The Colonial Cider Mill is available for sale!

Yakima Press Company is proud to present The Colonial Cider Mill. This double tub cider press is handcrafted in the USA. The frame is made with laminated hard Maple from the east coast, with lots of heavy-duty cast iron components. This Cider Mill is built to last generations, just like the apple presses it is modeled after. Check out Yakima Press Company‘s website for more information and photos.

Wine Press for homemade wine

Here in the Yakima Valley there are lots of people with a small plot of fruit trees and/or grapes. These small plots are usually not large enough to sell the fruit commercial, but they are perfect for making homemade cider or wine. Using fresh grapes to press your own wine can be a fun and challenging experience. But as you take your first sip, it can be very rewarding. At Yakima Press Company, they design and manufacture fruit presses for both the beginning and advanced home brewers. So whether you are going to produce a few gallons of juice or wine, or a larger batch, Yakima Press is sure to have a grape or apple press to meet your needs. The Villager Wine Press is a grape press that will inspire. If you are looking to produce a small  to medium batch of homemade wine, then this is the wine press for you.

Yakima Press Company’s Cider Press

Check out Yakima Press Company’s Cider Press. This double tub fruit press can pump out gallons of fresh cider with each press. Loaded with cast iron parts that are made in the USA and a hard maple wood frame this press will last for generations. There is no better cider press on the market.

Jaffrey 8400 Cider Press is on Sale!

Jaffrey’s flagship 8400 Cider Press is on sale at The Fruit Press, for $670. Regularly priced at $740, this is a great time for your purchase of a cider press. October is the apple harvest season, don’t go another year without your own cider press to make homemade apple juice, or cider.

Order your Jaffrey Cider Press today to guarantee you receive your Cider Press by the end of the month!

2010 Apple Season

Apple Harvest is coming up soon and it looks to be a record harvest year here in Washington State. If you are thinking about pressing apples this year and have yet to purchase a cider press, you can find some great ones at The Fruit Press!

More posts to come as we enter September and October. Have a great end of the summer everyone!

Forgotten Fruits Manual & Manifesto

Great publication on the forgotten apples in United States History, compiled by Cory Paul Nabhan.

Executive Summary excerpt:

“The f irst-ever gathering of grassroots apple conservationists in the United States, organized by the Renewing America’s Food Traditions (RAFT) Alliance on March 19, 2009 in Madison, WI, acknowledged that not only are many apple varieties endangered, but the unique “apple culture” of America is endangered as well. These experts—who have collectively had more than two hundred years of experience in apple nurseries and orchards—charted a plan that would restore apple diversity to our farms and gardens, restaurants and cideries, home kitchens and festivals.”

For a complete reading, click on the link below:

http://www.slowfoodusa.org/images/ark_products/applebklet_web-3-11.pdf

Enjoy!

Making an Apple Grinder

When making an apple grinder for crushing apples, you will probably want to serrate or at least sharpen the teeth on your grinder. A lot of homemade apple press grinders are nothing more than the wood core with screws drilled about three-quarters of the way into the wood. If you are more of the metal working type you can cut strips of  aluminum or stainless steel and bend them upright at a 90 degree angle. You can them carve out teeth on the part of the strip that is perpendicular to the wood base. I will post a picture below to help explain. The point is to carve out teeth that are as sharp as possible to create the finest mash as possible.

Cider Press

The family and I had a succesful weekend of cider pressing. Every year we go over to my in-law’s home and press apples for fresh cider. This year we used Honeycrisp apples that my father-in-law grows, as well as Red Delicious apples from Yakima and a few other varieties. We were pressing about 1 bushel of apples to yield a gallon or gallon and one-half. This is the first year I’ve really paid attention to yield per bushel. Does anyone else have any statistics on how many gallons of cider they yield per bushel or box of apples?

Honeycrisp Apples

Honeycrisp apples have gained significant popularity over the past few years, even though they have been around for quite some time. Honeycrisp apples are the result of a 1960′s cross-breeding of the Macoun and Honeygold apple varieties. A project of the University of Minnesota apple breeding program. This year’s harvest of Honeycrisps will probably produce another year of growth. In Washington  State alone Honeycrisp production growth was 118% from 2006 to 2007 and another 33% from 2007 to 2008. Honeycrisps are a great table apple as well as a great blending apple for fresh apple cider.

Kingston Black Apples

The Kingston Black apple is another variety of apple that is best suited for cider making only. With its bitter taste it isn’t much of an eating apple like so many of the apples grown in the United States. In  fact, most cider making apple varieties don’t even look like the larger Red Delicious or Fuji’s that everyone  loves to eat. Most cider making apples are smaller and tend to grow in clusters of 3 or more. If you are looking to grow cider apples or if you are looking for a variety to buy to make hard cider, the Kingston Black may be a good place to start. It is a good stand alone variety, or varietal, so you don’t necessarily need to blend this apple variety with other apple varieties. If you do want to grow a Kingston Black apple tree, you can purchase them in the States and they are best suited to grow in hardiness zones 4-9. This hardiness zone covers a majority of the US, from the Yakima Valley in Washington State to the Tennessee River Valley. See the map below. The only climates to avoid would be the northern plains and the southern tip of Florida.

Climate and growing zones for the United States