Today was an exhausting but worthwhile day. Made lots of fresh applesauce, and wow what a mouthwatering time. I love applesauce on toast, waffles, pancakes, oatmeal, in cakes or muffins (for moisture). Went to my best friends house and 30 minutes later, we were down to the messy work, of washing, pulling stems, slicing apples, and tossing them in pot to boil.
That alone took well over an hour since we had a 30 gallon bucket full of apples, and a smaller bucket too. We only freaked out a few times when bugs came out of 3-4 apples as they were cut. How the heck do pincher bugs burrow into the apples?
Here are the steps we did, as they were done boiling for 20 minutes per load.
This is a Deluxe Food Strainer and Sauce Maker (Victorio VKP250)
After boiling apples, she scooped them into the top of the funnel, core and all. I then turned the hand crank to grind it all down. Amazing thing was, the peels, cores, and seeds all came out the small opening (small bowl), and the applesauce came out the tray above the big bowl. I had to plunge it quite a few times to help it push through, due to the thickness.
Batch #1 of 5
The steam and the smell I guess were too much at once, so I had to go sit down a few times, to avoid passing out. (some smells are too much and makes me want to vomit). I felt bad that I was leaving her on her own when I did, so I sucked it up and went back to work (or tried). I decided to try the scooping into the jars, and that was better (no smelly steam).
After adding cinnamon and sugar, it was time to scoop into each pint size jar.
First batch of jars ready to be sealed, soon as lids were sanitized in hot water. Then they were placed in a huge pot, to boil for 20 minutes per load (for proper sealing temp). As the lids were sealing, they would make popping sounds. Lucky for us, "not", the first batch had faulty lids and had to be reboiled, with new ones.
By the 3rd batch, I wanted to grind them again and so decided to do the splits, going low enough to avoid the smelly steam. That worked, so I plodded along. Five hours later, we finished making around 35-40 jars of homemade applesauce.