CVKH Blog: A Trip to the Cider Press by Lawrence Sherma

Every year the CSA and orchard crews go to Bauman's cider press. All the apples that are picked on Route 23 and from the serpantine and the orchard near the woodlot are picked. These are not perfect apples, but have a little scratch or hole. The perfect ones go to the households. The really bad ones can't be taken to Bauman's cider press, so we take the okay ones. We also use some pears.

The crew and the employees at Bauman's cider press pour all the apples and pears into a storage vault. They also use trailers and vaults with wheels to carry their items.

The juice from the apples and pears go into a small factory. We push the tap of it down and we start filling the bottles. The skin that is in the storage vault gets cleared out.

The Bauman's cider press also makes apple butter and pear spread using our apples and pears. They put the apples in a boiler and heat it to a certain temperature. At the cider press we will see many different products.

Some of the products are apple butter, pear spread, pumpkin butter, strawberry jam, apple tea, peach butter, grape jelly and much more. All the fruit jams and butter are cooked in the boiler. They also clean all the fruit skin, the whole place, and they carry all the crates of fruits in trailers and wagons.

Watching the employees at Bauman's cider press was very interesting. I am glad I got to work with them and learn all the orchard processing from them. I am very grateful to the CSA and orchard every year that I get to go to the cider press.