Combined Daily Harvests....Fall

Fall Harvest from farm and garden...

and two more volunteers from the compost pile.

Pears for Perry: Pressing

The Work: pressing

They did oxidize and the juice is tasty from the tasty pears(the Angelica di Saonaras were the most complex)and not so much from the Seckles. There is only a pint of juice from them anyway, and it may spoil because of how rotten they were by the time we got to them, but just in case they ferment into something drinkable and can add a good flavor to the finished product we are keeping them in the experiment.

The Work: pressing

This is how its done the old fashioned way, on the farm, in small batches.

The Work: pressing

Compost: The pears crushed and pressed

We started to do a second pressing and it did yield enough more juice to make it worth it.

The product: well so far anyway

Except for a small amount to drink this will be sitting in a cool place under airlock all winter.

The Celebration

Sun going down, work is done...for now

After crushing pears, a walk down to the river...

and on the way back we discovered that rye grass will grow anywhere.

Pears for Perry: Grinding and Crushing

Seckle Pears

Its hard to tell from this picture, but these pears are very small, not very tasty, and many of the were rotten. To make good perry we had to cut each one open to make sure no rotten ones were pressed.

Variety Unknown

These pears were picked last weekend right here on Ivory Silo Farm. (See last weeks post.) They are tasty ripe or hard, but we did have to cut off a bunch of bad spots and rotten parts.

Angelica Di Saonara?

We purchased a bushel of these pears from The Buckle Farm. Jim Buckle had a clue from the previous owners of his farm as to the variety, and in my search, Angelica Di Saonara was the closest I could fine. A European variety from Italy that is green and red in color and is drought resistant.

Leaf from the Pears from The Buckle Farm

 I was trying to compare this to the pictures of leaves of Angelica Di Saonara pears on line. Its close.

They were almost as tasty as our pears and in much better shape. We hardly threw anything in the compost from this batch. Since tasty isnt what we are looking for in a pear for perry, we are hoping these pears will blend well with the almost inedible seckle pears for a good perry. Its all an experiment.

The Press

This cider press has a crusher on it. This makes it easy to make apple cider. Once crushed the slatted bucket is just pulled forward under the press and another vessel is placed under the front to catch the juice. (See last years post for more on this process.) But with pears its seems you need to let them oxidize after crushing for up to 24 hours to remove some of the tannins so the perry isnt too astringent.

The Work: sorting and cutting

Th Work: crushing

The Crushed Pears

We kept all three pear varieties separate for the fermenting process(washing the press in between crushing each) because we are using the natural bacterias on the skins to ferment the pears. If one variety turns to vinegar at least we might not lose the others. Tomorrow after these have oxidized we will press them into juice!

Pizza!

With Farmer Bill's chocolate peppers and our ever present cherry tomatoes,

or grass fed sausage, pesto from our garden basil, black olives and farmer Bill's caramelized onions... served with arugula!

Whats fermenting? Besides concord grapes? Sauerkraut!

Purple cabbage salt and sore and purple hands starts a bubbling brew.

These bubbles happened right away while I was making it. Not sure why, I don't remember that happening the last times. It did get nice and moist though. I used a little more salt because I didn't like the way the last batch smelled. Its been a hard year for fermentation products for me. This year pickles and kraut took longer and developed more mold. So hopefully this one will work better.

Picking Pears from the old trees on the farm

and then scrounging under the rose bush for the ones that fell was my job.

Daily Harvests from the farm...

dried beans needed to be shucked,

gourds for fall display,

cherries for tonight's salad,

apples for cider hopefully and if not a pie,

and pears for perry! Phew!

Fun on the farm

It seemed a little relaxation was inevitable when a friend stopped by with this, but we have a lot of work to do...

Grapes continued...

Concord grape liqueur...and spiced grape liqueur.

and then we froze the rest of the washed grapes for Ed to make jam with at a later date. I had to go North to work so I brought the unwashed grapes for a fermenting project.

When I arrived I started crushing the grapes, seeds, stems and all.

I kept crushing

and pouring and mixing until...

I filled the container and all the grapes-except those I discarded because they were starting to rot, were gone! Believe it or not I had used all the grapes. Now I just had to stir and wait. Stay tuned in 6 weeks or so to see if this is drinkable or if I need a still to take it further into brandy and then to see if that's drinkable or not. 

You see I dont know what I am doing. It seems the reason Concord Grape wine is sweet is not because it comes out of the ferment that way. It comes out of the ferment bitter and then sweetener is added to get rid of the bitter. But I am willing to experiment, since concord grapes are what we have and I refuse to try to grow a crop that I need to spray fungicides all over just to make the same wine (or worse than) that comes from California.

Next week, I hope, pears.

Grapes and more grapes...

Yesterdays work was deciding what to make with all these grapes, and starting to process them. It may be hard to use them all.

But first most of them had to be washed,

separated from the stems and skins,

Fruit

Skins

We decided to make chutney. Even though both skins and fruit are going to be used,

we needed to separate the fruit and simmer it and push it through a strainer to get the seeds out.

Then we added back the skins spices and vinegar, and we used apples too because we had them, and Voila! Concord Grape Chutney. We tasted it with grass fed lamb and it was superb.

Tomorrow we need to use the rest; we still have 2 and half more containers.

What to do with yesterdays daily harvest...

We started to process the grapes tonight, but it was late and canning would have taken us into the wee hours. So we will make Chutney and maybe Jam tomorrow. I wanted to also make liqueur and maybe wine or brandy. Lets see what time will allow.

Early in the Fall

Earl early in the fall

Ivy turning scarlet

purple Pokeweed

and Concord Grapes harvested from neighbor's trellises and fields where they grow wild.