A chilly autumnal day (this word autumnal needs to be said out loud, I think it has the most beautiful sound). Today we begin to make the pear cider.
The pears have been sitting in the shed quietly ripening and now they are looking juicy and sweet. Except for that greenish one, I am going to eat that one. I love crisp pears!
First they are crushed in this massive crusher that John made out of an old beer keg. Basically it just rips and mashes everything up. You can see the spiky bits. It is powered by the little John Deere. 
It does not have its lid on yet but you can see the concept this way. 
Pears get thrown into the crusher and are smashed up at an alarming speed. I forgot to take a shot of the chickens who have surrounded us and are risking life and limb darting in and gobbling up anything that hits the ground. There is no two second rule with chooks. Nothing stays on the ground that long!
Here is the lid coming Off. Just try to look as though you are interested! I know this is not for everyone. Sustainable is eclectic remember. Sometimes we have to do boring stuff too!
The crushed pears sit in their vessels for at least two hours and preferably over night.
Then we press the crushed pears in our trusty press. You have seen this in action before. It is a genuine antique and Johns thinks it was designed as a sausage press. But those attachments are long since gone. You will see that he was able to re-attach the handle that I broke off when we were pressing the grapes. Phew.
He is always a little worried when tightening it down, that something will break. But it looks pretty strong.
The juice is heated to kill any wild yeasts. (Anything wild sounds good to me but John says No.) Then the juice sits in its sterile bucket to settle. Tonight he will take all the readings and then we will syphon off the juice, leaving the sediment and begin with the fermentation process. 
See? That was not so bad! I will let you know how it goes!
The left over pulp is mixed with beet shreds and eggs, garlic and cider vinegar,yum (that is your recipe for today) then fed to the stock. Daisy will take down fences for this feed.
Here is one lot of chickens who have had enough pear and are off home to the barn.
c
The Kitchen's Garden 
84 responses to “Making pear cider on the Sustainable Farm – Nothing is Wasted.”
Wonderful photos!
Thank you Jamie Anne, hope you are having a great week.. c
Ah, glad to see the press is working! John is quite handy! The chicks reminded me of my brood of 6 when they were younger. I would ask to save us a bottle, but if you save one for all your readers, you wouldn’t get any!
Check out Rowdy Chow Girl, if you haven’t already, she is FP today. I think you would like her blog. A sustainable farm/grower in the Seattle area I think.
Thought you would be pleased Howard, both you and John being DoItYourselfers! c
who’s Howard?
Did you quaff a bit more than a nip of something?
so glad the chooks did not get into the press 🙂
I know, they were getting braver and braver, watching the pears flying with their heads turned sideways like they do! c
Am going to have to show (and translate) this to Big Man as he is a big cider fan and we have often talked about trying to make our own here. How delicious! Glad the little chickies are doing well!
How wonderful it will be to drink this on your verandah at the end of the day. It must be so flavoursome. The closest I can get is the delicious Rekorderlig pear cider form Sweden.
You are absolutely right annie, this drink is designed for a verandah. ! c
We’re back to autumnal weather today after the brief foray into scary winter!
How wonderful. Love seeing everything about this process! A friend of mine loves making hot pear cider with mulled spices, it’s such a great fall treat.
What a great idea,Hot pear cider.. that would be wonderful for a chilly evening. c
What an amazing process! I wish I could come help drink it up. And the chicks? Adorable!
Hi there, Rowdy!, I did enjoy your pages the other day. Wouldn’t it be brilliant if we could all get together to have a glass of cider on the verandah! Welcome! c
I love pear cider, great drink for summer specially if its ice cold!
How very smart and inventive your John is. We’ve made hard apple cider but not pear. The pear we just make into regular cider. I have some in my freezer now that I will use in cooking this winter.
What a good idea, Karen. We have planted more pear trees and hope to have big crops in years to come , then I can swipe some juice to freeze as well!.. c
Autumnal is a lovely sounding word. I really like this process, and I am sure the pear cider is just fantastic.
We are crossing our fingers it comes out ok. It smells great! c
Wow, that’s going to be delicious – remember to let me know when you have the first glass, I’ll be there to join you in a flash 😀
Sure will darling girl!! wouldn’t that be grand! c