm happy with those at least, even though I picked them slightly under ripe but I was outside the other morning and noticed a rat in the KD tree eating an apple :esurprised: so I ran it off and picked everything that the birds and rat didn't already take a bite out of. I really need to get a high power pellet gun with a scope but Mrs Cranky says the neighbors are too close.

Anyway, I tested the sugar of one of the KDs and it's right at or just slightly above 19 Brix
KD 01 NOV 22 #1 - C.JPG
It also has that nice translucent frozen apple look that I like so much
KD 01 NOV 22 #2 - C.JPG
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

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Pellet gun sounds like a good idea to me. Although tough to make much of a difference it sure can make you feel better.

We ended up with about 27 gallons of cider for brandy this year. Not as much as I'd like but still a decent amount. I had about 14 gallons of hard cider left over from the last couple of years that I wasn't wild about so I took that and ran it through the still last week. I'll do a spirit run this week and then add it to the stuff we made in April. I got a badmo barrel and so it can all go take a nice long nap in there.
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

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stillanoob wrote: Mon Nov 07, 2022 11:40 am Pellet gun sounds like a good idea to me. Although tough to make much of a difference it sure can make you feel better.
Just need to be persistent. We had a bit of a rabbit problem after canine distemper came through and really hit the fox and coyote populations. I planted 31 rabbits and three squirrels in my garden that summer. Didn't see many the last half of the summer.
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

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subbrew wrote: Mon Nov 07, 2022 8:07 pm
Just need to be persistent. We had a bit of a rabbit problem after canine distemper came through and really hit the fox and coyote populations. I planted 31 rabbits and three squirrels in my garden that summer. Didn't see many the last half of the summer.
Hmm, I saw a lot less foxes this year and more rabbits. Heard way less foxes too, some years they are making noise all night. I wonder if we had that happen around here too. Rabbits are pretty sneaky, you must be more patient than I am. Luckily my fence does a pretty good job of keeping them out of the garden. The birds around here know what a gun is. I couldn't shoot the ravens, I have to much respect for the smart bastards and anyway they totally know what a gun is. They will stare you down if you don't have one and off in a flash if you do.
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

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stillanoob wrote: Mon Nov 07, 2022 11:40 am We ended up with about 27 gallons of cider for brandy this year. Not as much as I'd like but still a decent amount.
Got about the same here, pitched a champagne yeast and it's working out nicely. Had some left-overs to try and bottle as juice, but a sudden temperature spike meant the wild yeasts took over before we could process it well, and the resulting taste doesn't really please the kids. Also got about 17L in a bucket that produced a glorious (I'm kidding) sulphur stink. I chucked in some DAB which seems to have calmed things somewhat, and I'll stick a few bits of copper in to try and eliminate the rest of the smell. Then maybe I'll run it, or turn it into cider vinegar.

Our scratter is very much manual so a lot of taking it in turns to turn the big handle! Takes 2 of us about 2 1/2 hours to process around 125kg of apples.
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

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NormandieStill wrote: Tue Nov 08, 2022 5:54 am
stillanoob wrote: Mon Nov 07, 2022 11:40 am We ended up with about 27 gallons of cider for brandy this year. Not as much as I'd like but still a decent amount.
Got about the same here, pitched a champagne yeast and it's working out nicely. Had some left-overs to try and bottle as juice, but a sudden temperature spike meant the wild yeasts took over before we could process it well, and the resulting taste doesn't really please the kids. Also got about 17L in a bucket that produced a glorious (I'm kidding) sulphur stink. I chucked in some DAB which seems to have calmed things somewhat, and I'll stick a few bits of copper in to try and eliminate the rest of the smell. Then maybe I'll run it, or turn it into cider vinegar.

Our scratter is very much manual so a lot of taking it in turns to turn the big handle! Takes 2 of us about 2 1/2 hours to process around 125kg of apples.
We did the manual scratter for many years. Then tried a few thing like a garbage disposal and a Harbor Freight wood chipper. All sucked in their own way. Then we decided to pay up for the ESE-018. Wish I had done it years ago. It speeds up the process a lot! With our manual grinder apples had to be cut in half or it would clog up. Even cut it still would jam sometimes. As detailed earlier, more juice and faster.

