Across Indiana
How Do Hoosiers Make Apple Cider?
Clip | 4m 3sVideo has Closed Captions
There’s simply something special about Indiana apple cider.
Beasley’s Orchard takes Hoosier apples and turns them into deliciousness. Join Across Indiana producer J. Robert Cook on a journey to Danville, Indiana in this classic episode from 1991.
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Across Indiana is a local public television program presented by WFYI
Across Indiana
How Do Hoosiers Make Apple Cider?
Clip | 4m 3sVideo has Closed Captions
Beasley’s Orchard takes Hoosier apples and turns them into deliciousness. Join Across Indiana producer J. Robert Cook on a journey to Danville, Indiana in this classic episode from 1991.
Problems playing video? | Closed Captioning Feedback
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Learn Moreabout PBS online sponsorship(gentle piano music) - [Narrator] When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder's in the shock, so begins James Whitcomb Riley's most famous poem on autumn in Indiana.
Now that October is here, many Hoosiers thoughts will drift back to Riley and his images of an Indiana long ago.
And in recalling those days, they may journey forth in search of that most Hoosier of autumn nectars, fresh apple cider.
(gentle piano music) Ah, yes, cider.
Who can resist its appeal?
And why is the cider of Indiana so highly praised?
Is it some secret formula or hidden recipe known but to a few?
To answer these questions, we travel across Indiana to Danville.
- It's not a secret.
Well, it's no secret recipe, but we do have to make it and taste it and try to get that special blend.
We like to mix sweet varieties with tarter varieties.
No one variety is suitable by itself for cider, so we try to come up with a blend or a balance to get that sweet-tart flavor.
We used good apples in cider.
And that's one the first steps is you use good, solid, ripe, sound apples.
And they're graded out.
They're usually, what we do use are bruised apple or have a slight blemish, ones that we won't package and sell out through our store.
And these apples are washed, and then, in the process of making a cider, they're crushed, and then the pulp is pumped into, we call 'em cheese clothes.
These layers are stacked up, and then, they're pressed out under hydraulic pressure.
And then, we filter the juice and chill it down.
We usually let us settle overnight so that any of the remaining solids will settle out.
And that's basically about it.
We have found that if the cider is not fresh, it's just not as good.
The flavor starts deteriorating almost the day after it's made.
So I might add that we do neither, we neither pasteurize nor do we add a preservative.
We try to just keep it fresh.
- [Narrator] Yes, but what about that special quality of Hoosier cider?
What is it that separates these golden drops of Indiana from all the rest?
- We joke about it, but I think our apples are better.
We've tried apples, we travel around and we try apples from other states, the western states, northern states.
And our apples are grown on this mineral soil, on this Midwestern soil, do have a better flavor.
There's no doubt about it.
And we have people tell us that.
We have people come from other areas of the country and they say, "Boy, these apples are good."
That's one of the things about Indiana, about the Midwest, is the turning of the leaves, the coolness, the frost in the morning.
And we make a cider, some of these apples that come up the elevator before they're crushed, they're just so ripe and full of flavor, they just seem to explode.
This cider is just part of Indiana autumn.
- [Narrator] It takes about a bushel of apples to make three gallons of cider, and there is little waste.
The squeezed mash can be used as cattle feed or spread as fertilizer.
But now, at this time of year, when the frost is on the pumpkin, to most of us, there can be but one use for Hoosier apples.
(bright folk music) - [Voiceover] For more "Across Indiana" stories, go to wfyi.org/acrossindiana.
(bright folk music)
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Across Indiana is a local public television program presented by WFYI