music
ambience: general barn ambience, sound of cider press
October is apple harvest month… and for the O’Brian family in Lyons, New York, it’s cider making time. Well, this weekend they’ll turn thirty-five bushels of ripe Macintosh and Cortland apples into 80 gallons of fresh cider using an antique hand-cranked cider press. I’m Jim Metzner, and this is the Pulse of the Planet. Pulse of the Planet listener Jeff Blackwell grew up on the O’Brian family farm. He returns each October along with several dozen friends and relatives to take part in the family’s annual cider fest.
“Well the first thing that we’re doing is throwing the apples into the hopper at the top of the press, and the apples are then fed by gravity into the grinding mechanism and then again by gravity the ground apples fall down into the cloth-lined crate. And once the crate is full, it is moved over to the pressing station and the compress of the juice is pressed out.”
The hand cider press looks like an oak barrel on legs with a cast iron handle mounted on top. Cranking the handle grinds the apples into a rough paste. Once the apples are ground completely, the remaining mixture is moved to the pressing station where the juice is extracted.
“The juice is filtered to filter out any objects like bees or anything else that might fall in, and poured into the containers.”
Jeff Blackwell and his family usually freeze some of those containers of cider to defrost and enjoy later during the year.
“The taste brings back the memories of the day making cider, and it’s sort of a connection all the way into the past, of all the friends we’ve had over to help us make cider and just be together.”
Pulse of the Planet is presented by the National Science Foundation, with additional support provided by the National Endowment for the Humanities.
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