_Fall is a season for apples, and equally important, a season for apple cider. Over the past few years,
we’ve enjoyed hauling out the old Jaffrey press (see below), in the spirit of our late grandfather,
and pressing a few gallons in the crisp autumn air. However, as the orchard at Lockehaven has
grown, and our dreams and plans have grown even more quickly, we’ve been looking into ways to
increase potential cider production. Largely due to the inspiration of another part-time orchardist and
pomologist in Maine, (Five Islands Orchard) we’ve embarked on a mission to build
a hydraulic “rack & cheese” style press. We assumed that it would be built of the noblest and (what we
thought was) the strongest North American hardwood, the mighty ‘acer saccharum’, but after some
research, we decided on a laminated hickory wood construction, due to hickory’s immense strength.
It has come together, slowly but surely, over the past 6 months, and was put to the test for the first
time this past weekend. “The Old Hickory”, as it has been coined, is powered by Luke’s new Kubota
BX2360, which drives a 3” bore, 24” stroke hydraulic ram, fastened vertically at the top of the press. At
its maximum rated pressure, it should be capable of approximately 22,000 pounds of pressing force--
the weight of about 7 of your average family sedans. Walhowden Orchards, and Poverty Lane Orchards were able to provide us with two 15-bushel bins, one of Cortlands and the other of Macs (roughly 1200lbs). With our average efficiency of ~3 gallons of cider per bushel, that should give us approximately 90 gallons of cider this year. There were high hopes for the acquisition of a bin of traditional cider apples this year, but due to a short crop, they were unavailable to us from any of the local orchards.

Initial tests proved, with some assuredness, that The Old Hickory is a powerful machine—likely much
more powerful than we will ever require.Our friends at Townline Equipment wondered if the hydraulic
flow from the Kubota may be slower that we’d like, but we were perfectly satisfied. It’s not a high-speed
operation, after all, and with the incredible power potential, “slow and steady” really is the name of the
game.

Although there are plans in the works for an equally high-powered apple grinder to complement the
press, it’s not in its production stages yet, and we’re still forced to rely on the hand-cranked Jaffrey
grinder. Although non-optimal, it has served us well so far this year. We’ve experimented with the
adaptation of a 1HP garbage disposal unit, and although the results are astonishing (apple sauce), it’s
too slow and labor-intensive to keep up with the production. We think that the coarser Jaffrey grind will
be sufficient with our massive pressing power. Stay tuned for updates on the apple grinder front.

The virgin pressing was encouraging, but not completely satisfying. Due to the late-summer flooding in
our area, our local fabric store is still out of commission, so we had to resort to a very much less than
optimal canvas material for our inaugural pressing. After several (sometimes exciting) blow-outs, and
realizing the slow flow rate, we realized that a proper cheesecloth material was going to be absolutely
necessary to successful pressing. I’ll be looking for another source for fabric, and will hopefully have
some better material for next weekend. I’ve also ordered several sheets of ¼” high density polyethylene
(HDPE) that we will use to replace the absolutely handsome, if not perfectly effective maple racks that
Jer put together. I’ll take the blame for their ineffectiveness, however, as I suggested the design—once
again based off of Ben’s design up at Five Islands.

We’ll bring the Jaffrey down with a pile of apples for Piper family Thanksgiving in Rochester, MA, and we’ll
hope to get back up to Lockehaven for some cider press refinements next weekend. Pictures and video
of the Thanksgiving pressing to follow shortly!

-Nate Piper