Lets get carried away with fruity goodness

[wtfdskin]

Before I stumbled upon my apple grinder at an antique sale we used a meat grinder for grinding them. Had to half or quarter them to fit through, but worked quite well. My press us home built with 4x4s and an acme screw from an adjustable scaffolding leg. Im going to replace the wooden basket with a perforated stainless one for this season.

[wtfdskin]

Edited because of my stupid phone

[cranky]

That's a nice press wtfdskin. Be careful when you buy the metal basket. Some members bought aluminum baskets and have had blowouts so make sure it's stainless steel.

[Jimbo]

I dont know if Id want all that acid around aluminum. But they dont blow out that easy, I used this plastic one for over 1000 lbs of apples before it finally blew out. Then I took a cheap 5 gal stainless pot and drilled bunch of holes in it. Its a PITA to get all the burrs off the holes so it doesnt snag your strainer bag, but works great now. http://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopi ... 0#p7018787

[wtfdskin]

Yup definately stainless. Local welder gets perforated sheets of it. Ive never had luck with pressing bags or cheesecloth. I use white bed sheets. They have to be hosed off after each press but hold up much better. Made my pressing plates from ptfe cutting board material. Hey clean up real nice.

[wtfdskin]

[Jimbo]

nice

[cranky]

One of the members, I forget who, bought a cheap aluminum strainer/basket on amazon and blew it out quicker than you blew the bucket Jimbo.
I like seeing the innovation of the members when it comes to pressing apples. When I first started making wine I tried using my cast iron lard/fruit press on blackberries. For those who may be considering such a thing I have to warn you that this may not be a good idea. Everything worked just fine until I got to the last little bit which came out pitch black instead of the burgundy that blackberries usually come out. It seems the acid in the blackberries reacted with the old cast iron to give me the black juice. On a bright note it also seemed to have formed a protective coating in the cast iron.

[wtfdskin]

Funny you mentioned the lard press. I tried that today on 30 lbs of blueberries that I had already ran through the kitchen aid "juicer" which is more like a pulp maker. Laziness on my part as I didnt want to drag out the big press for one squeeze. Blueberry goo on the garage ceiling now.

[cranky]

Funny you mentioned the lard press. I tried that today on 30 lbs of blueberries that I had already ran through the kitchen aid "juicer" which is more like a pulp maker. Laziness on my part as I didnt want to drag out the big press for one squeeze. Blueberry goo on the garage ceiling now.

That's funny right there I never had a problem with the blackberries not staying in the fruit basket just the black juice and the sausage spout is nickle plated brass and mine had a lead solder repair so I never used it.

[cranky]

Today I took time to work on a blueberry rake. Here is what I have so far

It's made from scrap plywood that is cluttering up my garage and bamboo skewers I already had as well as screws I already had so total money in my blueberry picker was $0. I still need to attach the handle and give it a finish but I tested it out this afternoon and it worked pretty darn good. Now maybe I have a chance at getting those 15 gallons of blueberries later in the season when most of them are ripe

[skow69]

That's too cool, cranky. I love it when you can build something on a Sunday afternoon without going to the store.

[cranky]

That's too cool, cranky. I love it when you can build something on a Sunday afternoon without going to the store.

I work Sundays but usually have some free time while waiting for the next bout of chaos so I tend to kill the time by doing goofy things. I am actually making 2 of them but ran out of screws. Only a few more weeks and they will be getting a workout. I'm hoping to manage a blueberry Eau de Vie this year.

[cranky]

Yesterday I stopped by to check on the white apple tree. It is taunting me, so close and yet still out of reach. Plums are ripening too and blackberries. Who said all the fruits don't ripen at the same time? Lets see, Blueberries, blackberries, plums and apples, all at the same time. Damn I need to get those carboys emptied. I loaded up my picking tools into my car so Monday I can try to do battle and work my way into the thicket to begin picking plums and hopefully reach the white apple while it still has fruit. Wednesday will probably be Blueberries, Sat and Sun Jefferson plums and check on the pinks and another one a little way from the pinks. Glad I'm finished with mods and repairs and ready to begin running because life is about to get busy for me.

[cranky]

This morning I picked and ate my first plum off one of my 2 plum trees. I did pick one the other day but haven't eaten it yet. The one today was the most amazing tasting plum I have ever tasted. Sadly it didn't produce many this year but I look forward to many more years of these wonderful plums.

