What we did

We have a largish apple tree in our yard and way too many apples to deal with, so we decided to drink them. Loosely followed this recipe from gimmie some oven, mostly through negligence. Resulted in an un-measured but large amount of nicely sweet yet still tart cider.

Ingredients

Amount         Item
10-12 apples, quartered
2-4 oranges, quartered
1/2 cup brown sugar
4 sticks cinnamon
1 tbsp. whole cloves
water water to fill line

Equipment

  • Instant Pot
  • Potato Masher
  • Strainer/Cheesecloth

Directions

  1. Wash and trim apples and oranges.
  2. Quarter fruit.
  3. Add fruit, cinnamon, cloves to instapot and fill with water to max fill line.
  4. Cook on high pressure for 25 minutes.
  5. Quick release pressure, then mash contents.
  6. Simmer for a bit, we skipped this step accidentally.
  7. Strain through cheese cloth or strainer into another container.
  8. Taste and sweeten as needed.

Story

We have enjoyed apple cider for years, both spiced and plain, with and without rum (spiced or plain), but somehow have never made any ourselves. We have a pretty decent sized apple tree that we never can quite keep up with, so this fall after making all sorts of apple desserts we decided to drink them too. I hastily searched for the simplest recipe and found this recipe from gimmie some oven and went for the instapot version. Due to my usual lack of preparedness, we did not quite have the required ingredients, and despite having two orange trees we ended up subbing one and a half cuties (thanks picky kids) for the requested 2-4 oranges. For science, I also decided to go with the bare minimum spicing, just to establish a clean baseline for future experimination. As is typical in this household the recipe was immediately ignored and all the ingredients were added at once and pressure cooked for 25 minutes. At this point the instapot was rapidly relieved of steam and the nicely stewed contents were mashed and not allowed to sit due to once again forgetting to read the recipe. As this was all being done in rare moments of essentially parental neglect, minimal photographic evidence of the process exists.

Getting help picking apples
Getting help picking some apples for the cider project
All the ingredients in the instapot
All of the ingredients plus water up to the max fill line (near boiling RO in our case, thanks kitchen updates).
Bowl of finished cider with ladle
Stainless steel bowl full of cider, with ladle resting against the side.
Mug of cider next to the garage lights project
A cluttered work bench containing electrical connectors as well as a white mug emblazoned with 'DAD' next to the garage lights control board prototype.