Cider Making in North America
It is a fifteen-minute drive from the Vashon Island ferry dock to the 250-acre farm called Wax Orchards. Seattle is just a short ferry ride away, but the island’s remaining forests and well-fenced pastures have an air of timeless tranquility that belies their urban proximity. It is a perfect setting for the largest fresh cider mill in the Pacific Northwest.
Cider is only the most recent product of Wax Orchards, an enterprise that began in 1929 when August and Johanna Wax came to the island from a farming community just south of Seattle with a mind to raise pie cherries. They bought a large tract of land that had been logged once, cleared away the second-growth timber and logging debris, and planted Montmorency cherry trees. They enjoyed decades of successful cherry harvests and planted several acres of peach trees as well. The next logical addition to the orchardists’ acreage was apples. Another thirty acres went into apple trees of many different varieties.
The Waxes discovered that unlike cherries and peaches, which brought a good return, their apples found little or no market as table fruit. Rainy western Washington simply would not produce the picture-book fruit grown just across the Cascade Mountains in the irrigated orchards of the Yakima Valley. They could barely meet expenses with their Gravenstein, Golden Delicious, and Stayman apples, which were juicy and delicious, but small and irregular by eastern Washington standards.
Cider seemed to be an obvious use for the unsold apples and a large old wine press was put into use. Neighbors and friends were the first customers, but as the word spread, demand for the cider far outstripped the supply.
Then in 1970, the family got an unexpected prod from nature when a severe hailstorm damaged most of that season’s apples. Faced with a bruised apple crop that could only be saved by making cider, and a press which produced only a few gallonsat a time, the cidermakers decided to mechanize the process. A simple fifteen-ton press and a mill for grinding the apples were built to increase production capability. Almost 8,000 U.S. gallons of cider were pressed and sold that year. Not a single good apple grown at Wax Orchards has escaped the cider jug since.
Visitors to Wax Orchards park their cars next to the comfortable two-story farmhouse and walk a few hundred feet out to the cannery building where, on almost any day of the week, cider making is in progress.
Five or six people are hard at work in an 11,000-square-foot cement block building which was constructed as a cannery for the cherries and peaches. The workers are warmly dressed in order to remain comfortable in the unheated structure.
The roar of the machinery makes conversation almost impossible even at the opposite end of the cannery. A strong fruity smell of apples pervades the air. Visitors are advised to wear boots because on pressing days the concrete floor of the cannery is usually wet. Both the cold and dampness can be escaped inside a small office, where a woodstove is usually burning and a pot of hot cider sits ready to be poured.
Several dozen big bins of apples sit near a large loading dock, some inside the building and others on the ground. Each bin holds half a ton of fruit. In the fall, the bins are full of apples harvested from the farm’s orchards by neighbor kids and migrant pickers. Many of these red, green and yellow apples have simply fallen, as apples will when they are fully ripened and ready for the cider press. Others have been picked up from the ground after the tree has been lightly shaken.
The full bins are hauled from the orchard on a trailer which has been especially designed to run behind a large farm tractor. The tractor can move ten bins at once and can bring much of the daily harvest to the cannery in two or three trips.
A single bin is positioned on a hydraulic lift which tilts gradually until the apples begin to spill out onto a scrubber and then into a hopper filled with water. A worker is on hand to keep an even stream of apples flowing into the bath and to see that all the apples are thorough. lywashed.
The apples are pushed toward a paddle wheel by several jets of water at the far end of the bath. The paddle wheel guides the apples onto a conveyor which moves them slowly past more jets and up to another worker. The apples are carefully inspected for spoilage, and any bad parts are removed or the whole fruit discarded if necessary. This stream of apples flows steadily under the worker’s watchful eye into a mill where it is ground to the consistency of applesauce. Fine grinding reduces oxidation and also allows the maximum amount of cider to be released from the pulp when it is pressed.
The pomace, as the ground apples are called, plops into fifty-five gallon steel drums with plastic liners. Each barrel is labeled by the variety of apple that it holds. Some of the pomace heads directly for the press and the rest is stored in a freezer for use during the weeks and months ahead. By freezing freshly ground apple pulp for later use, Wax Orchards is able to make fresh cider throughout the year.
The juice of three to six different varieties of apples is carefully blended for Wax Orchards cider. Sweet and tart apples are always combined to create a balanced and full-bodied product. The formula demands 40 to 50 percent juice from tart apples. A consistent balance is maintained throughout the year by using pomace stored in the freezer. Most cider mills do not have this capability and must make cider strictly from available apples, whose sweetness can vary substantially according to the variety and the time of year.
When enough barrels have been filled with different varieties of apple pulp, the press is put into action. The press operator stacks several oak racks and forms in a large stainless steel tray designed to hold the cider as it is pressed from the pulp. Each form is lined with a coarsely woven nylon cloth, which is laid in place carefully to keep it smooth and straight. Several buckets of pomace are poured onto the cloth, then the corners are folded and the form is removed. A rack is placed on top of the so-called cheese, another form is put in place, and the process is repeated.
When the press operator is finished there will be ten to twelve cheeses in the stack. The weight of the cheeses on top causes liquid to run freely from those on the bottom of the pile and the metal tray fills quickly with cider before the press is even started. The presser pushes the loaded stack under the press, flips a switch and 30,000 pounds of pressure are gradually applied to the apple pulp by a hydraulic system.
