Cider mill

The mills used to manufacture, ferment, store, and ship juice products are usually located near apple orchards.

Historically, the types of structure and machinery have varied greatly—including horse powered, water driven, and machine operated mills.

Cider is stored and fermented in wooden barrels, carboys, stainless tanks, or glass jugs.

A typical cider mill would look like many other small barns and sheds, with a set of large doors in the center of the longer side.

In The Marble Faun, author Nathaniel Hawthorne contrasted the wine-making in Italy with the cider-making process of "New England vintages, where the big piles of golden and rosy apples lie under the orchard trees, in the mild, autumnal sunshine; and the creaking cider-mill, set in motion by a circumgyratory horse, is all a-gush with the luscious juice.

The earliest and most basic form of cider mill consists of little more than an enclosed area where apples are pounded by large wooden pestles.

[8] A horse is harnessed to the outside of the wheel, and driven in a circle, slowly grinding the apples to a pulpy mass called pommage.

[9][10] Though the stone mill had been introduced to and used by the American Colonists, its usage was not well recorded, and by the end of the 19th century it was essentially unknown in the United States.

[14] After the juices had been extracted, the leftover pressings are variously known as "math", "cake", "powz", "mure" or simply "pommage".