Apples, apples everywhere

This weekend has been Apples pressing weekend. Steve got the press on Friday evening and dropped it off at my house together with the hand cranked apple pulper. We arranged to meet Saturday, early afternoon. On Saturday morning I got everything ready. I arranged the work area. The shed is at one end of the production line. See the picture below. It gives the reason I did not want to move the apples. The shed was full of them.

Just outside the shed door to I set the table up to rough chop the apples; at the end of the table a dustbin with the apple pulper perched on the top, then the apples press itself secured to the work bench, in front of the press a series of empty fermenting bins to catch the juice. Everyone I talked to said the weather was going to wet so I set up the two garden umbrellas, one over the table and the other over the press. I got everything washed down and sterilised and sat back to wait for Steve.



I just had time to finish my brew when Steve turned up. Steve had a few Apples in his car [see the adjacent picture] Between us we reckoned we about a tonne. This year we had more cookers than dessert Apples so we hope for a more interesting brew.

Steve took up station at the press and I the chopping/pulping table. Off we went, the apple pile did not seem to go down very quickly but we got into a rhythm. Same trouble as last year though. With just one press we could not leave the pressing squeezing the apples until we had all the juice. As it was we ending up with 14 gallons a piece. So no shortage of apple juice.

H made Pumpkin soup for a late lunch. We went back to pulping and pressing. At 4pm the lights went on. yet more pressing. At 7.30pm we stopped for dinner [Lemon chicken and roast veg] then continued until 10pm. However the job was not complete. Just before dinner I took the bags pressed and spent pulp to the lottie:
A. To free up the bags and buckets for the next session
B. The top up the compost bins. It makes a great activator.

We had sunshine, light showers, heavy showers and wind building up to a gale all evening. We had emptied the shed of all the my apples and refilled it with Steve's contribution. We even got through a few trays of Apples before we called a halt. We arranged to meet the next day and finish off the remaining nine trays and so it was. Steve came about 10am and we were finished and cleaned up by 1pm.

All we have to decide now is what we are going to do with our juice.