Do you do any washing of the fruit? We have a large outdoor sink that we put water and idophor in and then tumble the apples around for a minute or so. Seems to really help with rate of infections. I went back to MO2 yeast this year. I had been using ECC1118 but it seems to finish really dry, taking out some of the apple flavor and I think the MO2 adds some pleasant esters. Also, I had been lazy about making a starter with the ECC1118 because you can get it in large packages, like 200g. With the MO2 I can only get small sachets and I have to make a starter a week before and it sure takes off quick.

I have one more tree that I will pick this week, a Braeburn. It is always late. I will save some for pie for Thanksgiving and do one more press for seet cider. Then done 'till next year!
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

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stillanoob wrote: Tue Nov 08, 2022 6:56 am We did the manual scratter for many years. Then tried a few thing like a garbage disposal and a Harbor Freight wood chipper. All sucked in their own way. Then we decided to pay up for the ESE-018. Wish I had done it years ago. It speeds up the process a lot! With our manual grinder apples had to be cut in half or it would clog up. Even cut it still would jam sometimes. As detailed earlier, more juice and faster.

Do you do any washing of the fruit? We have a large outdoor sink that we put water and idophor in and then tumble the apples around for a minute or so. Seems to really help with rate of infections. I went back to MO2 yeast this year. I had been using ECC1118 but it seems to finish really dry, taking out some of the apple flavor and I think the MO2 adds some pleasant esters. Also, I had been lazy about making a starter with the ECC1118 because you can get it in large packages, like 200g. With the MO2 I can only get small sachets and I have to make a starter a week before and it sure takes off quick.

I have one more tree that I will pick this week, a Braeburn. It is always late. I will save some for pie for Thanksgiving and do one more press for seet cider. Then done 'till next year!
We'll see how things go over the next few years. Got some higher priority investments first. An electric scratter would make a one-man pressing operation possible, but part of the goal was the community building.

I did wonder about going too dry. I like the idea of all-natural ferments with wild yeast, but we need to be at a scale where we can take the risk. It would have hurt to lose our entire annual output to some stinky local yeast that got a little too warm. There's no MO2 available right now, and it was something I looked at, but for my first year of scaled up production I wanted some easy (ish) cuts.

Braeburns are tasty eating apples. I think between now and next season we need to get our ducks in line for apple sourcing. I'd like to be confident of what we can get and have the potential choice of varieties rather than just whatever came to hand (although the unfermented juice straight off the press was pretty damn tasty).

In terms of washing, we did nothing fancy. Just a quick rinse in some (barely) filtered rainwater to clean off the mud, leaves and beasties.
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

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NormandieStill wrote: Tue Nov 08, 2022 11:41 am
We'll see how things go over the next few years. Got some higher priority investments first. An electric scratter would make a one-man pressing operation possible, but part of the goal was the community building.

I did wonder about going too dry. I like the idea of all-natural ferments with wild yeast, but we need to be at a scale where we can take the risk. It would have hurt to lose our entire annual output to some stinky local yeast that got a little too warm. There's no MO2 available right now, and it was something I looked at, but for my first year of scaled up production I wanted some easy (ish) cuts.

Braeburns are tasty eating apples. I think between now and next season we need to get our ducks in line for apple sourcing. I'd like to be confident of what we can get and have the potential choice of varieties rather than just whatever came to hand (although the unfermented juice straight off the press was pretty damn tasty).

In terms of washing, we did nothing fancy. Just a quick rinse in some (barely) filtered rainwater to clean off the mud, leaves and beasties.
Yeah, priorities. Dang reality always poking it's nose in.

Early on in my cider making I tried a natural ferment and it came out really good. I was thinking, yeah, this is the way! Then the next three I tried were awful. Since then it is just too much effort and our batches too large to risk it. Hence the idophor rinse and good equipment sanitation.

