Cider mill at Nappanee’s Amish Acres ranks among best in US

NAPPANEE, Ind. (AP) - Stepping over uneven boards in a cider mill from the 1880s, Norman flicks on the electric engine that sets a series of belts whirring. He reaches up to pull a lever, which engages the apple chopper over our heads. A small elevator to the top starts to roll, but without apples.

The well-seasoned parts of this antique shack don’t meet modern health codes, but they make for a cool, rumbling demonstration - one that still fascinates Norman, the Amish guide who runs the mill for visitors to Fall Harvest Days at Amish Acres in Nappanee, ripe with outdoor games, wagon rides and apple butter-making now through Oct. 27.

“It was put together with somebody’s mindset and not today’s technology,” he says of the Kuhns Cider & Grist Mill, which a recent article at ForbesTraveler.com listed as one of the 10 best cider mills in the U.S. “Every gear, every rotor has to be just right to make it work.”

Normally, chunks of apples would drop to a cloth-covered platform that, when full, would swing to the press, which would gradually squeeze down to extract the cider.

“It’s a constant fill, press, fill, press,” Norman, who gives only his first name for religious reasons, says.

This used to make 3,000 gallons per day. The juice would fill wooden barrels, which workers would cork, then use ropes and pulleys to swing the barrels onto horse-drawn wagons. The leftover apple pulp, he says, would feed farm animals.

While all of that’s going, Norman turns on the grist mill, and it sends vibrations through the mill. What it’s really doing is tapping into the same power to grind corn.

In another corner, a steam engine - like the one that once powered the mill - will fire up for Fall Harvest Days so that its whistle can be blown. “Just for fun,” Norman says.

Stepping outside to the black copper kettle that dangles over a fire pit, he shares the recipe that another staff member uses to make apple butter throughout the fest.

Get 10 gallons of cider cooking in the kettle for an hour. Add 4 gallons of chopped apples, 3 pounds of sugar and 3 tablespoons of cinnamon. Let it boil, but keep stirring with a wooden device so that the sugar and pulp don’t burn on the bottom. Moisture must burn off to create 2 to 2.5 gallons of that sauce-like texture.

It takes about 6 hours and yields a dark apple butter with a slight smokiness. You can buy the stuff made here, refrigerated, in the meat and cheese shop.

Also during Fall Harvest Days, kids can meet up at a tent for pumpkin bowling, marshmallow roasting, pin the tail on the donkey, cornhole, digging for candy in a haystack and horseshoes, marketing director Becky Cappert says.

You pick out a free pumpkin if you take a wagon ride, which tours the historic farmstead and passes a restored one-room schoolhouse, plus about 20 decorated scarecrows, with more to come, Cappert says, as entries in a contest where you can vote.

Hungry? The Amish Acres restaurant and each of the shops will offer fall specialties, she adds, such as pumpkin whoopie pies and apple raisin cookies in the bakery and pumpkin fudge in the fudge shop.

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Amish Acres Fall Harvest Days

_ What: Autumn festivities

_ Where: 1600 W. Market St., Nappanee

_ Hours: 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays through Oct. 27. Cider mill tours at 12:15, 1:15 and 3:15 p.m. Apple butter presentations at noon, 1 and 3 p.m.

_ Cost: Free admission. Wagon rides, which include kids games, cost $6 per adult, $4 for ages 4-11 and free for ages 3 and younger.

_ For more information: Call 800-800-4942 or visit amishacres.com

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Source: South Bend Tribune___Information from: South Bend Tribune, http://www.southbendtribune.com