We (me) couldn’t wait two weeks for the apples to sweat. Good that we moved on it now, the apples were perfect.

We used 4 bushels of Gravenstein, one of Whitney crab apple and one of mixed apples consisting of honey crisp, snow and jazz apples.

Today we processed six bushels of apples – about 240lbs. Washed, de-wormed, cut rotten sections out, ground, pressed and… enjoyed fresh unadulterated apple juice.

We got about six gallons of juice, 5.5 is prepped for fermentation while we are enjoying the other half gallon just to sip now.

Acids were at .775% so we brought it down to .65% Sugars were at 15%

Tomorrow morning we will put the yeast in and the fermentation will commence.

Between all of the prep, processing and cleaning, it was a good 5-6 hours. But we had a good time.

1-2 weeks after the yeast goes in, we move it to secondary fermentation where it will sit for 4-6 months. Then on to bottling and another fermentation for another 4-6 months. This time next year we will be enjoying our first batch of cider.