While having the perfect blend of apples does make for the best cider making it with whatever you can get always comes out good anyway, just maybe not the best. Once I made a batch from all Golden Delicious and when it finished out it was so dry that you really couldn't tell if it was wine or cider because there was no apple character. It wasn't bad but it wasn't the apple-y cider you dream of. Luckily I have a few Jonathan trees that I can count on and a friends tree which I am pretty sure is a Baldwin. I used to have access to these fantastic red tart and tannic apples at an abandoned house but then somebody bought it and cut the trees down. Never did anything with the area either, the trees are all still there rotting away where the felled them. Anyway, sweet apples are easy to come by but tannic apples are harder to find.
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

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Last year I tried Cidehouse yeast and think it may become my go to from now on but it's kind of pricey.

I will also say it's a while lot of fun taking turns shoving apples into a good chopper. When I bring my chopper and apples to work there is a line of people wanting to feed it. I'm sure the same would be true of an electric scratter.
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

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cranky wrote: Tue Nov 08, 2022 5:38 pm Last year I tried Cidehouse yeast and think it may become my go to from now on but it's kind of pricey.

I will also say it's a while lot of fun taking turns shoving apples into a good chopper. When I bring my chopper and apples to work there is a line of people wanting to feed it. I'm sure the same would be true of an electric scratter.
Is it this stuff?

https://homebrewing.org/products/cider- ... ast-sachet

I'll give some a try next year. MO2 costs the same, I just make a starter the week before with about 3/4 of a gallon of sweet cider and then it is raging by the time I pitch it. I only used one sachet for all the cider I made this year.

And yeah, we were all taking turns grinding 'cuz everybody wanted a turn. There is something satisfying about seeing 'em shred.
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

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stillanoob wrote: Tue Nov 08, 2022 5:45 pm Is it this stuff?

https://homebrewing.org/products/cider- ... ast-sachet
Yes, that's it. My normal go to is D47 or 71b-1122 because they add nice fruity esters and are cheap but the ciderhouse kept or actually added a really nice apple flavor even in the Minute Maid canned apple juice and the flavor carried over after distilling. Cuts were tricky though.
stillanoob wrote: Tue Nov 08, 2022 5:45 pm I'll give some a try next year. MO2 costs the same, I just make a starter the week before with about 3/4 of a gallon of sweet cider and then it is raging by the time I pitch it.
That's what I had to do.
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

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I just check another Karen's Delight. I didn't intend to but I dropped it on the floor, then the dog mistook it for a toy and snatched it up and ran off with it. After I wrestled the dog for it and pried it out of his mouth I figured it's now bruised and punctured so I may as well see what the sugar level is.
KD 08 Nov 22 - C.png
21 Brix which is 1.0875 S.G, or about 12% potential alcohol and it was still a bit under ripe :D Fully ripe I think they would reach 22-23 Brix maybe higher. I love these apples, I wish I could get enough to make iced cider out of them.
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

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stillanoob wrote: Tue Nov 08, 2022 3:38 pm While having the perfect blend of apples does make for the best cider making it with whatever you can get always comes out good anyway, just maybe not the best. Once I made a batch from all Golden Delicious and when it finished out it was so dry that you really couldn't tell if it was wine or cider because there was no apple character. It wasn't bad but it wasn't the apple-y cider you dream of. Luckily I have a few Jonathan trees that I can count on and a friends tree which I am pretty sure is a Baldwin. I used to have access to these fantastic red tart and tannic apples at an abandoned house but then somebody bought it and cut the trees down. Never did anything with the area either, the trees are all still there rotting away where the felled them. Anyway, sweet apples are easy to come by but tannic apples are harder to find.
One nice advantage of living in Normandy is that most of the apple trees around here are cider varieties. People's gardens may tend to have eating apples, but the people giving lots away tend to have small orchards that were planted a few generations back to keep the owner in cider. There's a local cider maker whose obsession with the perfect balance means that he relies on some friends to keep him supplied in a few varieties that he doesn't yet grow. His cider is truly delicious!

