Saturday was my first day working at Heyser Farm in the bakery department. I work next to the apple cider machine and was able to see and taste the apples ripe from the orchards. There is a lot of effort into making apple cider. First, the burlaps all need to be watered down and soaked on the line. They are used for pressing the apples.
They started the machines up around 9:30 am and the first part is to dump the apples into a conveyer belt. The worker inspects each apple and cuts off any bruises or knicks and he sees and feels. Then the apples move into a large grinder machine where the apples are pushed through a long tube.
Next the apple “mush” is poured into large trays with wet burlap cloths. Here is where the magic happens. The worker stacks up the trays one by one.
Then all the apple “mush” is pressed and squeezed out by another machine and the juice flows to another machine where it’s filtered to perfection! The whole process makes 60 gallons of apple cider. In a day’s work, I’ve seen them produce the process twice, sometimes 3 times in a day!
