Okay, so it was a busy day on the Ice House farm. Today was apple cider day. This is an annual event here filled with allot of family, hardwork, and fun. I have 9 apple trees of different variety. We have been picking apples the last couple of weeks for this event.

I own an old cider press that has been passed down from my great grandfather, it was made in the 1930s. I remember vividly pessing cider as a little boy 40 years ago with my father and grandfather, magic times!

sooooo its a pretty simple process. Pick the apples cut em up a bit if they are extra large. put em in a tub of water and bleach solution 100:1 just to keep things clean. Grind them in the grinder and then press em, out comes the juice.

The ground up pressed apples, aka mash, are then put into a 55 gallon barrel for later use. This mash will be fermented and used to make apple jack moonshine. A n old man I know that lives a few farms down the road has a wonderful still for doing just that. Thats another thread.

The pics are in no order. It was a wonderful day on the farm, great to be in the country with family.

Enjoy the pics!

nice..I remember when I was a kid having apple trees and picking them all the time..I miss homegrown apples..

It looks like that machine will produce some good 'extract'. It is nice to live out in the country like that.

please keep us apprised of the apple jack moonshine situation.....that's MORE than deserving of a trip up your way my brother! ;~)

....on a side-note: olympus mon came and stayed with me for a week before heading down south for his walkabout. very powerful thing our brother is doing.... it was good to spend time with him and have some good talks before seeing him off. he carries a piece of all of us with him..

and back to the cider! keep up the righteous country living my beautiful brother. it's an inspiration to us all!!

L&G!!

Thanks allot for the update ant! The cider pressing went well. We ended up with 20 gallons, and a 55 gallon drum full of mash that we will make some apple jack moonshine with, stay tuned for that thread.

Looks nice, Icehouse.

-What do you add to the applejuice to make cider-just yeast??

Dang IH!

After my own heart! Apple Jack Moonshine? Apple cider? 9 apple trees! What a life!!

Hope to try the results someday. +D

This is so awesome Ice House! You definitely seem to live a life of abundance! I wish I could come up and help out on your farm. It really seems like a truly magical place. Thank you for sharing and inspiring! <3 <3

I dont make hard cider. I refridgerate it and drink it as is, unfiltered apple juice.

I dont drink alcohol at all.

The mash ferments in the barrel without the addition of yeast. Water and sugar is added as well as raisins.

There is enough natural yeast on the apples and in the air that the fermentation process starts and a decent colony grows pretty quickly.

I took the top off the barrel today after only two days and there is already a strong odor of alcohol.

I will keep you updated with plenty of photos of the distillation process.

stay tuned.

IH

Thanks Ice house. I can smell the alcohol from my laptop! ...

so icehouse do you use the alcohol as a solvent or is it for friends?

I no longer use alcohol as a solvent. Its always an option. I used it once upon a time for making my changa and fortified caapi like 10-20x caapi. I use water for that process now. it works great.

What kind of apple trees do you have? I will be planting some in mt backyard soon!

Very cool. My Grandparents lived on part of an old orchard when I was young. I used to gather bags of apples in the fall and make cider with their juicer... which I would ferment and drink... magic!