- 1 week ago
This week on Lucie For Hire, our host, Lucie Fink learns how to be a cider farmer for the day. At Samascott Orchards, she discovers how to press and bottle cider and sell it at a local farmer 's market.
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00:00I'm Lucy Fink. I'm a video producer at Refinery29, but every so often I like to try other people's jobs.
00:05Today I'm at Samascott Farms in upstate New York, and I'm going to see if I have what it takes
00:10to be an apple cider maker.
00:12This is Lucy for Hire.
00:18This fall, I took a long drive out of New York City and headed up to Samascott Orchards,
00:23a family-owned farm that grows fresh fruits and vegetables, and also sells local honey, maple syrup,
00:29fresh popcorn, homemade ice cream, and so much more, including, of course, their famous homemade apple cider.
00:36I met with Jake, the owner and a fourth-generation farmer who, along with his family members, helps to run
00:41the entire operation.
00:43Hey!
00:44Welcome.
00:45Lucy.
00:45Jake.
00:46Nice to meet you.
00:47Nice to meet you.
00:47So tell me about your farm.
00:49We're growing a little bit of any kind of fruit or vegetable you can think of, also a wide variety
00:53of different apples,
00:54so we have over a hundred varieties of apples on the farm.
00:57It is absolutely beautiful, and I hear I'm going to make some apple cider today?
01:01Yes.
01:01We've got some apples for you to pack and some cider to be made.
01:04Do I have a special uniform to put on, or is this good?
01:06That won't quite work today.
01:08We have some gear to put on.
01:10We'll keep you clean and dry.
01:11Alright, should I go get suited up?
01:13Let's get it.
01:23You're first challenge is sorting the apples.
01:26Now, typically the cider making process would begin with the harvest and actually picking the apples, but since I visited
01:33the farm a little bit late in the season, all of that heavy lifting was actually already done for me.
01:37So I dove in midway through and I started out on the sorting line.
01:41So sorting process, we're taking the stored apple bins, 800 pounds in a bin, they're in the cooler, we're pulling
01:46them out.
01:47They go through the sorting line, so we're picking out the good quality apples for retail sales, and anything that's
01:53left is going into the cider process.
01:56Anything that's real green, it's just going to be unripe, it's not going to taste good.
01:59So real green ones or bigger ones that have marks on them, they're going to go up on the belt,
02:04the belt will dump them into the cider.
02:05I'm not sure how to grab them so fast.
02:08They keep coming around, it's a two-way belt, so whatever you miss this time, we'll circle back around again.
02:13Anything that is visibly rotten or damaged, it will go into a separate bucket, which will feed to our animals.
02:19It's a bit of a strange thing, but after staring at the conveyor belt for such a long time, it
02:24actually starts to feel like you're the one that's moving and the conveyor belt is standing still.
02:28We sorted out the apples that were damaged or a little bit too small, and we set them on the
02:33top belt to head to the cider making process.
02:36And then for the perfectly good apples, we stacked them into bins to sell them wholesale.
02:42Your second challenge is pressing.
02:46Somebody lifted up a forklift and dumped an entire bin of apples into the container.
02:51I'm standing at the bottom as the apples drop into the bin, and Jake is showing me how to turn
02:57this wheel
02:57to release the apples onto this conveyor belt.
03:00Ah!
03:02Sorry!
03:03I turn the wheel and more apples than I expect dump out in front of me.
03:08In fact, so many apples come out that some are flying onto the floor, I'm getting a little stressed out.
03:13And then after they come out, I don't have that much time because I have to sort out all of
03:16the rotten ones
03:17before the apples get sucked into this machine where they're getting cleaned and then taken up on an elevator to
03:22be turned into applesauce, essentially.
03:24We're using a rack and cloth press.
03:26We'll put down a plastic rack first.
03:28Then there's a cloth which gets filled with the ground up apples.
03:30Then that gets folded over so that none of that gets squeezed out.
03:34We just want the juice out.
03:34The cloth is really what's filtering the apple from the juice.
03:36Another plastic rack goes on top of that.
03:39And we keep layering up and up until we get to the 14th layer.
03:42As we're layering, we'll see juice coming right off of the plastic racks dripping down into the tray.
03:47That right there is fresh apple juice.
