Cider!

One of Anne's coworkers has an enormous apple tree growing in her back yard. By enormous, I mean it is HUGE, it's as tall as the three story house, it has three or four big trunks and it rains down a ton of apples on her yard every year. The apples themselves are small to medium in size and they have a decent flavor, and are moderately sweet.

After receiving three plastic grocery bags full of apples in three consecutive days, our arms and wrists were sore from all the chopping. We put the chopped apples in ziplock freezer bags and froze them, then last Thursday I took them out of the freezer and dumped them into my fermentation bucket to thaw, on Saturday I pressed the apples and got about 3 three gallons of apple juice out of them. I took measurements, the juice had around 5% sugar (~1.050 gravity). I pitched yeast and that cider is currently bubbling away merrily.
more photos

More is better?

Not content with a mere three gallons, I asked for more apples. Well last night I got my wish.

This is why they tell you, be careful what you wish for.

I took three baskets over and I cam back with three baskets, and three grocery bags, full to nearly overflowing with apples. HOLY CRAP!
First of all, there's no way we can process all of these apples the same way as the previous ones. There's simply not enough space in the freezer, also our arms would die before we'd be able to chop all of these buggers.

I recently read on the internets about a couple of different people making an apple chopper/crusher from a garbage disposal, I'd like to make one but garbage disposals aren't cheap and there currently aren't any used ones on craigslist. If anyone reading this has got one, please let me know!

The other alternative we've discussed is a divide and conquer strategy. Since we won't be freezing the apples to break apart the cell walls and release the juice, we need to do something that both chops the apples and releases the juice similar to the garbage disposal method. What we're thinking is to split the apples between us. Anne would man the juicer and the food processor to pulp (or juice) her apples. I would place my apples in a rubbermaid container and smash them with a hammer. In between this process we'd be loading the pulp into the press and squeezing the juice out. Anyone want to bring a food processor (or another press if you've got one!) over this weekend and help out? Cider will be a part of your future if you do!