Minnesota Harvest Orchard

Recently, the fine folks at Minnesota Harvest Orchard in Jordan, MN invited Jack of All Brews homebrew club out to do a cider pressing demo.  This is the second year we have done so and we were excited to go back!  Several years ago our club invested in an old fashioned 1800’s looking wooden cider press and have made good use of it over the years.  This old-school technology still works and looks great out at the orchard, taking one back in time to early American settler days in Minnesota. 

We arrived around 11 AM on a Sunday, swollen orange fall sun shedding rich light on the orchard grounds.  Already the place was bustling with people, but soon would be filled to bursting with families looking for autumn fun.

Over the morning and into the afternoon JAB members and their families trickled in and took part in the apple pressing process.  We soon got things into a pretty efficient pattern.  A few people would rinse the apples in buckets of water, then toss the apples into the grinder at …