We managed our total production over 2 sundays with 2 to 3 people present for each pressing. In the end, it was the scratting that took the time. Afterwards I would pop out every hour or so to add a turn to the press. Maybe in a few years when we've all got a little older and more tired we'll find the cash for The Ultimate Scratter.

cranky: That is an impressively high amount of sugar. The damn things must be close to crystallising!
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

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NormandieStill wrote: Wed Nov 09, 2022 3:09 am cranky: That is an impressively high amount of sugar. The damn things must be close to crystallising!
These produce the highest sugar of any apple I've ever seen but they are also low acid so there is no harshness when you concentrate the juice. Also with the high sugar content it doesn't need as much concentrating as other juices to reach a suitable sugar level for a dessert wine. Once it's fermented it tastes like really good fresh apple juice...until you stand up and realize it was 12% alcohol. That's why I've been kind of obsessed with cloning this tree for many years.
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

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NormandieStill wrote: Wed Nov 09, 2022 3:09 am
One nice advantage of living in Normandy is that most of the apple trees around here are cider varieties. People's gardens may tend to have eating apples, but the people giving lots away tend to have small orchards that were planted a few generations back to keep the owner in cider. There's a local cider maker whose obsession with the perfect balance means that he relies on some friends to keep him supplied in a few varieties that he doesn't yet grow. His cider is truly delicious!
I am so jealous. Here most are eating varieties. It is too warm here for many varieties, the lack of chill limits what varieties are productive. I will do my best to curb my resentment towards you! But no guarantees. :lol:
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

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stillanoob wrote: Wed Nov 09, 2022 6:23 am I am so jealous. Here most are eating varieties. It is too warm here for many varieties, the lack of chill limits what varieties are productive. I will do my best to curb my resentment towards you! But no guarantees. :lol:
Hey. There's has to be some advantage in return for an annual rainfall that is so evenly distributed through the year that from a graph you'd have troubling telling summer from winter. Our house is fairly well insulated so we're not needing to heat much at the minute. We have a reasonably efficient heat-recovery ventilation system... and the relative humidity is currently ~73%. Even when heating hard that rarely gets much below 60%.
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

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I have a couple of things today.

First, the Karen's Delights are finally ripe and testing at 23 brix :ebiggrin: I wish I had a thousand pounds of them.

2nd I was at a little local grocery store today and sitting outside was this
SALE #1 - C.PNG
SALE #2 - C.PNG
Inside they have bins of apples and they just changed out the Fuji and Braeburn and persimmons and this is whats left. Unfortunately I don't have time to deal with them so I didn't buy them :cry:
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Re: Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

Post by cranky »

I couldn't help myself, I went back yesterday to buy all the apples. I was only a couple minutes too late and was in line right behind the person who bought the biggest and best box but I bought the remaining 2 boxes of apples. I really wanted to buy all the persimmons but managed to restrain myself.

Once we got the boxes home we started a huge batch of apple butter. We completely filling two large crock pots and started the cooking process to turn them into apple butter. My house smells amazing :ebiggrin: but I now have a problem :problem:

Hidden underneath all the Fuji and Braeburns was a whole bunch of what I'm assuming are Granny Smiths which aren't very tart but are quite sour. I'm not a fan of Granny Smiths and Mrs Cranky hates them, even in pies, so I've been scratching my head about what to do with 55 pounds of Granny Smiths.

I know I could chop and press them which would only get me about 3.5 to 4 gallons of juice,which isn't enough to bother digging out the chopper and press, cleaning them and pressing. unless I was testing chopper mods, but the chopper is so good now it doesn't need any more mods.

I could chop them in the food processor and press them on the little press but the little press is buried somewhere deep in the east tunnel of the garage and could take some time to extract not to mention the risk of a cave in which could cause serious injury and take considerable time to get out of.

So, this morning I figured since they are sour and not tart I would make some apple pie filling and see if that was somehow acceptable to Mrs Cranky. Miraculously it was :esurprised: So we now have a plan to make a big batch of apple pie filling and can it so we can make good apple pies for the next year or so :D
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