As autumn begins and apple lovers from across the county start to visit orchards in droves, presses come to life to produce thousands of gallons of cider before the season is over.

Owen Orchards, on Route 5 in Weedsport, will press about 10,000 gallons of cider before December comes, most of it in September and October. Although it is still early in the apple season, the orchard already presses two to three times a week using apples that are ready earlier, said Gordon Tripp, the orchard's co-owner.

The apples that are ready at this time of the year are a little more tart, which gives the cider a tangy, slightly sour flavor. Later on in the season, as sweeter apples become available for picking, the cider will get sweeter too, Tripp explained.

“Cider this time of year is a little tangier,” he said. “It's kind of perfect in my mind.”

Tripp has another secret to making perfect cider: keep it fresh.

“Our cider is less than two or three days old,” Tripp said of the cider that the orchard sells at its small store and at local farmers markets.

“When we say fresh apple cider, we mean fresh apple cider,” he said.

Tripp's passion for fresh, good apple cider pays off in the eyes of his customers. Mary Lawson from Auburn says she goes to the orchard once a week for the fresh cider and cider doughnuts.

“We've been coming ever since it was a little stand on the corner of the orchard by the road,” Lawson said of the days before the orchard's store was built nine years ago. “It's been about 20 or 25 years now.”

The Tripp family has been running Owen Orchards for even longer. Tripp's grandfather first opened the orchard in the 1930s, and the cider process they currently use is as close to the old methods as possible while adding new technologies that keep the cider up to government codes, Tripp said.

The process begins when the apples are dropped into the inspection roller. There, a worker pulls out any apples that aren't fit to become cider. Any apples with mold or full holes are pulled off of the rollers, said David Tripp, Gordon Tripp's son who is in charge of cider production.

The rollers deposit the apples into a cleaner that removes any dirt that might be stuck on the outside before they are dropped onto a wooden elevator that brings them to the top of the “smasher.” The smasher, as its name implies, grinds the apples into pumice, a paste resembling thick applesauce, David explained.

The pumice travels through a thick plastic tube and is sprayed onto nylon bags that sit on trays. The trays are piled on top of each other and the weight from each additional layer begins to squeeze the juice out of the apple pumice.

Once 10 trays are filled, they are moved to another machine that applies 2,000 pounds of pressure to finish squeezing out every drop of juice.

The juice travels to an upstairs room where it is filtered and sent through an ultraviolet processor. The processor kills any bacteria, similar to pasteurization, without changing the cider's flavor from heating and cooking it, Gordon said.

Finally, the cider passes through a second filter and into tanks where it waits to be pumped into containers and enjoyed.

“The cider's delicious,” said Sarah Lewis, who travels from college to work at the orchard. “I come back every year for it.”