As the cider cascades from the pomace, a pump is started which carries the liquid through a clear plastic tube to the cooling tanks, which are located on a platform above the bottling area. As many as ninety gallons of cider will be collected from a single pressing.
The cider passes through a fine screen mesh to strain any stray pieces of pulp from the liquid and then flows into a holding tank where it is quickly chilled and stored at 33 degrees Fahrenheit. It passes through a second screen en route to a dairy-style filling machine which fills and caps quart, half-gallon and gallon plastic bottles. The jugs are stored at just above freezing until the next day when they are delivered by refrigerated truck to nearly two hundred retail and restaurant accounts in the Puget Sound area.
Variations of the activity at Wax Orchards can be found in communities across the United States. Some East Coast cider mills have been in business for several generations. Others, like Wax Orchards, have opened their doors more recently in response to the public demand for fresh cider.
All successful cider making follows several general rules, whether the press is a neighborhood gathering place or the center of a large commercial operation. When the basic rules are followed, good results are assured.
Only whole, firm and properly ripened apples should be used in the production of cider. An apple that is ready to fall from the tree will be at its peak of juiciness and natural sugar. Windfalls should be examined carefully} however. Apples that are soiled or rotten will make cider that is foul and rough.
Good cider is blended from several different types of apples. Certain varieties of apples have special characteristics that work together to make a fully balanced and flavorful Cider. Jonathan and Winesap apples} for example} are rather tart} and Gravensteins are very juicy. Others} such as Red Delicious} 20 Ounce} and Stayman, add body to the blend.
Sugar} acidity and juiciness are the important characteristics of good cider apples. Although backyard cider-makers usually press only those apples that are readily available} commercial producers often blend the earlier apples of summer} which are usually tart} with the later} sweeter varieties to blend a balanced cider.
The use of sound ripe apples of different varieties} and most important, cleanliness at every step during the process} insures good fresh cider. The fruit must be washed very thoroughly to remove the dust and residue deposited on the apples during the summer. Whether the equipment is a small hand cranked chipper and press or a large and efficient electrically powered machine} it must be scrubbed and rinsed carefully before and after it is used. A gallon of fresh sweet cider requires not only eleven to fourteen pounds of apples but several gallons of wash water as well.
Fresh cider will remain in its sweet full-bodied state for ten days to several weeks if it is stored at 38 degrees or less} which is the average temperature of a properly functioning kitchen refrigerator. The cool temperature postpones but does not prevent the natural fermentation process. Once this process begins} cider becomes a number of different beverages} tasty by the glass and amazingly useful in the kitchen.
Each jug of cider will move at its own individual rate into a semi-dry state according to its balance of sugar} acid and yeast. Yeasts that give the best flavor to fermenting cider are encouraged to grow at temperatures of 40 degrees or less. Those that give the rough and strong taste often associated with fermenting cider are discouraged by cool temperatures. While the 40•degree guideline for proper storage does not guarantee successful fermentation every time} clean cider that is carefully made and treated well will rarely just “go bad.”
Lower storage temperature not only favors the better flavored yeasts, but also slows the rate at which the natural sugar is turned into alcohol. A slower fermentation process results in smoother and more flavorful semi-dry and dry hard cider.
Fresh cider should be exposed to air as little as possible. Contact with oxygen eventually turns fermenting cider into acetic acid or vinegar, although this may not happen for three or four months. A container of fermenting cider should have its cap slightly loosened to permit carbon dioxide to escape, but care should be taken that the caps are barely rather than very loose.
The first stage of natural fermentation, semi-dry, seems to be the favorite among those who appreciate fresh cider as a beverage. The cider is usually quite effervescent as a result of the fermentation process, and noticeably drier than when it was first pressed. Alcohol content is slight, usually no more than 3 percent, but the flavor and fruitiness of the cider is usually substantial.
The second, or dry hard) stage of fermentation often takes weeks of storage in cool temperatures. Dry hard cider is bone dry and 6 or 7 percent alcohol, since all of the natural sugar has been changed by the yeasts into alcohol. Dry hard cider is naturally quite clear and if stored for weeks after the fermentation is complete, it will become completely clear as the minute particles of apple pulp sink to the bottom of the jug. Some fruitiness may be evident in certain ciders at this stage, but most have virtually no apple flavor. Effervescence also disappears when full fermentation is finally reached.
Naturally fermented dry hard cider, which was served daily on country tables from colonial times until the early years of this century in the United States, is almost unknown as a table beverage today. Since naturally fully fermented cider is not a commercial product, only those who press or buy fresh cider and then commit the time and storage space for proper fermentation will be able to enjoy it at all. Those cider-makers are rewarded, however, with more than just a refreshing drink. Naturally fermented cider is exempt from the federal tax regulations which apply to large quantities of homemade wine and beer.
But even a profitable tax break isn’t really enough incentive to inspire potential retailers of naturally fermented hard cider. First of all, space-consuming refrigeration is required to prevent the cider from spoiling or fermenting too quickly. Even with proper refrigeration, the relatively low alcohol content of the beverage makes it difficult to keep for more than a short period of time.
Although it is impractical for most of us to make naturally fermented cider in great quantity, it is both effortless and most rewarding to buy a gallon or two of fresh cider, leave it in the kitchen refrigerator to ferment for a few weeks, and then put it to use, as we would wine, in the kitchen.