Have you ever wondered how we make our delicious, amazing, incredible unpasteurized apple cider?  Well – today is your lucky day.  Last season, Cory from Friends in Photography visited us during a pressing session and got some shots of the entire process.  Enjoy! First, the apples are dumped into an elevator.  The elevator brings the apples up high and then dumps them into the grinder.  The grinder catches the apples as they fall and grinds them up with big metal ‘keys’ almost and crushes them into a mushy pulp.  Jared pumps that pulp into the stacks of pressing trays and wraps them with porous clothes.    You can see that the pulp is so juicy it starts to drip out before the pressing even begins.

Once Jared has the trays stacked to the proper pressing height he attaches a rope to them. He then cranks the loaded apple pulp trays underneath the hydraulic press.   The press pushes down on the trays and squeezes as much juice out of the apple pulp that is imaginable.  While one set of trays is pressing, Jared starts to load a second and continues this process all through the evening.      

When the pulp has all the juice squeezed out of it Jared empties the pulp into a bucket to dump.  It’s amazing just how dry the pulp is.  When the pressing of the apples first begins, we are busy on the other side of the room getting all of our jugs properly labeled.  We do all of our labeling by hand.   Each time we press cider I have to estimate how many 1/2 gallons, quarts, and pints we should fill.  I always do these first and whatever cider is left goes into the gallon containers.  We fill each jug by hand.  We have a system of hoses and pumps that brings the cider from the bulk tank it goes into after pressing to the shut off valve filler I use to fill the jugs.  It’s a bit of an art filling the jugs.  You don’t want to fill them too low so you have to hand pore cider from another jug to get it to the top and you don’t want to fill it too high so it overflows or spews out all over the place.  I’ve gotten pretty good at it but I have a hard time focusing so I may overfill one or two times throughout the night (okay…maybe three or five).     Did you notice?  All we do to make our apple cider is press it – we add nothing – no sugar, no preservatives – just squeeze out the juice and jug it.  Once the cider is filled and lidded, we put them into the apple crates to bring back to the other shed to the storage cooler or the store cooler for selling.   Sometimes folks will bring us their carboys over for filling so they can make hard cider or wine.  We’re happy to do this.  It saves jug and lid costs for our customers and it’s easy for us to fill these big containers. 

So now you know – how we make our unpasteurized apple cider at Lapacek’s Orchard. 

Thanks again Friends in Photography for the great photo story!

Next apple up for the Sauce Test – Ginger Gold. This is one of our newer varieties and it has gone over extremely well at the orchard.  It is similar to a golden delicious but ripens much earlier.  One of the neat things about this apple is it is slow to brown when cut. 
This apple also seemed to cook like a Golden Delicious – it really kept it’s shape.  Here’s a foggy picture of the sauce after 2 hours in the slow cooker…I put the camera too close to the cooking apples and it fogged up… :) Another view of the pot after two hours of cooking.
I let the apples cook for another hour and it eventually got a bit mushier but it did make a really nice chunky sauce.
It was a sweeter sauce with just a hint of tartness to it.  I enjoyed it quite a bit…not quite as good as the Zestar sauce but definitely delicious. 

Past Apple Tests:

• Baker's Mix
• Braeburn
• Cameo
• Dandee Red
• Fireside
• Fuji
• Gala
• Golden Delicious
• Granny Smith
• Jonathan
• MacIntosh
• NW Greening
• Scarlet
• Tolman Sweet
• Valstar
• Zestar

I didn’t manage to snap a picture of any part of this applesauce process for the Zestar! but I can tell you – I really enjoyed the sauce they made.  It was quite incredible.  There was just a real depth to the flavor of the sauce, good texture –not super chunky, not too smooth.  It almost tasted like there was more than one kind of apple mixed in.  If you want an apple that is good for eating and sauce making – I would go Zestar! this time of year for sure.

Past Apple Tests:

• Baker's Mix
• Braeburn
• Cameo
• Dandee Red
• Fireside
• Fuji
• Gala
• Golden Delicious
• Granny Smith
• Jonathan
• MacIntosh
• NW Greening
• Scarlet
• Tolman Sweet
• Valstar

I’ve been hinting at some fabulous prizes for the WINNER of the Apple-Azing Race but I haven’t yet let on what those prizes would be.  Well…I have more of an idea and I’ve think I’ve made you wait long enough!
Instead of ‘Racing to the Finish’ to be the winner, each team will be timed at each station.  Time sheets will be turned in at the end and points awarded accordingly.  The team with the most points at the end will win the ‘Grand Prize’.

Grand Prize Package

Amazing book page prints from The Bookish Life:

All that is gold does not glitter - J.R.R. Tolkien quote on The Fellowship of the Ring book page
Not all those who wander are lost - Tolkien quote on The Fellowship of the Ring book page

$20 Gift Certificate from Hydro Street Brewing Company in Columbus

(watch their little video on the website – I love it!)

