Have you got piles?

[easyrider]

Of Apples in your garden? I have loads and was thinking of making cider...

 

[easyrider]

Years ago my dad had a greenhouse...he suffered low hanging plums..

 

[easyrider]

^

About 40 bottles of pasteurised apple juice sitting around here. From this year.

Maybe one year we'll do cider.

How do you pasteurise ?

 

[easyrider]

It's about the size of maybe 3-4 car wheels stacked up but is basically a big metal pot with a plastic lid and a heating element at the bottom.

Plonk on the worktop, fill with bottles 12 or 14?, fill the bottles with apple juice, put cap loosely on.

Fill with water to the fill level.

Then you set the pasteurising temperature, when it reaches that temp you need to hold that temperature for X amount of time.

When they've been in there for the right amount of time you can fish the bottles out of the bath, screw the cap down and leave them to cool on their sides.

Now sealed and safe to leave lying around outside a fridge.

Ah here it is: https://www.vigopresses.co.uk/Catalogue/Pasteurisers/Stainless-Steel-Digital-Pasteuriser-96474

And it's 13 bottles.

Also have an apple shredder and press from there.

Cool !

 

[easyrider]

the brewing gear is basically just a large tub and an air lock bubbler. we use a proper apple mashing machine, but if you can be bothered cutting by hand or making some sort of device to mash wouldn't be too complex. juicer its a heck of a lot easier to buy one which is going to set you back >100 quid depending on size, but I expect with some wood blocks, sturdy bucket and a car jack you could make something if you are so inclined.

As with lots of things the proper gear makes it easier, and miles easier to scale up quantity, but you can make small amount simply and cheaply as experiment I'm sure. we spend pretty much a day with 3 of us mashing and juicing to make 100 L with our kit

I have a masticating juicer...but the time it would take to juice the apples would be epic...weeks tbh...