[Sca-cooks] Making verjuice

[Jeff Gedney]

>How do you make verjuice from crabapples?  I might actually 
>have enough this year to harvest, and don't have any recipes 
>(not even for crabapple jelly!).

Crabapples make a really good hard cider, but you make it 
like a wine, and you have to give it enough time for the "secondary fermatation" where the (extremely tart) 
malic acid is converted to (not so tart) lactic acid 
and CO2. 
This is REALLY necessary for Crab Apples as they have a 
much higher amount of malic acid to begin with.
I have a tree in my yard that has some very very good 
cidering crab apples, they are red fleshed and about 
the size of a baby's fist. 

Alas the tree was sadly neglected before I moved in, and 
so it is infested with a number of parasites, and I dont 
want to use the fruit. I am trying to grow cultivars, but 
so far I have not got the knack of grafting the tree onto 
new pure root stock. 
I will try growing from seed this year.

Most brew stores sell malo-lactic cultures, and good 
yeasts suitable for cider. Or you can get them on line.
Wye labs (Wyeast brand) sells one that is specific to an 
english type cider, but I have found my best results come 
from Montrachet or Champagne yeast, though they are 
trickier to use since they use up sugar at a slightly 
different rate.

You can usually rent a crusher at the local brew store
or pulse them through the food processor, and you can 
make a cider press out of three food safe buckets, a 
couple of two by fours, soem foil and some cheese cloth.
 - drill a bunch of 1/4 holes in the bottom third of one 
of the buckets, put one bucket (the reciever) on the 
ground (this may get messy, so make sure it is a floor 
you can mop or do it outside). Cover two pieces of two 
by four, each 18 inches long, with foil, and place on 
top of the reciever. put the perforated bucket on top 
of the 2x4s centered over the reciever. line the 
perforated bucket with cheese cloth and start spooning 
in the mashed apples until it is half full, and fold 
over the cheese cloth to cover. Place the third bucket 
inside the perforated bucket and push down to squeeze 
out the cider.

There are ways to improve the yeild and cut down on the 
mess, but this is the fastest and cheapest way to get
the squeezin's.

If you do want to improve the system, take a 2X2 sheet 
of 3/4 inch plywood, with a 3 inch hole in the center,
and 2x4s around the edges as a rim, and line it all with 
foil. Put this on the reciever bucket, and put the foil 
wrapped 2x4's on either side of the hole. then proceed 
as above. Foil wrapped bricks inside the pressming 
buckets will make the pressing easier, and it's less 
likely to knock the whole affair over, which physically 
leaning onto it can do. 
If you want really good stability, make legs or small 
sawhorses for the plywood to rest on, instead of the 
reciever bucket. I recommend this strongly. 

Capt Elias
Dragonship Haven, East
(Stratford, CT, USA)
Apprentice in the House of Silverwing

-Renaissance Geek of the Cyber Seas
- Help! I am being pecked to death by the Ducks of Dilletanteism! 
There are SO damn many more things I want to try in 
the SCA than I can possibly have time for. 
It's killing me!!!

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Upon the hempen tackle ship-boys climbing;
Hear the shrill whistle which doth order give
To sounds confused; behold the threaden sails,
Borne with the invisible and creeping wind,
Draw the huge bottoms through the furrow'd sea,
Breasting the lofty surge: O, do but think
You stand upon the ravage and behold
A city on the inconstant billows dancing;
For so appears this fleet majestical,
Holding due course to Harfleur. 
  - Shakespeare - Henry V, Act III, Prologue