Gift Certificate from Windsor Breads plus a bunch of yummy goodies and a mug!

The first 20 teams to register will get a free sub from Subway of Poynette!

Four Maze Passes for Creek Bed Country Farmacy

An incredible Goody Bag from the Poynette Area Public Library.  

Goodie bag from The Glitter Workshop

$20 to spend at Persimon Dreams or TheApple

(online or at our store)

$25 to spend at Lapacek’s Orchard

Stop by often – I’ll be finalizing some of the details of these prizes and hopefully adding even more!

Don’t forget – I need teams to PRE-REGISTER by August 29th – that’s just 6 days away!

It’s just days until the second annual Craft-Apple-Ar at the Orchard this year.  Naomi and I decided to add in a little Vintage Flea and Finds to the mix and it’s looking to be a fantastic showing!  We’ll have vendors set up all over the area of the orchard near the shop and back by the playgrounds.  Our local boy scout troop will be selling brats and hot dogs.  Don’t forget to stop in the apple store for more hand made goodies (even Capri is getting into the spirit of selling…) – and of course, apples, caramel apples, and donuts too!
Here’s a little ‘sneak’ peak at some of the vendor’s you’ll find there…(I didn’t have pictures of everyone’s work so some will just have to be a surprise when you get here!):

Glitter Workshop

Booth 121

Funky Old Junk

Antiquebasketlady

Silly Rebel Celebrates

photo taken by Funky Monkey Photography at the 2011 Craft-Apple-Ar

Sugarbomb Dessert Company 

Source: Uploaded by user via Kim on Pinterest

Full Moon Farm 

Jenny Blasen Pottery 

Poplin 

Hannah James 

Carra Davies

Kathy McComb 

Katie G. Meyer

The Painted Daisy 

SassMama Arts

JSDesigns Studios 

Persimon Dreams

The Apple

Sunday August 26th from 10am to 4pm
at Lapacek’s Orchard
N1959 Kroncke Road, Poynette WI 53955

This was one of the salsa’s that I made for Salsa Saturday.  I had quite a few requests for this recipe so here it is:



 

Peach and Tomato Salsa

Ingredients

• 4 medium peaches, peeled and pitted

• 2 large tomatoes, cut into wedges and seeded

• 1/2 onion, cut into wedges

• 1/6 cup of dried cilantro from Penzey’s Spices

• 2 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed

• 1 jalapeño, chopped

• 1/2 chili pepper, chopped

• 4 teaspoons cider vinegar

• 1/2 lime, juiced

• Baked tortilla chip scoops

Directions

• In a food processor (I used my blender), combine the first five ingredients; cover and pulse until coarsely chopped. Add the peppers, vinegar, lime juice and pepper; cover and pulse just until blended. Transfer to a serving bowl; chill until serving. Serve with chips. Yield: 4 cups.

Have you ever wondered how Sauerkraut is made?  Well – you’re opportunity to find out and even make your very own is here!

What:  Kraut Day

When:  Saturday, August 25th from 1pm to 5pm

Where:  Lapacek’s Orchard, N1959 Kroncke Road, Poynette, WI

 

What’s Happening?

• Help make the kraut (sauerkraut).

• Take home a bucket of kraut (about 6 quarts) to ferment at home.

  Fermentation takes 6 to 8 weeks.

• You'll leave with instructions to can or freeze your kraut after

  fermentation is complete. Or just put it in the frig and eat it over

  the next few months.

• Cost is $12 per bucket of kraut.

• Bring the whole family. Make one bucket or several. Stop by anytime between 1 to 5 on Saturday afternoon to make your bucket or buckets. 

  

Some of you may have noticed that yesterday morning I wasn’t working at the apple store (this is Kim writing).

Instead, I woke up bright and early and headed to Waukesha WI to do something I’ve never done before – a 5K Mud Run, the Dirty Girl.  Me and over 8,000 other woman gathered at the Waukesha Expo center on Saturday or Sunday to run in this crazy, fun event. My friend, Amy, convinced me to join her team and do the run.  Our group of 8 women made up the ‘Down N Dirty Diva’s.     There were three of us from Poynette on the team.  Here are three of us in one of the last muddy obstacles – army crawling in a big muddy pit under a cargo net.  Throughout the 5K course we did many of these type of obstacles and got really, really, really, muddy.  Seriously – really muddy!

One of the obstacles was climbing over a cargo net ‘tent’ type thing that went a good 20 feet in the air.  I’m so not a fan of heights but I surprised myself and really had not problem with this obstacle at all. 

Here’s six of our group at the end of the course!  Nice and muddy!

And here are the Poynette Girls at the finish line!

It was a great experience and I hope to do it again next year!