Apple Juice: Method #1

I am sincerely hoping I will be able to post a second method before summer is out. While I am happy with how my juice turned out, I’m curious to see how different ways of making juice could produce different results.

I wish I had documented the whole experience from picking to drinking, but I forgot to take pictures of us ladies, teetering up on ladders, determined to get those four or five apples that just look sooo much better than those lower down. We got them, by the way. I did, however, take pictures of the process at home. So here goes another photo post. I’ll try to keep it a bit shorter than the last one 🙂  Hope you didn’t miss that post!

After picking apples, I chucked them all in the sink and took a load off and rested myself up while Dekker slept. His nap didn’t last long though. For such a sore boy, he was surprisingly chipper when he got up. Seemed like just the right partner for juicing. So I set up my juicer the way I wanted it,

I got my trooper all set up with his Cheerios,

and we started! He was a total champ! Dekker sat in his highchair munching on Cheerios and some peppers the entire time! I dont know how long it was, but a couple of hours for sure. We did stop to have real food, and there were plenty of singing breaks and momentary dance parties. Dekker likes to party.

When the process finally began, the juice was actually pretty and pink! Minus the nasty layer of goo on top. Looove that fluffy brown crap on top of my juice.It was so nasty that I barfed in the sink.No, I didn’t. I just skimmed the junk off the top. Looks a bit like chocolate milk thats been shaken too much. Yet somehow, I’m not thinking “yum.”

I am disappointed to say that I let the apples sit too late in the season before I gained the motivation to pick them. There were more rejects than keepers 🙁 Behold, the rejects:Also, check out the juicer once about half of the apples had gone through it. It was all clogged up, and I felt so gross opening it up and seeing this…It looks like ground beef, doesn’t it? Believe it or not, it smelled great!

Ok, enough pictures of gross things. Once all the apples were run through the juicer, I had only one mixing bowl full of juice and foam. I skimmed to my hearts content and began the straining process. I strained everything through two layers of cheesecloth in my sieve, twice. That looked prettier!

From there, it went into jars. This is just the half jar that I kept upstairs.

Unfortunately, I only ended up with one more quart jar full for the downstairs freezer. Sad. That is why I’m hoping for a hypothetical “method #2” post in the near future. Maybe next week I will find myself at the farmers market, maybe there will be apple there, maybe I’ll buy a bunch and make more juice. Because it is sooo yummy! I’m disappointed there isn’t more, but I learned a lot!

My method was super straightforward. Stick everything in a juicer. Done. I’m curious if cooking the apples with cream of tartar would make more or less juice. Better juice? Pinker juice? Maybe the apple people at the farmers market would know…

I’m so done with thinking about apples. For today, anyway. Brady and I are finally  getting out of here! Just to Edmonton for a couple nights, but it has been a long time coming! We had an exciting plan fall through in the recent past that had involved us going to Edmonton, and decided that it would be fun (and make the whole situation less disappointing) to go anyway and just have some time away. I doubt I have to remind you know badly I’ve needed to flee this summer. BADLY! So we’re going. We booked a hotel at an amazing price, we have a list (yes, I do need a list) of what we’re going to pick up at Ikea and a few great other stores that we don’t have here yet, and we’ll even see some family in between. For both breakfasts 🙂 I am SO looking forward to it! We leave today, after a quick trip into the city to run some last minute errands. Dekker’s birthday hand drum has finally arrived! YAY!

Enjoy your long weekend!