2009.10.30
Fall Traditions: Canning apple butter
The smell of autumn rises from Ann DeMaury's basement.
It's the scent of cinnamon, cloves, sugar, apples and a little something special cooking in DeMaury's 40-gallon copper kettle during apple butter season at Ann's Apple Butter in Botetourt County.
"Of course you have to wait until the apples are ripe, so usually about mid-September we'll get started and I'll stay busy, six days a week, right up through January," she said. "Well, I'll finish by January if I'm lucky," she added.
An apple butter-making day starts with labeling jars from the previous day's canning, then a pallet of apples is brought in by tractor and the chopping, ricing (making apple sauce), cooking and spicing begins.
At 4 p.m., the apple butter has been cooking for hours and is ready for canning. Family members and kids from DeMaury's church form an assembly line to pour, top, wash, dry and assemble jar after jar of apple butter in a spicy steam cloud.
"It gets a little warm in there early on," said DeMaury, "but by January you're thankful for the warmth.
She'll eventually can around 13,000 quarts, many of which will go to local restaurants and food shops.
DeMaury is a second-generation commercial apple butter producer. Her father engineered machine-powered apple peelers and sauce churners when he began in the early 1970s. She took over in 1997 and has vendors from Northern Virginia to Georgia.
She has had desperate customers from as far away as Arizona call trying to find her apple butter.
"If they'll pay the shipping, I'll box it and send it to them."
Video and story by Sam Dean/The Roanoke Times
13000 quarts, wow. We worked all day today and canned 100 pints! Good stuff though.
Comment by ernie — November 1, 2009 @ 6:56 pm
Loved the video. It was put together very well. Great footage! Keep up the good work!
Comment by Myrtle Montgomery — November 2, 2009 @ 10:27 pm