Dry cider from wild apples.

[bmays]

Hello. I am fairly new to brewing and am looking for some tips. I am a fan of Strongbow dry cider, so i would like to try making some dry cider.

In the woods close to where i live i know of two quite large wild apple trees, they are really loaded with apples this year. I could pick a 5 gallon pail full in a half hour probably. I attached a picture of the apples. They are pretty hard by they time they soften they will have fallen off already. How can i get the juice from these apples without spending huge amounts of time cutting them up and running them through a juicer, or is that the only option? Also should they be soft or hard for better flavor?

All i do then is pitch campaign yeast into the straight juice and bottle it?

 

[gregbathurst]

Wildlings are a traditional source of cider apples, its ok to let them drop and harvest them off the ground, that way you know they are fully ripe.
There are lots of discussions on this forum around shredding and pressing the apples.

 

[Kcmfg]

Hard to tell from the pic, but that looks more like a pear than an apple to me. Either way you can make hard cider with it. I would pick all of the fruit when some fruit starts falling off the trees and then let sit in bags for a week or so until they are fully ripe. I wouldn't recommend using a juicer, takes forever and will burn it out very quickly. Having a fruit press also will make it easy and get the most juice from the pomace. GL

 

[johnnyspade]

I think that's a pear, unless you know what type of apple that is? I'm not familiar with it.

Getting the juice out of hard fruit is a pain. If you have a juicer, use it. I'll assume an apple press is out of the question but it sure makes quick work of it, especially if it has a grinder. The grinder pulps the apples and then you put them in the press to juice them. Do take the time to pull the stems out, they're bitter. Cores are fine.

A 5 gallon pail of apples won't yield much juice but you may have meant picking enough apples to yield 5 gallons worth of juice.

 

[Jacob_Marley]

Here's a segment from the fairly legendary BBC production "Victorian Farm" ... this 13 minute segment shows the process from gathering the apples through being put to barrel to ferment.
Be advised the segment has other scenes inserted in it as well but if you stick with the first 10 minutes or so, the whole process is shown. They actually enjoy the cider in another episode however.

This wonderful series also illustrates beer making from the period though it is in another episode somewheres as well.



(you might notice whomever recorded this was also doing it with the "descriptive" service for the deaf turned on ... no matter.)