The first step in any type of preservation is to always "clean all the things." For our cider press that meant washing it down to clear any debris that may be on it. Our community actually has an 1869 cider press that sits in one of our common areas and is open for anyone in the community to use. 

These 18 gallon buckets are pretty handy for gathering your apples. They do get heavy when they are full, but one of these buckets will easily press into 4 gallons of cider! 

Then, get your strongest woman (in our case we had to use Hayden) to turn the wheel of the press once the apple bucket is full. This is the tough part, but it's great fun for kids that usually are playing in our nearby park. I recommend enlisting any kids to help with this part as it gets them involved and is a a great way to use their abundant energy!

Once the apples get chunked they get placed into the press bucket. Above the press bucket is another wheel that you turn and it presses down on the chunks of apples and squeezes out most of their juice.

Notice the yellow bucket on the ground that is catching all of our yummy cider. It is about a 2.5- 3 gallon container and is great when you are making 5 gallon batches of cider. Having a good container system thought out ahead of time makes the measuring of your cider easy.

A compost bucket, a bowl to hold apple chunks, and an apple corer was all that we needed to preserve the rest of the apples. Our chickens and compost bins loved all the non-edible parts of the apples.

It literally only took 10 minutes to go through 2 gallons of apples with the apple corer. We decided to go back to the orchard and get 10 more gallons of apples. Notice that your non-chemically treated apples will have spots and marks of uniqueness on them, but unless the apple was already beginning to rot, we used it.

This apple corer is amazing. You skewer the apple, then turn the handle on the right and the apple is peeled and cored as it moves right to left. Make sure to get a corer that has suction cups and will stick to the counter.

WALA!! the apple is done and easily breaks up into chunks.  The peelings and core can be discarded as you choose.

One of my favorite snacks is dried apples.  With all of the apple chunks we had this year, this was the easiest time I have ever had drying apples. 

These apples are in the beginning of the drying process in our NESCO dehydrator.  They generally take 6-8 hours at around 130 degrees F.

Two pounds of apples easily fit into Ziploc freezer bags. These were marked, labeled, and recorded. Then tossed in the C.S.C. freezer for future use-smoothies, quick breads, pies, and more!

Measuring and weighing your harvest or yield is something that is new to me this year. I really do feel that I live in a special place; even though the whole community does not participate in "Sustainability Projects," they do support and encourage people to use the land wisely to create resources to be shared and used by the community.

Not only did we dry, freeze, and press the apples, but we also made quite a bit of applesauce this year. Our Community Canning Kitchen was finished this year and we spent much of October using it. Hopefully next year we can get into making apple jams and jellies!