Late summer days should smell of hot apple juice

We had three apple trees here when my kids were home, and although the apples weren’t great for eating, they made terrific apple sauce, apple juice, apple leather, and apple butter. What we found most useful for our family in those days, was apple juice. The rich, homey smell of apples juicing on the stove was a familiar fragrance that said “Welcome home” on those early days of school in September.

Luke was in elementary school and I worked full time in our family Bookstore. Our apples were generally ready the last week of August. Once we picked them it became a race against time to get them all put up before they spoiled. In the final weeks of summer of ‘that’ year, I was particularly busy at the store. And with everyone busy getting back to school and routine, and homework, the start of seminary, music lessons, and everything else that goes on in a growing family, . . . . . . well, the timing just wasn’t great to take care of a couple hundred pounds of apples. But you gotta do what you gotta do during harvest season right? So we picked the apples as a family on the only day we had all hands on deck, and loaded them into 5 gallon buckets to wait their turn at the juicer. The kitchen and back porch were lined with apple buckets, while we got the steam juicer, canner and jars ready to begin the next phase of our life – a project that once started, we knew we’d be fully committed to till it was finished.

The job fell to Luke and I most of the time. Don’t ask me why. Probably because it mattered to me the most and Luke was still young enough to enjoy hanging out with me. But that might be another story for another time.

We had a system. When we got up in the morning, we’d empty the steamer basket into the backyard compost bin. Then we’d pour off the juice, turn the stove on and refill the basket with stemmed apples cut in half, ensure the water reservoir had enough in it to not boil dry, make sure the flame wasn’t too high, and then go eat breakfast and get Luke off to school. The apples continued to steam over boiling water while I got ready for work. We had already washed and sterilized plenty of 1-quart and 2-quart jars ready to fill, and the canner stood by ready to can the juice. We were pros at this. All should have gone slick as a wick – like it normally did. But this time, during those critical days, I never seemed to find the time in the evening to actually process the quarts of juice in the canner! It didn’t take long before they filled the fridge and then the counter tops, waiting for me to have time to finish the job. Ideally, if I had had even a few days in a row to devote to the project, I could have poured the hot juice directly from the juicer into sterile jars, affix hot sterile lids, and put them into the hot canner immediately. Before new jars of juice were ready to put into the canner, the processed ones would be out and sitting on a clean tea towel to cool. It should have been that easy. And it should have been relatively quick. Two or three days at most. But that week I was just so busy at the store, I simply couldn’t find an extra hour to finish the job. Fruit once harvested however, doesn’t wait. It has no sympathy and no ability to slow down time. And fruit flies? … … Well, lets just agree that fruit flies are a hateful part of summer harvesting.

So we kept it up, Luke and I. Because it seemed like the only thing to do. I would strain off whatever juice we extracted from the morning, then turn the stove off on my way out the door for work.   When Luke got home from school, his job was to take the basket of spent apples out to the compost, dump it and start filling it up again by cutting the apples in half, and removing the stems. Then he’d turn the stove on and begin the water boiling, draining off whatever juice might have accumulated during the day.  After I got home we just continued the process right into the night amidst dinner and homework and our usual routines, finishing off as many steamer baskets of apples as we could, pouring off as much juice as we produced, and taking the pulp out to the compost heap in the backyard to the delight of late summer wasps and hornets. We could get a few more batches done until about midnight, when I’d pour off the last of the juice, turn the stove off and go to bed. In the morning we’d start the whole process over again. The cycle of our days during apple harvest was pretty predictable. Except for the not-getting-them-processed in the canner part. That part was new.

You can imagine that we had begun accumulating a fair number of jars of juice.  The fact that they needed to be processed in the canner began to weigh heavily on my mind, but I simply. could. not. find. the time! “Tomorrow I would.” Always tomorrow.  Well the natural circle of life is a real thing, and it cannot be stopped or even slowed down in a summer kitchen.  One day I noticed a few jars on the back counter had begun to foam. Urgency was added to the heavy weight, but then – the clock and I have never been friends. 

