Our Famous Cider Press

The Cider Press About the Cold Hollow Cider Mill History Our Famous Cider Press Production Area The Mill
We Do It the Old-Fashioned Way Visitors love to stop at the Mill to watch cider being pressed. It's fun to watch because we presscider the old fashioned way. Sometimes that's just the best way to do things. Our Press was builtin 1920, and it has literally pressed out millions of gallons in its lifetime. We liked this method so much that in the summer of 2000, we bought another old press from a nicecouple in Wisconsin who were getting out of the cider business. We needed to add more productionbecause demand for Cold Hollow Cider has grown.


The Method The method we use to make our cider is hundreds of years old. It is called the "Rack and Cloth"method of pressing cider. Its alot more fun to watch than a more modern automated press, and ismuch more labor intensive. Here's how it works: We get a whole bunch of apples in, and we mean a WHOLE bunch (last year Cold Hollow used 7.5million pounds of apples). After they are inspected, we wash them one final time, and up theelevator they go to the high-speed grinder (we don't show the grinding to the public, as it is nota pretty sight). The apples are ground into a mash called pomace (this contains all the parts of the apples: thestems, the seeds, the skins, and even the little stickers). The pomace is pumped through a tube andlaid out smooth on a heavy-duty cheese cloth laying on the press cart, the cloth is folded overlike a burrito, and a plastic rack is laid on top. This process is repeated 18 times, then the press cart is rolled in place over the hydraulic press, which then comes up with 2500 pounds per square inch of pressure.Every last little precious drop of the nectar is squeezed from the pomace, until all we're left with is a dried up doormat-looking thing we still call pomace, but it doesn't have any juice left in it. Did you know that an apple is 85% juice, just like the human body? Kind of makes you think, doesn't it?
The Pomace The number one question we get at the Mill is: What do you do with all the left over pomace? Theories, tall tales, and proposals abound. Local farmers come and pick it up to be used for livestock feed. Vermont lore has it that dairyfarmers will not feed it to milking cows because the belief is that the pomace ferments by the timeit gets to the farm, and that the cows would rather get drunk than give milk. We don't know ifthat's true or not, but we've never had a dairy farmer pick up any pomace. But there seems to beplenty of other farm animals that love the stuff. The good part is that nothing gets wasted in the process. What farmers don't use for feed goes intoa big compost pile to be used as mulch. As you can imagine, all sorts of nutrients for gardens arein the pomace. Famous Visitors Francois and Lara Borel,world famous cider makers from the heart of France, have visited our cidermill and given the famous French blessing of "Jus' de Splendide"