[Jimbo]

Did you buy some chain male yet to get to the elusive white apple?

I just ran my cherries for this year. Write up is here http://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopi ... 38&t=56670

[cranky]

Did you buy some chain male yet to get to the elusive white apple?

No but there is what used to be a trail going back in there, tomorrow I might try to separate the overgrowth and see if I can get in the back way through the plum thicket. either way I'm getting at least a few plums tomorrow.
I will read your cherry thread tonight, I like reading your threads but I have to leave for Bearrivers house now.

[NgrainD]

My dad has a white peach tree in his side yard. Only bad thing is it is right next to the street, so local scavengers usually have their way with it. I'm gonna try and beat them to it and try my hand at my first fruit must. White peach brandy. Sounds good. These whites are usually much sweeter than regular peaches. Should do just fine without sugar. We'll see. I'll letcha know.

[cranky]

My dad has a white peach tree in his side yard. Only bad thing is it is right next to the street, so local scavengers usually have their way with it. I'm gonna try and beat them to it and try my hand at my first fruit must. White peach brandy. Sounds good. These whites are usually much sweeter than regular peaches. Should do just fine without sugar. We'll see. I'll letcha know.

Sounds like a great idea NgrainD.
I stopped by the plum thicket this afternoon and got a few pounds of plums, more will be available soon. I actually managed to fight my way back through an old overgrown trail into the plum thicket. I believe last year there were homeless people living back in there but this year they aren't there but I was careful not to disturb the blackberries too much so it doesn't encourage others to try to come back. It was pretty surreal and a bit creepy in there. I was under what are obviously the oval, egg shaped purple plum trees that I have seen from a distance and I managed to get close to the whit apple, close enough that there were a bunch on the ground but the the plum canape makes it pretty hard to see them on the tree. I think with only a little more effort I can make it to the white apple but it is already almost too late for the but I may be able to take a rake into the plum thicket and shake the apple and get a few that way.

[cranky]

Yesterday the wife and I made it out to the berry park once again. I'm finding I have begun having a tendency to sleep in late on my weekends so it was nearly 6AM when I woke up and by the time we got around and everything rounded up and loaded in the car it was after 7. we arrived at the park at 8:15, which is much later than usual but oh well weekends are for being lazy. I brought along a few 5 gallon buckets with lids to hide my berry picker and have something to sit on when I felt like taking a break. The park has benches but they are all in direct sunlight so the bucket makes sense. I was anxious to try my picker out

but there were very few bushes ready for one. I won't use a picker on a bush that is less than 95% ripe and that didn't happen until August last year. 2 of my own plants at home were ready a few days ago so I did a trial run on them

although there weren't many berries I managed to strip the berries off of them in less than 4 minutes and fill the catch well of the picker.

I did manage to find a couple of bushes that met my requirements and the picker worked pretty well.

For the most part we just did some normal picking by hand. All in all it was a nice morning to be out just picking a few berries. We picked over a gallon in about 2 hours,

then it was starting to get kind of hot and we were getting tired so we decided to head home. On the way out of the park I stopped at one of the apple trees to check on it's progress. Finding that it had begun dropping apples I picked one and tried it. To my surprise it was ready to be picked. Had I known that I would have brought my apple picker along and gone to it very early when people can't see what I'm up to. Since I didn't I just picked what I could easily reach and shake onto the ground which was 130 apples. That sounds like a lot but they are small apples so probably 150-160 per bucket so I got about 3/4 of a bucket of apples before we left.

[cranky]

As you know from my post last week, apple season has begun here in the pacific northwest. Last year I managed to get 35 gallons of cider pressed all of which which hasn't yet been run or bottled. This year is a very dry year which is resulting in much smaller apples than last year but in one of my picking spots the trees that hardly produced anything in previous years are loaded with small yet tasty cider apples. When I say small I mean small too, although they are not crab apples. These apples range between 150 to 200 per bucket. Some of the apples I picked last year were running about 50 to a bucket but most of the true cider apples run about 130-150 per bucket. I've read that the best cider and brandy apples are small like this and figure it is true. So far the apples that have been ready to pick have been mildly sweet and slightly sour but very nice and not bad to eat.

