Make Your Own Cider: Sweet, Hard or Vinegar

Locavore's Food School is taught by chefs, nutritionists, and food enthusiasts who want you to learn how to make delicious, in season, and local food pop! Learn the secrets of the culinary mind at these exciting classes geared toward the home chef.

Johnny Appleseed never came this far west so Oregon settlers had to plant their own apple trees if they wanted fresh cider, hard cider or vinegar. Today our state has many heirloom apple trees whose fruit drop to the ground unused in part because we have gotten out of the habit of fermenting for preservation. Natural fermentation takes sweet juice and transforms it into alcohol (through yeasts) and then vinegar (through bacteria). In the case of apples, all the phases are delicious. And with simple equipment and techniques, anyone can produce juice, hard cider, or vinegar. Learn the process and you'll soon be enjoying your favorite fruit from the orchard, sweet, hard, or sour. Come press apples and learn to ferment apples in this hands-on class with Kirsten and Christopher Shockey, award-winning authors of The Big Book of Cidermaking.

During this class, we will press apples to make cider for participants to ferment at home. Bring a few glass jars to take your cider home.

About the Shockeys: Kirsten K. Shockey and Christopher Shockey are the coauthors of The Big Book of Cidermaking, Fiery Ferments, best-selling Fermented Vegetables and award winning Miso, Tempeh, Natto and other Tasty Ferments. They got their start in fermenting foods twenty years ago on their 40-acre hillside smallholding which grew into their organic food company. When they realized their passion was for the process, they chose to focus on teaching fermentation arts to others. They used to teach worldwide and host workshops on their homestead in southern Oregon but have moved their teaching online to The Fermentation School, an exciting new collaborative of instructors.

Their days are a chaotic combination of grand-parenting, day jobs, writing and navigating whatever the climate and the rural lifestyle throws their way. Every day is different. Christopher and Kirsten can be found watering, preserving harvests, making cheese, planting trees, chopping firewood, mucking stalls, hiking, dreaming up the next project, reading, or dancing on the porch under the stars. At the end of the day they go to bed exhausted and knowing life is good.