It seemed that with every hour that went by, the juice in some jars was not only foaming at the top, but carbonating. I though didn’t know what to expect from the taste, when I tested them, they were great! Even better than usual. A little ‘fizzy’, but I kinda like ‘fizzy’. I finally had to admit that the word I was looking for, was “fermenting“.   Now in a house like mine, this was not a word I wanted to say out loud but it was pretty evident to everyone what was happening under my watchful eye.  I had zero experience with this type of fermentation.  I had made pickles and sauerkraut, yogurt, sourdough bread and even kimchi, but fermented juice was in a class of its own.  I didn’t know if it could be processed in a hot water canner under the circumstances. I had no idea what to expect from a jar of juice during the fermenting process. What to do? What to do?  I determined that I couldn’t risk canning it, but after two weeks of juicing, and a whole season’s worth of apples, there was no way in this green earth I was gonna waste it.  Waste not – Want not. Right? Only one option that I could see, and that was that we needed to drink it.

Lots and lots of apple juice.  We started with the older ones, the ones at greatest risk of being lost. Apple juice for breakfast, apple juice for lunch and apple juice at the supper table. Carbonated apple juice.  We had a LOT of fizzy apple juice.  And even though we had half a dozen people living in our house, it seemed to be like Elijah’s cruse of oil.  No bottom to it.  It went on forever.  Getting more carbonated every day.   It was delicious! Luke and I loved it. We couldn’t get enough. The others?  Well they didn’t feel the same way. They simply weren’t as ‘invested’ as we were.  They hadn’t spent two weeks juicing apples so they didn’t ‘feel the feels’ when we considered the possibility of having to pour the fermenting juice down the drain. Luke and I soldiered on.

Finally, mutiny started to rear its ugly head, and I started to see cracks in the seams of our otherwise unified wholesome (non alcohol drinking) household.  Other family members began making rude comments regarding the fermentation of the ‘juice’.  They used words like ‘stillery‘, and ‘moonshine‘. Luke and I were all “Yeah whatever! This is GREAT!”  Them?  Not so eager.   As the days passed even I no longer felt that the word “juice” was appropriate, but I sure as heck wasn’t gonna use the “W” word. I had no idea exactly what apple cider was, but I decided it was a safe place between juice and wine so I started calling it apple cider.  Luke was totally supportive. 
“I love apple cider!”  he reaffirmed daily.

Dan and my other kids continued teasing but I brushed it off.  “Sour grapes!”

One day as Luke got the chilled jug of apple cider out of the fridge to set the table for dinner, seventeen year old Zack complained “This again to drink? I’m getting tired of drinking this for ever single meal. And I’m thinking we shouldn’t be drinking it anyway.” 
“Oh lighten up Zack.” I told him “This is as close to wine as you’re ever gonna get.”
“Frankly Mom,” he said as he got himself a drink of water, ” I have NEVER felt the need to get this close.” 

One by one the family dropped off till only Luke and I remained.   True appreciators of this wonderful accidental apple cider we created with the help of a little natural yeast and time. 

One afternoon my sister was in town and stopped in on her way home.  I prepared us a nice lunch, with apple cider of course.  She loved it and helped herself to more.  And then a little more. Three days later she phoned me wanting the recipe … “That was THE best apple punch I have ever had! I cannot stop thinking about it. I need your recipe.”

“Super simple.” I told her. “Nothing to it. You just make apple juice.  Leave it on the counter for a week or two till starts foaming.  Then sweeten with a little bit of sugar and leave for a few more days.  Easy Peasy. (lol)” She didn’t think it was as funny as I did.

Surprisingly, that apple ‘juice’ took longer to consume it all, than it did to create it. But eventually all good things must come to an end.  Even apple ‘cider’. And soon enough the last jar of apple cider was served.  I do believe it was only Luke and me who stayed with it right to the end.  It was a solemn moment when we shared that final glass. We had taken lots of ribbing and name calling along the way, but it was worth it.  Truly that apple cider had gotten better every day, but by Christmas it was only a memory and a funny story.  … … The following summer we had another great crop of apples and while I dreaded the work, Luke looked forward to the smell of apple juice in the house again, and our shared tradition.  “Can we make some more of that apple cider Mom?” he asked. 
“Uh, no I don’t think so Luke.  We can only ever do something like that by mistake once.  After that, …… its not a mistake anymore.  I think we had our day in the sun.”

Today my steam juicer’s second home is Luke’s house, where it continues to live a purposeful and fruitful life.  Luke says that late summer days should smell like hot, sweet apple juice and he’s determined to make sure his boys grow up with the happy memories that that slightly spicy, comfortable fragrance conjures up. The one that smells like “Welcome Home“.  

What are some of those comfy smells that bring back memories for you? You know. The ones that put a smile on your face when you think of them.

Warmly,

Cindy Suelzle