I've been reading about the best calvados and thinking about how to proceed with my apple plans this year. I still have a very small press (3 gallons) and very little time at home to do anything with apples so my plan this year is similar to last year, to pick apples on my way home from work then take them to work with me and in my free time do the long arduous process of washing chopping and grinding. I do things a little differently than most people by coring the apples before grinding which will remove most of the seeds and hopefully improve the final product, not that I'm unhappy with what I've already made. I bought a food processor to keep at work for grinding the apples so the wife doesn't get mad at me about using our good one at home. So far things are going well.

Last week I picked about 3/4 of a bucket of apples and a couple days ago stopped by my local park and found another tree ready to pick and picked another 67 apples. Over the week I began processing them. Before I decided to try to do this more aligned to the french way I already ground up half of the original picking and froze them. Then I decided to do this the complicated way so I took the remainder to work this week and chopped, cored and ground the apples, placed the pulp into a 5 gallon bucket and let it sit for a couple days. I felt pretty safe letting these apples ferment with wild yeast since they were picked in an area well away from busy roads. All in all I got 2 gallons of pulp from the 2/3ds of a bucket I did the complicated way which is about right since I normally get about 3 gallons from a bucket.

In my cavados reading I found that the French brandy makers use drops which unfortunately isn't an option for me since the majority of the trees I have access to are surrounded by blackberries or actually engulfed by them. So I have to pick them before they fall. Another part of the process is to allow the apple pommes to sit for between several hours to several days after grinding and before pressing. This is easily accomplished in my technique since I can now grind them at work throughout the week and add them to the bucket for pressing on the weekend or when I get enough pulp. The last part is the natural ferment. I decided to go ahead and try the natural ferment because the first apples came from the Tacoma blueberry park and I figure the yeast are probably pretty good there. The next step is to allow the yeast to work their magic for a minimum of 6 weeks, some allow as long as 6 months which is about right for me anyway. Then after all that the cider is distilled, depending on the region it might be double distilled or single distilled in a pot still or some farms take advantage of a traveling column still that moves from farm to farm. I haven't really decided how I will be distilling it yet but the new flute is definitely getting some consideration even though tradition may dictate otherwise. Last is the long aging process, The French require a minimum of 2 years on oak and say 12 or 20 years are preferred. We will have to see how that works out but unlike the general American way of aging distillate calvados is not aged on charred oak but lightly toasted oak and preferably in a barrel that would be considered used up long ago by most people here. My plan here is to use what I have since I don't have any French oak sticks or unused white oak I will have to probably sand down some Jack Daniels staves and lightly toast them or maybe buy some on amazon.

So with all that in mind, today I took my now fermenting apple pulp and did a fairly light pressing which netted me about a half gallon of juice to begin my 2015 cider/brandy. As discussed the other day, my plan for this year is to do an initial light pressing of the pulp then freeze the pommes, thaw it and re-press keeping the two juices separate and see how one compares to the other.

Here is a picture of my poor little press and that first pressing of precious apple cider which is already well on it's way fermenting.

[Jimbo]

what was the brix of those small apples? Ive found in dry years with small apples the brix is much higher, 14-15, where typically apples are 13 brix or so.

Yes if you let the apples sit for a couple weeks before grinding they produce more juice, thats pretty standard procedure. Also, the French let the pomace sit for a couple days after grinding to let the pomace oxidize some. Ive never done that, too many fruit flies.

[cranky]

what was the brix of those small apples? Ive found in dry years with small apples the brix is much higher, 14-15, where typically apples are 13 brix or so.

I didn't check anything with these other than ripeness, usually I do but not this time and by pressing time fermentation was already well underway so I figure what happens happens. I just checked on the jug and it is happily bubbling and foaming away

Yes if you let the apples sit for a couple weeks before grinding they produce more juice, thats pretty standard procedure. Also, the French let the pomace sit for a couple days after grinding to let the pomace oxidize some. Ive never done that, too many fruit flies.

Yep, I think we kind of discussed that a bit, the French say most of the flavor is at or near the peel and the rest and oxidation allows that part to break down and be retained after juicing. I will say this juice has a lot of flavor, very, very green apple (which is what they are) and pretty intense, I just need 9.5 more gallons and 5-6 months before running then a couple years to rest on the right wood and I hope to have my very own extra fine home made Calvados. I figure I can get at least 10 gallons this year the french way since my picking season is so long and my method so slow and tedious but it will be interesting to see how the 2 methods compare. It would be nice to get a thousand pounds of apples all at once but in all honesty at the moment a couple buckets a week are about all I can handle anyway and I'll figure out how to deal with the fruit flies, apple cider vinegar and a drop of soap worked pretty well last year.

