A Big Apple Preservation Day on the Homestead

A Big Apple Preservation Day on the Homestead

It’s officially apple season here on the homestead, and that means the kitchen is humming with the sounds and smells of preservation. This year, we harvested about three bushels of apples from our summer apple tree. It’s not the biggest harvest we’ve had, but even this amount can be turned into a pantry full of goodness if you have the right system in place.

Over the years, I’ve learned a few tricks to make apple days much more manageable. Today, I want to share how I turn the same apples into not one, not two, but three different products, all with less work and less waste.

Start With a Simple Plan for Meals

One of the best things you can do on big preserving days is to make sure meals are simple. When the kitchen is taken over by apples, you don’t want to be scrambling for breakfast or lunch.

Here’s how we do it:

• Breakfast: We keep it quick and filling with oatmeal muffins, homemade yogurt, and a batch of hard-boiled eggs from the Instant Pot.





• Lunch: A big pot of beans and rice simmering away in the crockpot or Instant Pot. It’s hearty, hands-off, and doesn’t take up valuable counter space.





• Dinner: Something that can cook low and slow while we work. On this rainy summer day, I had a roast tucked into the Dutch oven, ready to finish off with fresh garden carrots and cabbage.

Taking a few minutes to plan meals ahead of time means I can focus on apples without worrying about feeding the family in the middle of the chaos.

My Secret Weapon: The Steam Juicer

The tool that makes this whole process easier is my steam juicer. If you’ve never used one, it’s basically a three-part pot: water on the bottom, fruit in a basket at the top, and a middle section that collects the juice.

Here’s why I love it:

• Double duty: As the apples steam, they cook down enough to be run through a food mill for applesauce. At the same time, the steam extracts apple juice for cider.





• No waste: Instead of losing liquid when cooking apples in a pot of water, I get an extra product, fresh apple cider!





• Flexibility: If I let the apples steam longer, the pulp thickens, perfect for apple butter. A shorter steam gives me applesauce with the right consistency.

Homesteading Hack: Never let your steam juicer boil dry. Always check that there’s enough water in the bottom section, or you’ll ruin the pot.

Three Products From the Same Apples

On this apple day, we focused mostly on applesauce, but you could easily mix in apple butter if you prefer. Here’s the breakdown of what you can make from a single batch of apples:

1. Apple Cider – The juice that collects in the steam juicer. We water-bath can ours in quart jars (or even half-gallons, since clear juice is safe that way). At sea level, processing time is just 10 minutes.





2. Applesauce (or Apple Butter) – Once steamed, the apples go straight through the food mill. From there, you can reheat the sauce to a boil and can it, or cook it down further with spices for apple butter.





3. Pig Feed – Even after running apples through the mill, there’s pulp left behind. Instead of tossing it, we feed it to the pigs, making sure nothing goes to waste (we like to call it “turning our food scraps into bacon”).

By the end of the day, we had 21 quarts of apple cider and 28 quarts of applesauce (plus some fresh jars in the fridge for breakfast this week). That’s a full pantry for the winter ahead, all from three bushels of apples.

A Bonus Recipe: Garlic & Dill Sauerkraut

While the apples steamed, we kept busy with another project: sauerkraut. Our summer cabbages were just past their prime, but still perfect for fermenting.

Here’s our new favorite flavor combination:

• Shred the cabbage.





• Add 1 ½ tablespoons of good salt per medium head.





• Mix in lots of chopped garlic and fresh dill leaf.

After a good ferment, this kraut is phenomenal, savory, tangy, and bursting with flavor.

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