The Cider Mill at Rowley's Red Barn
We make apple juice and apple cider from fresh apples. Take home a gallon or stop in to try our cider slush or carbinated apple juice.
Watch how we make our Juice and Cider
At Rowley’s Red Barn we grow great apples, and those great apples make great juice and cider! Our store offers fresh pressed apple juice and cider year round (see? It’s not just a great holiday present!).
We process all of our juice and cider in our very own Cider Mill, with a mechanized system that turns apples into delicious juice! From our farm to your home, our cider and apple juice are full of flavor, completely natural, and a family favorite!
Washing and Grinding
From the tree, the apples are gathered into large crates. These crates are then dunked into a large tank of water where the apples can float out and find their way onto the conveyer belt. The apples then roll down the chute, to be inspected (got to make sure there’s not a bad apple in the mix!) and washed and scrubbed before they are hoisted into the hammer mill. The hammer mill is where the apples are hammered into tiny pieces. The pieces are about the size of a pencil eraser, or a Tic-Tac mint. Can you imagine trying to cut just one apple into that small of chunks on your own? Yikes, that would take a while!
Squeezing
After the apples are all ground up, they are pumped thru a fat hose up into the press. We carefully fill up every compartment of the press. If you’ve ever seen an accordion, you can imagine how an accordion stretches out, and then compacts back together. The press looks a lot like a giant accordion with apples inside the creases, but when it squeezes together, it squeezes with 4000 pounds of pressure to extract the juice.
After the apple pieces have all of the juice squeezed out of them, the juice runs through a screen to make sure no pulp made its way in to the juice (the dry pulp is used for compost that is spread on the pumpkin patch). Then, the juice rushes up through the pipes along the ceiling into the cooling tank. In the cooling tank, the juice is cooled to 34 degrees, and rests for an entire day so that any residual pulp settles to the bottom of the tank.
Pasteurizing and Packaging
Time to pasteurize the juice to make sure it’s bacteria-free! Our juice is ran thru a HTST (High Temperature Short Time) pasteurizer where the cold juice is brought to 162 degrees for 15 seconds, then immediately cooled to 40 degrees. This is done so quick that there is no time for the juice to change its fresh squeezed flavor. Come and taste it to see for yourself!
Looks like the juice is ready for drinking! Our machine fills bottle after bottle of juice for our store shelves, to go straight to your fridge (and stomach—yum!).
Where to Find Our Juice
Our fresh pressed apple juice and cider can be found year round at Rowley’s Red Barn in both Santaquin and Washington, Utah. Certain groceries stores also are in on deliciousness—you may find our juice at participating Associated Food’s and Smith’s retail stores.