Apple Du

When our dear grandson #1 was a little child he LOVED apple juice and drank gallons of it.  He would stand up in his crib in the middle of the night and call out, "Apple du! Apple du!" and dear daughter would get up out of bed and refresh him with apple juice.  She bought it by the case!--literally.

Well this past week Jim and I have been making apple du.  One of our apple trees split and the half that was overloaded with apples fell to the ground.  I picked one of the apples from the fallen limb and found it was very tasty. A few days later I went out a picked a bucket of apples from that limb.

Here's my set up: I wash the apples and slice out the stem and blossom ends and any bad spots.  The sliced apples go into the tube at the top of the Omega Juicer, the apple juice comes out the spout and the peel and pits get spit out of the back side of the machine into a container, ready to go onto the compost pile.




At first the apple du looks pretty gross.  That's a thick foam on top that's almost like apple sauce.  I get rid of the foam and pour the juice into a pitcher, straining it through some layers of sheer curtain material.  That gets rid of a lot of the particles in the juice.  Then it goes into the fridge overnight, and the next morning most of the particles have separated from the juice.

Here are the three batches we've made
so far. The one on the left has been
strained a few times. The middle pitcher
needs to be siphoned off, leaving the
solid matter at the bottom to be rinsed
away.  The right hand pitcher is the
newest batch, just through the juicer.  In
two days it will be as clear as the first
batch.


This is wonderful juice, as tasty as can be, without any sugar added.

Yesterday morning we woke to see our first frost of the season.  It was exactly 0º on the thermometer and the roof of the sales building was white.  As soon as the sun hit it the frost melted.  It's unusual to get all the way to September before an overnight frost.  And, as so often happens after a frost, the day warmed up beautifully, and we've had just wonderful summery weather yesterday and today.  The forecast for this week is great: all highs of 25º and 26º and no lows below 5º.

Farmers have started swathing canola, and some barley has been harvested.  Now we hold our breath and hope for good sunny weather without frost as frost can damage the quality of the crops.