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Our mill is run off a 5
horse power electric motor but has the ability to be run off of
steam or petroleum powered engine. We press the apples and begin
filtering the cider which takes about an hour. It is pumped into our
refrigerated stainless steel tanks where it is then quickly jugged
into gallons, halves, or quarts. It is kept refrigerated to prevent
fermentation. But that is the easy part, the thorough cleanup and
sanitization we perform takes up to 3 hours. So from beginning
to end the entire process can take up to 4-5 hours for a single
pressing even with an experienced crew of 2 people.
We do not recommend leaving our cider in your refrigerator for more
than two weeks and consuming it thereafter. Because we have
not destroyed the natural yeasts in our cider by pasteurization,
over weeks to months it may ferment into an effervescent alcoholic drink. This would be similar to the type of
cider that our forefathers drank throughout the winter, when barrels
of cider were pressed out each fall from the apples on their farm,
and left at cellar temperature throughout the fall and winter to
undergo the natural process of fermentation.
Unpasteurized with Pride
Traditional cider was once made with apples that farmers
grew themselves. In addition to hand-picked apples, many
farmers used drops, which were the apples that had
fallen from the tree. Apples were sorted and washed to
remove the unfit apples and pressed locally by either a
mill or at the farm. It was filtered and placed
unpasteurized into barrels in a cold cellar to provide a
clean drinking source throughout the winter, where
through slow natural fermentation it would turn into its
legendary delicious effervescent alcoholic drink. During
the 19nth century as many as 15,000 varieties of apples
were cultivated for the use of making hard cider, which
served as clean source of water and cheap alcohol. As
the United States embraced Prohibition cider became a
target of prohibitionist and orchards were cut down.
Farmers were faced with rebranded the American cider
apple from a major sugar source for home alcohol
production to a healthy nutritious product, henceforth
“An apple a day keeps the doctor away.” Over the years
after prohibition the popularity of hard cider never
recovered, likely a combination of reasons such as fewer
farms and orchards, fewer cold cellars as refrigeration
became more popular, and the destruction of local food
chains by industrial food producers. Further
decline came when the USDA supported growth of only a
few varieties of apples, so as to alleviate confusion at
the market and simplify choice. Orchards that had
numerous varieties that had been developed over the last
century for pest resistance were replaced with single
varieties of apples that required greater pesticide use.
A large portion of our agricultural history and identity
were forever lost. The outcomes of this narrow view can
be seen today with an entire generation of American
children that have never tasted a Roxbury Russet. Not
surprisingly they prefer other unhealthy snacks as their
only experience is with a flavorless Red Delicious,
picked in Washington and freighted a thousand miles to
the market, while fresh local apples rot on the tree.
In the 1990’s an industrial cider producer (Odwalla)
pastured cattle on an orchard. This is a common practice
in England even today as the grazing nature of animals
can be used to reduce fuel cost of mowing the orchards.
However in England they remove the animals from the
orchard 3
 months prior to harvest to ensure that the
manure is thoroughly decomposed before collecting their
drop apples. Other outbreaks of E. coli occurred
throughout the country, and again the source was
livestock or deer feces coming in contact with the cider
apples. Additionally the apples were not washed before
the cider was made, thus they were using dirty infected
apples. Our founding fathers drank cider specifically
because it was safer than water, and now it was no
longer safe, and the reason was clear, the apples were
contaminated with feces. This should’ve been an easy
fix,
remove the cattle, fence out the deer, don’t use drops,
and wash the apples. However over the following
years the FDA acted quickly to seal the fate of true
cider. All apples had to be hand-picked, all wholesale
had to be pasteurized, all cider had to be labeled with
expiration dates, and all unpasteurized cider had to
carry a warning label that it could carry harmful
bacteria that could cause serious illness in children,
elderly, and persons with weakened immune systems.
Industrial solutions to industrial problems were applied
to safe responsible local producers, and the result was
devastating. Small producers could not afford the
expensive pasteurization equipment, especially in the
setting of the food scare, and were forced to close. As
most of our customers were families, applying a label to
our product saying it could contain harmful bacteria did
not go over well. School tours were cancelled, sales
dropped, and we had our worst years ever. But we stood
behind our product. We knew that our apples were clean,
because we knew where they came from and we wash them.
We knew our equipment is safe, because we thoroughly
clean it. The apple you pick off the
tree and eat, is the same apple we press. So why would
we have to pasteurize it? We start with a clean product,
and we finish with a clean product. Pasteurization
denatures soluble proteins, isomerizes and polymerizes
sugars, alters phytochemicals, and kills natural
occurring non harmful microorganisms such as yeast.
These reactions result in significant changes to the
delicate and complex flavor resulting in juice, not
cider. One can hardly argue that Mott’s apple juice is
cider, though many producers are trying. They produce a
turbid product to sell to an undiscerning market of poor
souls who have never tasted anything better than the
slurry available at their grocery store. We agree that
changes can be made to improve food safety, and we
embrace those changes at our mill, but when the proposed
changes destroy what was pure and good about the
product, then one must re-examine the facts.
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