03:48We can stick a cup under there and try that.
03:52Oh my gosh.
03:56From there, it's going to fall into another tank where we pump it into our larger storage tank.
04:00I see why I'm in this outfit now.
04:04Very wet in here.
04:05After each rack and cloth section is filled, it's going to go under the press.
04:09It gets pressed.
04:10Once it's dried out, those claws then have to be emptied so that we can refill them again.
04:14It might be!
04:21Emptying them is a little tricky.
04:22We've got to grab the cloth just right so that when you flip it out,
04:25you're not dropping the cloth on the ground, but you're getting all of the dried apple out of it.
04:30This is probably the heaviest part of lifting with apple cider making,
04:34so it might be a slight struggle for Lucy.
04:36This cloth pressing method is the standard way to make apple cider,
04:39but I actually learned that apple juice is basically the same thing as apple cider.
04:44It's just filtered and pasteurized.
04:47Your third challenge is bottling and capping.
04:50This is our siphon filler.
04:51So everything's going to be filled here by hand.
04:54It starts to fill itself.
04:55Just going to take it off.
04:57We have to just get them filled to the top,
04:58so you're going to pick it up just a little bit.
05:00Ah!
05:01Oh no!
05:03Is that normal?
05:03Well, normal when you're starting, yeah.
05:05It's a little high.
05:07Yeah, no, it's fine.
05:08Okay.
05:08Yep.
05:09Let me set it over here.
05:10We lost some precious juice today.
05:13Bottling is a little bit stressful.
05:15As long as the cider tap is turned on,
05:17you have to continue moving quickly unless you want the tank to overflow.
05:20As we're taking the bottles off, we'll see.
05:22We're going to splash a little cider.
05:23We're going to make a little mess, but I think we'll get the hang of it.
05:26After we get the cider bottled and capped, we store it into bins in the cooler,
05:30ready to get put on a truck, which I'll be leaving at 3 a.m. tomorrow morning
05:34to get down to New York City.
05:35See you soon.
05:37Wish me luck.
05:42I think your final challenge is selling.
05:45After a full day on the farm, we drove back to New York City
05:48and prepared to wake up bright and early the following morning
05:51to sell at the Union Square Green Market.
05:53The Green Market is a lively, outdoor, year-round market
05:56with stalls for regional farmers, fishers, bakers, and more.
06:00Compared to the vibe on some mascot orchards,
06:03Union Square is absolutely electric.
06:05And I arrived at about 6 a.m. to start setting up with Jake and his team.
06:10It's quite a process once we get to New York City to start the selling.
06:13We're going to unload everything first, get everything piled onto the tables,
06:16ready for display, and then we can start selling.
06:18If getting up at 3 o'clock in the morning wasn't exhausting enough,
06:21unloading 10,000 pounds of fruit and cider will wake you up just right.
06:26Smells good.
06:27Pure apple cider.
06:2912 ounces for two bucks.
06:31Does anybody want to buy some beets?
06:34They're fresh.
06:35We pulled them out of the ground.
06:37Hello.
06:39Come and get your cider.
06:4012 ounces, two bucks.
06:42This mascot orchard stall got busy really quickly.
06:46Pretty soon there were 10 people at once, swirling around,
06:49grabbing pies, apples, popcorn, cider, donuts, and more.
06:54The toughest part for me was actually making change for people on the spot.
06:59Doing subtraction in my head very quickly,
07:01while I know that someone is waiting for me on the other side of the register,
07:04did cause me a little bit of stress.
07:06On one or two occasions, I almost gave the wrong amount of change to people,
07:10but thankfully Jake was always nearby to correct me.
07:13I feel like we just had a lot of customers at once.
07:15That's how they come and live.
07:16That was hectic.
07:17By the end of the day, I honestly didn't want to leave.
07:20There's something so satisfying about selling fresh and locally grown produce
07:25and watching people take this nutritious food home in their reusable tote bags.
07:29If you pop by the Samascott Orchard stall at the Union Square Farmers Market
07:33sometime in the near future, who knows?
07:36Maybe I'll be there working.
07:37After all, Jake said that I was hired.
07:39Thanks so much for watching, and we'll see you next time on another episode of Lucy For Hire.