page_title: Apple cider
section_title: Commercial production
hierarchical_section_title: Apple cider / Commercial production
caption_attribution_description: English: Apple cider pressing in rural community mill
context_page_description: Apple cider is the name used in the United States and occasionally in Canada for an unfiltered, unsweetened, non-alcoholic beverage made from apples. Though typically referred to simply as "cider" in the United States, it is not to be confused with the alcoholic beverage known as cider in other places, which is called "hard cider" in the US.
  It is the liquid extracted from an apple and all its components, that is then boiled to concentration. The liquid can be extracted from the apple itself, the apple core, the trimmings from apples, or apple culls. Once pressed mainly at farmsteads and local mills, apple cider is easy and inexpensive to make. It is typically opaque due to fine apple particles in suspension and generally tangier than commercial filtered apple juice, but this depends on the variety of apples used. Cider is typically pasteurized to kill bacteria and extend its shelf life, but untreated cider is common. In either form, apple cider is seasonally produced in autumn. It is traditionally served on the Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and various New Year's Eve holidays, sometimes heated and mulled.
context_section_description: Modern cider making has come a long way from early forms of production that involved a man- or horse-powered crusher.  These consisted of a stone or wood trough with a heavy circulating wheel to crush the fruit, and a large manual screw press to express the juice from the pulp. Straw was commonly used to contain the pulp during pressing, later replaced by coarse cloth. The Palmer Bros. Company, of Cos Cob, CT, made the most popular "modern" rack and cloth press from the mid 1800s to the mid 1900s, when production shifted to OESCO in Massachusetts. As technology advanced, rotary drum "scratters" came into use. Today, nearly all small pressing operations use electric-hydraulic equipment with press cloths and plastic racks in what is commonly called a "rack and cloth press", and electric hammermill "breakers".
  Depending on the varieties of apples and using the optimal extraction methods, it takes about one third of a bushel (10 liters) to make a gallon (3.78 liters) of cider. Apples are washed, cut, and ground into a mash that has the consistency of coarse applesauce. Layers of this mash are then either wrapped in cloth and placed upon wooden or plastic racks where a hydraulic press then squeezes the layers together, or the mash is distributed onto a continuous belt filter press, which squeezes the pulp between two permeable belts fed between a succession of rollers that press the juice out of the pulp in a continuous, highly efficient operation. The resulting juice is then stored in refrigerated tanks, pasteurized to kill bacteria and extend shelf life, and bottled and sold as apple cider. The juice may also be fermented to produce hard cider, which then may be further treated by exposure to acetobacter to produce apple cider vinegar, or distilled to produce apple brandy.  The waste left after pressing, known as pomace, is sold for cattle feed.
caption: Cidering in a contemporary rural area mill. Custom batches pressed directly to bulk containers on demand.
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