Make your own apple cider with a homemade cider mill.
Nothing can quite compare with the taste of fresh, homemade cider. While you may be able to find fresh cider at a local farmers market it will never be quite as fresh as if you made it yourself. Making your own cider is not difficult -- all it takes is a cider mill and some apples. If you know use a hammer you can even make your own cider mill so you will be able to enjoy fresh cider whenever you want.
Instructions
1. Assemble a wooden basket to hold the apples during pressing. Create a square frame out of pieces of 1-by-2-inch hardwood and cover five of the six sides, leaving the top of the basket open. To cover the sides you may either use hardwood boards or nail down slats of hardwood spaced 1/16th of an inch apart. If you choose to use sheets of plywood you will need to drill many small holes into the four sides of the basket.
2. Create a square frame using the hardwood 4-by-4s and 2-by-4s. Lay two of the hardwood 4-by-4s down on the ground and nail to them two hardwood 2-by-4s - one near the top of the 4-by-4 and one near the bottom. Repeat this process with the other two 4-by-4s, then use the remaining 2-by-4s to complete the frame in the shape of a cube.
3. Enclose the top of the hardwood frame with the leftover 2-by-4s. Secure all joints with glue or L-brackets for extra stability.
4. Cut a drainage hole in the bottom of the metal tray near one of the corners using an electric drill or cut a notch out of the rim with a hacksaw. Slide the metal tray into the hardwood frame and set the wooden basket on top of it inside the frame.
5. Cut the thick hardwood board down to size using an electric table saw. Once cut, the board should be just small enough to be laid flat inside the wooden basket with enough room around the edges to move up and down.
6. Clean and sanitize the wooden basket, the metal tray and the hardwood pressing board. Scrub these items with hot soapy water then rinse with a mixture of 1 tablespoon of bleach dissolved in a gallon of water. Thoroughly rinse off the bleach mixture before using the cider mill.
7. Wash, core and slice the apples, then place them in the wooden basket. For the best tasting cider, use a combination of one-third sweet apples like Fuji or Gala varieties, one-third bittersweet apples like Somerset Red apples, and one-third sharp tasting apples like Granny Smiths. You may choose to put the apples in a cheesecloth sack before putting them into the wooden basket.
8. Place the hardwood board on top of the apples in the wooden basket and position the bottle jack on top of the board in the center of the basket. To make cider, crank the bottle jack so it presses against the underside of the top of the wooden frame and exerts downward pressure on the board in the wooden basket. As the apples are crushed, the juice will run out of the holes in the wooden basket into the metal tray and stream out through the hole in the tray.
9. Collect the juice in a bucket or bowl by placing it under the hole in the metal tray. Refrigerate the cider and store it for up to 10 days.
Tags: wooden basket, metal tray, apples like, cider mill, bottle jack, Create square, Create square frame
