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Turning Windfall Apples Into Storable Living Food
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Fermenting “The Fall”
The wind had its way with the orchard last night. By dawn, the ground looked like a war zone… apples everywhere, red and bruised, already giving off that faint cider scent.
Ever had this happen? Honestly, it’s smart to have a “just in case” plan. Those fallen apples shouldn’t go to waste… instead, they should become your new favorite fermented food.
The Season Shifts, but the Work Goes On
After a storm, sometimes the orchard floor gets carpeted with fallen apples—really just nature’s invitation to turn windfall apples into living, off-grid food.
At this point in the year, the air bites back. You step outside in a sweatshirt, see your breath drifting like pipe smoke, and you know summer has packed its bags for good. We’ve already said farewell to the last 80-degree day here in Northern Illinois, and honestly, that’s fine. Summer treated the orchard well.
Yet even as the warm days slip away, the chores keep right on piling up. You look out at the garden and it whispers, “Finish what you started,” even though every bone in your body wants to let the birds finish the scraps.
As the warm days disappear and the sweatshirts come out, the stuff to do on the farm doesn’t go away. Nope, the homestead has its own stubborn rhythm. It asks you to prepare, to preserve, to tuck things away like a squirrel stashing nuts. And really, that’s all fermenting is—saving the season in a jar.
Why Ferment, Anyway?
Now, here’s the thing about fermenting: it cooperates with nature instead of picking a fight. Canning wants boiling water, hot jars, and strict control. Fermenting simply wants salt, time, and a little faith. You leave the peels on because that’s where the wild microbes live—the tiny, invisible helpers that turn plain apples into probiotic powerhouses.
So don’t fuss with peeling or heavy scrubbing. Give each apple a quick rinse to flick off the dirt, slice them about a quarter-inch thick, and only cut out the bruises that look like trouble. The beauty of fermenting isn’t perfection—it’s participation. You’re letting nature finish what the orchard started.
Into the Jar
It all begins with a clean glass jar—nothing fancy. Swish it with hot water and call it good. Probably should use a one-gallon jar because, let’s be honest, a quart goes empty faster than you can blink around here.
As you pack in the apple slices, your kitchen will slowly fill up with the scent of autumn. A cinnamon stick goes in first, a couple cloves tucked between layers, and then more apples until the jar stands tall and full. The aroma of spice mingles with the fruit until it smells like every fall memory you’ve ever had.
Then comes the brine. For a full gallon, dissolve two teaspoons of good mineral salt—something with character, like Redmond’s—along with the juice of three or four lemons. The salt keeps the bad microbes quiet, and the lemon keeps the apples bright instead of turning muddy brown. Warm water finishes the job, just above room temp, covering everything.
Finally, weigh the apples down so they stay under the brine, screw on a simple lid, and give it a gentle shake. No gadgets. No airlocks. Just old-school, hands-on fermenting. Once a day, loosen the lid so the built-up gases can escape. After that, the jar’s on autopilot.
The Living Bubbles of Fermentation
Give it about a week and the magic begins. Foam gathers near the top, bubbles whisper upward from the bottom, and the apples start floating like tiny boats. When you crack the lid, the smell hits you—bright, tangy, alive. One taste and it’s like biting into a spiced, lightly carbonated apple. Crisp, tart, a touch sweet—and yes… a bit habit-forming.
If you’re just starting out, three or four days gives you a mild, brighter flavor. But if you want something closer to spiced cider in solid form, a week is pure gold. Once they taste how you like, tuck the jar into the fridge. The cold slows the fermentation to a crawl, keeping the apples stable for months. Come Christmas, they’ll taste deeper, warmer, more mellow—like autumn’s memory softening with time.
Echoes from the Old Way
Our grandparents didn’t overthink this stuff. They didn’t have fancy refrigerators or sterilized equipment. They had stone crocks tucked into cool corners, and the ferments inside stayed alive all winter. Those crocks breathed in a way modern jars don’t—they held steady temperatures, nudged the microbes along, and produced food that had personality.
I’m told folks in rural Germany still ferment whole apples in crocks. Just salt, a pinch of sugar, and patience. It takes a month, sometimes more, but the apples keep until spring. Biting into one was like eating the soul of cider.
Rediscovering the Forgotten Art
What gets me is how far we’ve drifted from this. Once, every household knew that fermentation was the original refrigerator. It preserved food long before we plugged anything into a wall. It fed families probiotics before science even had a name for them.
So while apples fizz in my kitchen and the garden fades under shorter skies, there’s something grounding about the whole process—turning windfall fruit into living food. Fermenting apples isn’t just a recipe… it’s a slow rebellion. A quiet turning back toward the old way—before electricity, before barcodes, before we forgot that nature rarely needs our micromanagement.
The payoff comes when the snow starts and winter finally settles in, those jars of spiced, sparkling apples will stand as reminders that good food isn’t a product of convenience. It’s born of participation and connection—soil to tree, tree to fruit, fruit to hand, and hand to jar.
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