We have been at our place here in Oregon for three years. There are 3 mature apple trees and one baby tree. The trees were neglected by the prior owner. Since acquiring the property, I have been working on the trees to get them back into shape. The first year, we got 50 lbs, enough for a 5 gallon batch of cider. We used an English Ale yeast on it. Two years later, it has turned out to be a nice lightly carbonated cider. Last year was dismal as we only got 30 lbs. We had to buy some apples locally to get enough to make a 5 gallon batch of Apple wine. It is still in the carboy. Last weekend, I picked 300lbs of apples off of our trees. There are still about another 100 lbs that are still not ripe. Last night we pressed the picked apples and got 17 gallons of juice!.
We are going to do three different brews with the juice. One will be a straight cider using the Wyeast Sweet Mead yeast, the next will be an apple wine, fortified to 1.100 with sugar and will use the Cote de Blancs yeast. The other one will be a Cyser using Lalvin 71B-1122 yeast. Still not sure what we are going to use that still unpicked apples for.
Are others having a good year for apples this year?
