How do you prepare your apples before milling?
Reason for the question is because of the hours it took me to prepare about 20kg of apples to produce about 10L of cider at the weekend.
About 1/3 were picked from a tree and had little or no damage so I just washed and quartered before putting them through the scratter. (pic below)
The rest are windfalls and vary in quality. I've been given these from various sources and some are better than others.
Some look OK but on close inspection there is a hole via base and core is eaten through. Others eat into the flesh.
I think its due to 2 sorts of apple maggot from railroad fly and codling moth.
It took me ages to remove all the bits the worms had gone through and was quite wasteful ~20-25% loss
Some sources I've read say to remove all rot and don't use apples that have had a worm in them.
Others like this ref say grow-some & get on with it.
My friend in the west country says not to worry either.Some people say you shouldn't use fruit that has been on the ground. To these people I say "get over it!" All cider apples are harvested from the ground; No-one is going to pay pickers to pick cider apples, the economics just don't work. If an apple has been on the ground but still looks sound it will be fine. Many commercial cider makers don't even inspect their apples. They get a wash and thats it, grubs, bruises etc it all goes in.
What do you do?
Pic from scratting last weekend.
Scratter recently modified by adding foot-pedal switch and c13-c14 power-lead disconnect on waste disposal unit to make it easier to handle when cleaning
