Making apple cider for the first time.

We had the best weekend!  My neighbor that I get my apples from has had a cider press now for about 2  years that we have not been able to use!  When they ordered it, the press  came in a month to late for the apples. The next year the trees were barren due to the crazy weather we had.  Finally this year the apples made and appearance!  So this weekend we did a last minute “Let’s do this”.  So we all picked apples and put them in a large white cooler.  Next the men set everything up while we enjoy a little break.  We did figure this was going to be an all afternoon evening event.  Well to our surprise we were done in less than an hour and cleaned up and that included picking the apples!  Finding containers to hold all the juice is another story!   The cider was sooo good!  Even better cold!

Of course it being our first time doing this we all wanted to know how to make cider since we had the best apple juice ever.  So, what is the difference between apple cider and apple juice we all asked?  “Google IT!!” My husband said with a big grin, because that is his favorite saying here lately!  So we did:    “The Massachusetts Dept of Agriculture tells us that apple cider is raw apple juice that has not undergone filtration to remove coarse particles of pulp or sediment, like apple juice has. In other words, apple cider is simply raw, unfiltered apple juice.”

We were all giggled and continued to enjoying this beautiful weather we had for the evening and our apple cider we had all had a hand in making, and decided to cook on the grill and make a little dessert for later (Ice Cream sandwiches layered with caramel and chocolate syrup more layers and more of the caramel and chocolate….. then frosted with more ice cream like a cake – Yes it was soo yummy).

So as you can guess I will be making more jelly with the apple cider using my Apple Jelly – Done with Apple Peels and Cores recipe but I will make a few changes to it that I will make sure I post and also trying out a new one, Apple Pie Jam.  Yummy Yummy

P.S. The pears in the fruit orchard still have couple of weeks before they are ready, Yep you guessed it we are going to try an make pear (cider/juice) and of course pear jelly, pear jam will follow!