Wednesday, October 7, 2009

Picking Apples In October


A high of 58° with a 90% chance of rain limits most outdoor activities. On Saturday, my roommate Dan and I decided to make hard apple cider and went in search of free apples. We eventually found some overgrown trees on the side of the road near Colby. For two hours we climbed trees, shook branches and dodged falling apples.

Incoming!

Soaking wet.

All told, Dan and I picked over three hundred apples destined for our vat of brewing hard apple cider. The consummate fall activity.

12 comments:

npmaslow said...

This is reminiscent of recent road trips I've taken around eastern Washington - the Yakima and Chelan areas are overflowing with apples right about now. I resorted to purchasing the local fermented cider - though $10/liter almost makes it worthwhile to try the homebrew method, despite the small apartment.

Foster Huntington said...

How was the local fermented cider in eastern Washington. That Area is beautiful. I grew up spending a lot of time in the columbia river gorge.
Foster

trip said...

Awesome; are you going to have another post on the actual production of the cider? I would be quite interested. I assume it is basically just adding yeast to the cider and letting it rest, but an account of your technique would be interesting to read.

L.A.S said...

damn...i assume you guys plan on bottling a good amount of cider...

npmaslow said...

Well, I have to say the ciders out here have been very different in style from one another. The most unique/notable one is probably Orondo - dry, noncarbonated - essentially a very good apple juice that happens to be 7% abv.

I second the request for a post on the brewing process - dorm homebrew - great concept.

Foster Huntington said...

I will post on how the batch goes. WE lost a gallon when glass bottle exploded, shattering a window in our kitchen and breaking a beer bottle ten feet away. After it finishes fermenting i will post about.
Foster

Unknown said...

hi could you post daniels phone number or spacebook page info? he looks like a total hunk!

greenjeans said...

sweet. it's funny, johnny appleseed was actually planting trees for hard cider production (he drank a lot of it as well). Good pictures and hopefully you'll get some tasty brew.

World Elephant said...

Great idea. Apple Cider's a must this time of year.

Foster Huntington said...

thats awesome about johnny apple seed. if only more people followed his example...
Foster

Michael O'Neill Burns said...

like most things on here, really great pictures. make me miss autumn in the NE. on a related note, start putting some pictures from a recent thrift store find up on my blog that may be of interest. there is a huge section on maine i'm hoping to scan later this week.

behindtimes.wordpress.com

all the best,
michael

Lindy said...

Making sweet and hard cider has become a fun pastime for us at our vacation home near Lake Chelan. Along with our sweet apple trees, I planted six traditional "cider" apple trees (Ashmead's Kernel,Esopus Spitzenberg Golden Russet, Harry master's Jersey, Muscadet de Dieppe, & Newton Pippin). Two of these are heritage trees from UK, one is from France and the other three date back to colonial America, the Newtown Pippin was said to have been Washington's favorite and the Spizenberg was noted as Jefferson's favorite. I also built my own apple grinder (See pics on flickr at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/31423823@N08/ ) and a hydraulic press.