Making homemade cider! | Blogs

We just made some homemade cider and it was delicious!  I do not have a proper cider press but I did have a home made cheese press that I decided to try to use as a cider press.  It worked quite well!  First I cut up the apples into quarters.  Then I put them into a food processor with the metal blade and chopped them quite fine.  It almost looked like applesauce but more coarse.  Then I lined a cheese mold with cheese cloth.  A cheese mold is basically a cylinder of food grade plastic with no bottom and holes on the sides.  With the cheese cloth inside the mold I added my apple pulp.  Then I folded the cheese cloth over the pulp and put the follower in.  Then I put the top of my press in place and put rocks on top of that for weight!  Underneath the cheese mold is a plain old disposable 8x8 foil cake pan that has a hole poked in one corner.  That way all the cider flows to that little hole and down into a bowl.  And there you have it!  We pressed a quart of cider from roughly 5 pounds of apples.  We had the cider with our dinner that evening and it was heavenly!  They kids really seemed to enjoy the process as you can see!