Fruit presses are in full swing – salzburg.ORF.at
lifestyle
Because the summer and spring were very hot and sunny, the fruit harvest started about two weeks earlier this year. Traditionally, the apple harvest begins – and the almost 20 fruit presses of the fruit and horticultural association in Salzburg are already running at full speed.
The fruit press in Strobl (Flachgau) is currently running three times a week. IT IS OPERATED BY THE ERNST Fruit and Horticultural Association. Above all, apples from private gardens are processed. Customers have been coming for years, such as Jutta Grünwald from Abtenau (Tennengau). “It’s simply the best apple juice. You know where it comes from, then you pick the apples yourself first – drinking your own apples is just great.”
Apples for storage must be picked
The quantities that the customers bring are not exactly small. In some cases, around 500 kilograms of apples have to be processed. This has to happen earlier this year than in previous years, explained Josef Wesenauer, state chairman of the Salzburg fruit and horticultural associations. “The whole year passed so quickly this year – with the warm May, with the rain, with the heat – the fruit ripens 14 days earlier than in a normal year.” If you want to store it, you have to pick it before it falls down by itself – because otherwise it would no longer be storable, according to Wesenauer.
Everything is recycled
About 50 liters of juice can be pressed from 100 kilograms of apples. The machine in Strobl does it in just under a quarter of an hour. What is left over from the juice production – the so-called pomace – is given to the big game in the game reserve, said Georg Leitner, chairman of the fruit and horticultural association in Strobl. Then the juice is heated to a maximum of 80 degrees and bottled. All customers get juice from their own fruit. It can then be kept for at least two years.