Most purchased apple sauce begins in orchards many states away. Our schools' apple sauce starts in the backyards and orchards of Port Townsend and Chimacum where generous homeowners donate their trees for picking, volunteers spend 4-6 hours a week harvesting, and then apples are transformed into sauce under the watchful eye of school staff and more volunteers.
In 2020 while many programs had to be cut back due to Covid 19, the Quimper Community Harvest volunteers collected their biggest backyard orchard take since its start in 2008 — 18,254 pounds of fruit (apples, pears, Asian pears, and plums). Over 2000 pounds of that came from the Blue Heron Middle School Orchard.
Much of the fresh fruit went to the local Food Banks, Churches, Senior centers, and the Port Townsend and Chimacum schools; but the distribution centers had safety issues with Covid 19 and couldn’t give away the amount of fruit they normally would. Also, closed schools meant not having a breakfast/lunch program for fresh fruit distribution the schools needed a way to convert the bounty of apples into future food.
That’s when Jim Moore, a longtime QCH volunteer, located a machine in Italy that worked well for high production tomato sauce, the Fabio Leonardi. Would it work for apples? “Fabio” was purchased for the QCH to test and find out. Below is a tally of the first year’s numbers and an overview of how it was accomplished.
Apples to Sauce: By the Numbers
One day at the Blue Heron Middle School Kitchens, it took 7 people working 5.5 hours to turn 1789 pounds of fresh apples into 1320 pounds of sauce. The QCH Gleaners held 4, 1-day saucing sessions to achieve the below stats.
Total for year
6947 pounds of fresh apples = 5449 pounds of sauce
Or… 1270 pounds of fresh apples = 1000 pounds of sauce
Or… 1000 pounds of fresh apples = 785 pounds of sauce
What we learned:
Fabio is able to produce (from cooked apples) 12 pounds of sauce in 30 seconds.
1 crate of apples = 5 gallon bucket of chipped up apples
5 (5 gallon buckets of chipped up apples) fill one cooking kettle
Hand sliced apple chunks take 2 hours to cook. Pre-chipped apples (via the chipper) take far less time.
Once at 210 degrees, the kettle is capped and heated for 8 minutes to pasteurize.
Examples:
150 pounds of chips in 40 gallon kettle for 35 minutes to reach 200 degrees.
230 pounds of chips in 60 gallon kettle for 45 minutes to reach 200 degrees.
Distribution:
The finished sauce went into 5 gallon, food grade containers and then into the Blue Heron Middle School Freezers where they stay until used by PTS Food Director, Stacey Larsen or Chimacum's Food Director, Margaret Garrett. The sauce is served fresh or part of pancakes, muffins and other baked treats.
Where to buy:
Fabio Leonardi apple sauce maker
https://www.fabioleonardiusa.com
Food Grade Apple Chipping machine
https://pleasanthillgrain.com/electric-apple-grinder-fruit-crusher?
LINKS:
Quimper Community Harvest
https://l2020.org/local-food/community-harvest/
Blue Heron Middle School Orchard
https://sites.google.com/site/blueheronschoolorchard/