[cranky]

Today was both a good and bad day for me in the world of fruity goodness. I got into the place where the pink apples are and found them at their peak for picking, in fact another week would have been too long and the tree would have been empty. I found another apple I hadn't even noticed before which I believe is probably a golden delicious but it is rather early in the season for a golden delicious. They are rather large apples with very pale yellow almost white skin that is very thin and delicate almost like a white apple but not quite. These apples have a real sharpness to them that will add to the final mix quite nicely. The only real problem is that I discovered the tree almost too late and was only able to pick about 35 apples off of it. By my estimate there were at least a couple hundred pounds of them on the ground already.

The pinks this year are small but the flavor and sweetness are absolutely incredible. The drought may have made them small but the flavor is multiplied. I managed to pick 250 pinks today. Most of the pinks and all of the golds pretty much just fell into my picking basket. I lost a great deal of both because I bumped them slightly before getting the basket in position and they fell into the blackberries.

The big disappointment of the day was the Jefferson plums. I went to the Jefferson plum thicket expecting them to be ready to pick but the thicket itself has been removed. Within the past week someone has driven heavy equipment through the plum thicket and leveled it. In addition to this the big apple tree that produced several hundred pounds of apples last year and won't be ready for a couple more weeks has also been damaged by the heavy equipment. It would appear they are planning to remove this tree and another and it may happen before they are ready to be picked. They already did so to a wild apple that gives away the location.

Disappointing and upsetting but I've known for a couple years now these trees have been in jeopardy. I'm happy to have gotten what I could from the area but this puts a serious damper on my goal of 50 gallons of apple juice and 10 gallons of plums for this year. All in all I got 30 pounds of very ripe juicy apples today in less than a half hour. These are the kind that give me 2 gallons of juice to the bucket so when all is said and done I can rely on nearly a carboy full of juice and the season is still early.

[cranky]

It occurred to me a little while ago that I never posted the results of my apple brandy so here goes.
First I guess I should summarize a few things.

Last year I picked apples from about 21 distinctly different varieties of apple trees found around me in various parks and public places and was given a few buckets full by some people I work with. All in all I managed to press about 35 gallons of cider most of which was fermented with D-47 yeast however one 6 gallon batch was fermented with a combination of S-04, D-47 and 1118 and got some sort of white foam stuff on top which was only on top and didn't seem to hurt anything. I also did a couple of carboys of store bought juice because I like to give away wine at Christmas and non contributors who I don't like will get cider from store bought juice while people I do like (very few) and contributors will get dessert wine or cider from my hand pressed apples and I get the brandy.

Somewhere around February I did a run and a half of brandy which went well until I accidentally contaminated a few bottles with dryer sheets which left me with about half of what I should have had but oh well, it is pretty nice stuff and I still needed to run off 2 more batches. which only happened in the past few weeks.

A couple weeks ago I got my flute up and running and decided to run off a batch of apple brandy to see how it went. I have sort of lost track on some of the carboys so this batch in all likelihood was at least half store bought apple juice. I took it off the still pretty fast at about 80% and collected in 1/4 pints which worked out real well for blending and produced a couple of real nice bottles of brandy.

The feints from that run went back into the next run which I did a few days ago. I finally made the decision to run off the mixed yeast batch instead of bottling it because of that weird foam. I took it and another carboy of what I'm certain was hand pressed cider and ran off a 12 gallon batch in the flute. I took this one off at 92% for most of the run and collected in 1/2 pint increments. I should have run faster and collected in smaller increments but oh well.

Towards the end of the run Tails began coming through and I had to re stabilize and adjust takeoff speed and got an extra 2 jars (1/2 pint) out of it that tasted real nice. All in all I got 22 half pints out of this run and the next day began the blending process. Blending was pretty tricky, I think due to the high ABV, collecting in too much per container and the mixture of yeasts. I believe I got a little more tails than I wanted and I keep revisiting jars 2 thru 6 but I think what I have will be nice once it ages a bit. After blending I have 2 quart jars at about 85% and I'm debating tempering down to 65% or so with apple juice from the second pressing that will happen later this week, then let it age a bit and see how it goes. I'm thinking the 5 or so bottles from the first 2 batches will be aged on lightly toasted Jack Daniels oak or maybe Japanese Maple which I still haven't given up on but aren't sure it is right for apple. I'm thinking about keeping this last batch as an apple Eau de Vie or maybe making up another batch of Scumble which I actually like quite a bit so I may go that route again. All in all last years cider will have produced 11 bottles of brandy and I still have around 10 gallons of cider for Christmas. Hopefully this year will produce even more brandy because I won't make as many mistakes.

