Cider Apple Mills; Grinding and Shredding Apple at Home…

If you are going to make cider at any decent volume you will find that apple grinding is the one real headache in pressing apples at home. If you’ve pressed enough apples you find out pretty quick that hand-cranking is OUT. The one exception might be if you have some over sugar’d and under exercised [...]

Read Full Post »

Build Your Own Apple Cider Press…

Don’t laugh but Fall is around the corner. My buddy Al takes us through his ingenious modification and conversion of a Harbor Freight Shop Press into a Rack and Cloth Apple Press. Step by step Al takes you through the pieces, where to get the parts, dimensions, what to do, what no to do, and [...]

Read Full Post »

Cider Academy.

Done deal. 4 years in the waiting and I’m finally going to attend Peter Mitchell’s Cider Academy. The course I am taking is Cider Making – Principles & Practice course and it is held at the WSU Mount Vernon extension. Not too far away. I’m pretty excited overall and the syllabus is a dream. I [...]

Read Full Post »

Homebrewing & Bottling: A Message to Micro/Craft Brewers & Wineries

While writing my last cider entry I inadvertently exposed a pet peeve of mine regarding the bottling practices of a few micro-breweries and wineries. After a little thought I was thinking I’d like to go into the topic a bit more. Besides my momentary tastes and the quality of the product there is another huge [...]

Read Full Post »