We use many of our orchard’s varieties of apples and pears each autumn to make cider. The best apple cider is made by blending apples with the flavor profiles of sweet, sharp, bittersweet and bittersharp. In addition to using old time varieties and crab apples we also use apple and pear varieties grown for making outstanding fresh and fermented ciders.
For hundreds of years, making fermented “hard” cider was the main way people preserved fruit in order to have something tasty and safe to drink through the cold winter and spring. Of course regularly consuming alcoholic cider also contributed to inebriation.
When you have an orchard, making cider is a delicious way each autumn, to make use of fruit that might otherwise go to waste. Many of the old time varieties of apples and pears became popular partly because they could be blended to make a delicious cider.
While the WSU Mt. Vernon station has done cider trials, our fruit garden does not have a large collection of cider cultivars. However, making fresh apple juice is an important facet of our orchard.
Fresh Cider
We press apple juice that we drink fresh, without fermenting it. This sweet cider only keeps for a couple of days unrefrigerated and at most a week when refrigerated. However it can be preserved by freezing the container for many months and thawing each container when you are ready to use it. The fresh cider, is a blend of several varieties and it is a super flavorful drink, far better than most apple juice that can be bought in stores. You feel like you are reliving the great flavors of your fruit trees.
Hard Cider
Old Time apples, newer varieties, crabapples and specialty cider apples are all used to making hard alcoholic cider. The Pacific Northwest has a cider industry of skilled professionals that each make their own high quality ciders.
Home fruit growers can make their own hard cider at home using a carboy, yeast and an air lock. Following are sources that show how to do it.
It is by blending the following categories of apples that a fine cider can be made. Sweet apples are high in sugars. Tart apples are high in Malic Acid. Bitter apples are high in Tannic Acid. Bittersweets and high in sugars and tannins. Bittersharps are low in sugar but high in both malic and tannic acids. In addition aromatic apples that add a pleasing aroma are added.
There are a few special apples that have all these qualities and can make a high quality single variety cider. One of these we have planted is the Kingston Black.
Cider made from European Pears rather than apples is called “perry. There are many special Perry Pears. We have planted Hendre Huffcap and also Butt and Thorn for pollination.
Descriptions and location of our cider trees
