Our last Canyon Day in Spring 2011 featured extensive work in the Orchard – and what better way to enjoy the fruits of our labors than some delicious apple cider, featuring apples picked from our very own trees?
That was the idea, anyway, but it took some time to get it going. Turning apples to make cider is not a difficult process, but it does require some specialized equipment – in particular, an apple chipper and a press. The concept is that, after grinding an apple into sufficiently small pieces – the fruit being too firm to squeeze whole – one can simply press the juice out of them using a sort of screw.
After acquiring a combination chipper and press, we decided that it still needed… a little modification. Specifically, we wanted to make it bicycle-powered, using people power as opposed to an electric motor. A member of Canyon Crew took a few weeks to make the necessary changes – plenty of welding and angsting over gear ratios. While we don’t have pictures of the actual building process, we do have some of our first test run earlier this week. Chopping and chipping the apples…
…and pressing them.
Our test run also revealed a few areas for us to improve further – adding a bell, a larger cutting board, a (purely aesthetic) wheel, so what you’re seeing here isn’t quite the finished product, but it certainly did the trick. Overall, the test run was a delicious success, creating more of the sweet cider than Canyon Crew could drink on their own. Since the older apple and pear trees in the Orchard were only pruned as of last year, and the newly planted ones are too young yet to be producing fruit, it might be a few years before we’ll be self sufficient in apple production and can provide enough fruit to quite quench the thirst of those working on Canyon Days. However, you can still expect the cider press to be making rounds during Reed College events using locally grown apples. In fact, the public debut of the cider press will be at the closing ceremony of the Centennial celebrations in the Orchard, so come along and pitch in with a bit of peddling! Fresh apple cider is entirely unlike “apple
juice” or even most store-bought apple ciders – truly, something you need to
try yourself
