Easy Homemade Apple Cider

Did you know you can make your own apple cider using your food processor?  It's so easy, you'll never pay the big-bucks for apple cider again.   Here in Florida we don't have many apple orchards. In fact, if you know of any, please tell me.    But every October, there is an apple festival in north Georgia.  My sister went and gifted me with a bushel of apples.   These were Gala apples.  I thought they would be too mild for applesauce (another easy-peasy thing to make at home) so I tried this.  (I prefer apple cider over apple juice, but that's me)

There's no recipe per se.  But all you I-Need-A-Recipe folks, don't fret.  You don't need one.  You do, however, need a food processor and cheesecloth. Well, you don't even need cheesecloth.   I used what's called bar cloth. Walmart sells these in packs of five in the kitchen towel area.  Get those.  You'll get tons of use from that five-pack.

Here goes,

Wash the apples really well, because you're going to leave the peels on. You know those nifty little apple slicer/corer things?  Using that will help the process along quite nicely, but if you don't have one don't worry.   Just slice it the way our grandmothers, or great-grandmothers, did it.  You don't want the core and seeds, mind you.

Toss those slices into the food processor.   Don't fill it full of slices, half full is fine, otherwise you will be there a while.   I know, it seems counter-intuitive, but doing multiple half-full bowls is really quicker.  Process it until you have "mush", or as mushy as you can.

Have a large bowl, with a collander inside and the barcloth, or cheesecloth, inside the collander. Dump that mush into that.  (such technical terms)

Next, gather up the edges and give it a good squeeze to make a ball.

Quite a bit of juice is already draining.

At this point, I ladled out a taste.  Ooooh.  Heaven!

To make sure you get all the goodness (juice) extracted, place a heavy object on top of the bag of mush (those technical terms again).  I used the heaviest pot I could find.  Let that sit a few hours, or overnight if you don't have "critters".

and there you have it.  You apple cider maker, you.

Note:  This is not pasturized, so it won't keep as long as commercial stuff.  A week is fine in the frige.  But if you want to do bulk batches, you can freeze it.    Enjoy.  

How do you enjoy fall's bounty of apples?  I'd love to hear.