[cranky]

Today I did the initial pressing of the pink apples I picked Saturday. This netted me about 2 gallons of nice sweet but mild juice which measured an SG of about 1.058 or around 7.5% potential alcohol. I believe the pinks are sweeter this year than last and they are definitely smaller. After the initial pressing I placed the not yet spent pulp in freezer bags and put them in the deep freeze. Tomorrow I will remove them and let the slow thawing begin and repress. I'm thinking that after the second pressing I might add water and sugar back to it and see how a grappa comes out. My personal experience with the way I do the pressing is that very little flavor is left because so much juice is removed in the second pressing but If I am going to make Scumble it requires a small amount of apple grappa...or not...there really is no wrong way to make scumble.

[cranky]

It's been a pretty good week for fruit for me I did the second pressing of the first apples which got me about another gallon and a half of juice. I used some to temper the last run of apple brandy down to about 60-65% I decided to make another batch of Scumble out of it, which should give me about 2 years supply of it. I took the double pressed pulp and put it in a bucket at this point it had the feel and consistency of granola. I added some water and sugar to bring it up to 6-7% potential alcohol and mixed in some 1118 yeast. The next morning it had absorbed all the water and completely filled up the bucket with pulp. I don't know if I should divide up the pulp, add more water and see if I can get a good ferment or let it sit for a while and re-press to see what I get. I was kind of hoping to get the cheez-its out of the 10 gallon fermenter and water it down a bit more, plus I will have more apple pulp to add this weekend.

Friday I got Half a bucket of apples from the early apple tree, I was actually about a week late on that one and missed out on a lot of them. Sat I slipped into the off limits area to see what I could get off the big apple tree that the back hoe had damaged. There were some smashed tents and things there so I guess the reason they did it was because some homeless people had moved in. I got maybe a bucket and a half of apples off that tree. The apples aren't anywhere near as good this year as last but I'm doing what I can. I spent a lot of time on apples Sunday and managed to get all of them washed, prepped, chopped and ground and currently have a bucket of apple pulp which I will press here in a little bit. Then when I got home I managed to pick a little over a gallon of blackberries most of which were the evergreens I call tree berries because they grow across the tops of trees and I have to pick them on a ladder. They are the best berries we get and are nice and big and juicy.

Today One of the guys at work asked if I had time to go over to his house and pick fruit. Of course I said "HELL YES!!!!"

So after work I headed over to his house to see what he had. He has a couple of apple trees that were ready to pick and this

A Japanese pear tree that has produced so much fruit it is breaking it's branches.

I have to admit I wasn't really prepared to have this happen and I only brought along so many bags to collect in. I picked for about an hour and filled all my bags even though I wasn't anywhere near finished. All in all this afternoon I managed to pick 60 pounds of apples and 80 pounds of pears and only picked about 1/4 of the pears.

I got home and showed my wife and she immediately commandeered the pears with the plans to use some for canning and jelly and cooking but I made her promise to save some for me to make booze out of. Last year I had 2 buckets of apples sitting in the kitchen and she said she wanted some, so I told her use whatever she wanted out of those 2 buckets. The next day she texted me that she had started making some apple butter and needed more Yep she used 2 full buckets of apples to make apple butter but it gave us a whole years supply of apple butter.

My plan is to go back there in a few days and get more it he'll let me.

[cranky]

I just did the first pressing of the apples I chopped Sunday. I tried a little of the juice and it tasted much sweeter than the ones I got off those trees last year so I did a quick S.G. check and it was 1.062 (8% potential), If I remember right the juice of those trees was about 6.5-7% so the apples may be small and a little more work but the juice sure is sweet and flavorful.

[wtfdskin]

Im hoping for the same result with my apples. They are about half the size of last year but hopefully mych sweeter. Will find out in another month.

[bearriver]

I got carried away.

Lost in a sea of plums, I have decided to clear the books. That is correct... My life now revolves around basic needs, family life, and picking fruit into 55 gallon fermenters in the back of my truck.

All of this fruit would have otherwise been fertilizer. Running some brandy right now to clear up a fermenter for tomorrow morning picking.