Fruit trees are something we’ve always been interested in, but there’s just no room for them on our property. Thankfully, a friend’s parents have a few fruit trees and don’t do anything with the fruit, so raiding their trees is a summer tradition for my husband and I.

Three of those trees are apple trees. Unfortunately, one of them didn’t get a single apple this year and another still needs about another month before the apples are ready—but the third tree was ready this past week, so John and I headed out for our first apple tree raid of the year.

We managed to get 142 pounds of apples from the one tree! We’re being more diligent this year about making sure we take everything. Last year, we took most of the fruit, but not all. I ended up juicing the apples and we soon learned we loved having apple juice on hand in the fridge. Our supply of juice last year ended up lasting almost a full year. We drank our last one about a month ago.

Last year we got 285 pounds of apples, so about double what we’ve harvested so far this year. We don’t think the second tree will give use enough to match or beat last year’s haul, but fingers crossed it’s still a heavy yield.

Juicing the apples

How you juice the apples is up to you.

Last year I did them with a traditional juicer with the spinning grate. The benefit of this is that it’s quick. I managed to juice all my apples in one day. The drawback is there’s a lot of sediment in the juice and it gets very messy when doing large batches. I was constantly cleaning the apple pulp out of the juicer, which meant it was often accidentally splattering all over the place.

I collected the juice in a large pot and skimmed off all the foam that was forming, as this often had a lot of sediment in it.

This year I pulled out my new steam juicer. WOW was it ever cleaner and easier to do—I chopped up the apples, put them in the juicer, and let the thing do its work. The drawback though is how long it takes. It took me three full days to juice all 142 pounds of apples. But the juice was sediment free and required no filtering.

A steam juicer is a three tiered pot where the bottom level contains the boiling water, the top level is a colander that holds the fruit, and the middle level collects the juice that drips down from the colander. The steam heats up the fruit and makes the juice burst out of the fruit. Here’s a more detailed post from when I juiced cherries with a steam juicer.

Whether you’re using a mechanic juicer, a steam juicer, or some other device, follow the instructions that came with the device if they differ from what’s written here.

If you don’t have a juicer, here’s a post on WikiHow that explains how to do it on the stove or in a blender.

You want the juice to be as clear and sediment free as possible. A steam juicer does a great job, but a mechanical juicer can create some sediment, and the methods in the WikiHow article could also create sediment. You can strain the apple juice through a sieve lined with several layers of cheesecloth to filter this out. Alternatively, if you’re doing a smaller batch, you can store the juice in the fridge overnight so the sediment settles, and then carefully ladle the juice out into a clean pot.

Safely canning apple juice

However you choose to juice your apples, once you’ve got apple juice, the juice can be easily canned with a water bath canner.

I found some difficulty in nailing down a recipe for safe apple juice canning. The recipe I used last year required no lemon juice as it was assumed the apple juice is acidic enough on its own. In researching again this year, I found a recipe that called for 3 tablespoons of lemon juice for a three-liter batch (which is a tablespoon per liter), and then found a recipe that called for 3 tablespoons of lemon juice for a six-liter batch (which is half a tablespoon per liter).

While I had no reason to doubt any of the sources, I went with the last one—3 tablespoons per six liters—as that was from my Bernardin canning book (the Canadian version of the well-known Ball canning book), which is a very trusted source.

The next step was figuring out how I was going to do this. The recipe calls for juicing apples, adding the lemon juice to the apple juice, pasteurizing it, and then canning it. But I wasn’t doing the exact 24 pounds of apples the recipe calls for, I was doing 142 pounds. Plus, I don’t think these apples are as juicy as the ones they used in the Bernardin recipe. So I altered the recipe to add the lemon juice straight to the jar, which makes the recipe highly adaptable to any amount of apples and apple juice.

How to can apple juice

Once you’ve got clear, sediment-free apple juice, transfer it all to a big pot and heat it on the stove until it reaches 190 degrees Farenheit, and hold it at that temperature for five minutes. A candy thermometer is helpful for this step. I have one of those laser temperature readers, which seems to give a pretty accurate reading. This step pasteurizes the juice to get rid of any bacteria or yeast on the apples.

While the juice is warming, prepare your jars. I find I don’t need to immerse the jars in boiling water, but running them under a hot tap for a moment can help warm the glass and prep them for hot apple juice.

Add lemon juice directly to the jars:

• 1/2 Tbsp of lemon juice for a liter / 1,000 ml jar
• 1 tsp of lemon juice for a pint / 500 ml jar
• 1/2 tsp of lemon juice for a half-pint / 250 ml jar

Make sure to use bottled lemon juice rather than fresh squeezed lemon juice. You need to reach a certain level of acidity for safe canning and bottled lemon juice has consistent acid levels, whereas fresh lemons can be highly variable.

Ladle hot apple juice into the jars, leaving 1/4 inch of headspace.

Wipe the rims with a paper towel wetted with white vinegar. This removes any juice and sugar from the rim that might prevent a proper canning seal from forming. Screw on lids to fingertip tightness.

Place the jars in a water bath canner and fill with hot water, submerging the jars with at least an inch of water. Bring to a boil on the stove. Once the canner has reached a full boil, remain at this boil for ten minutes. (Putting a lid on will prevent your kitchen from getting too steamy.) If you turn down the temperature and it stops boiling, bring it back to a boil and re-start the ten minute timer. If you’re in a higher elevation, adjust your processing time with this chart.

When the ten minutes is over, remove the pot from the heat and let it sit for five minutes, then using a jar lifter carefully remove the jars and let them sit on a towel on the counter or table overnight. In the morning, check that a seal has formed (the lid is depressed). Sealed jars can be stored in a cool dark space for at least a year. Any jars that did not seal should go in the fridge and be used immediately.