Preserving fruit at peak ripeness makes for the best-tasting canned fruit—and it also means that the cannery is pretty quiet after the last pears are sealed up in late fall. So I was excited to fire up the equipment and start making applesauce this spring.

We’ve been making applesauce for about five years now, and it’s been a fun adventure.

How it started

My wife, Jenny, and I were served an amazing breakfast treat while celebrating our anniversary in Bend, OR—warm applesauce! Customers had been asking us to make applesauce, and that delicious meal sealed the deal. So we set about creating the best applesauce around.

First: the apples. The Pacific Northwest boasts ideal conditions for producing amazing apples. We found our ideal fruit at Underwood Fruit in Bingen, WA—a combo of Gala and Granny Smith for the just-right balance of flavors and textures.

Next: the recipe. Apples and cinnamon are the perfect pairing. But we discovered that the real secret is freshly ground cinnamon—so a spice grinder was added to the cannery’s menagerie of machines.

To add a touch of extra sweetness, we tested out lots of recipes, but in the end found the solution right in front of us: our own Hood-Crest maple syrup gave the recipe a whole new depth of flavor.

Finally: the process. Since applesauce is the first product we make in the year, it’s the first time we fire up the boiler—and that can be a quite an event! In one of our first years making applesauce, I started up the boiler without realizing that a two-inch cap wasn’t properly installed. The result: a blown cap and the earsplitting roar of 100 pounds of steam blowing out of a two-inch hole. My life flashed before my eyes as I was enveloped in cool steam (and since the steam was so loud, no one heard me scream!) before I got the boiler shut down and repaired that pesky cap. Who knew a two-inch part could cause so much drama?

Now we’ve got the process down pat—and I keep an eagle eye on the pressure gauge as the boiler gets going to make sure it doesn’t have any more tricks in store.

How it’s going

Thanks to input from our loyal customers, we’ve expanded our applesauce line to include smooth, chunky, and unsweetened varieties, available both in glass jars and larger cans. It’s been a big hit—you can even find it on the shelves at some major grocery stores in Oregon and Washington.

Another great part of making applesauce is that customers can get it year-round. Our summer fruits are “get-em-while-they-last”—we seal up that summer flavor in a tin, and the canning runs often sell out. Since apples ripen late in the year and have a longer storage life, we can produce enough batches to keep applesauce in stock all year.

I’ve also had the opportunity to help local orchards make custom applesauce from their very own harvests. One of the best parts of running a small, local cannery is getting to know all the passionate growers in these parts—and seeing their smiles as they cart away their custom-canned applesauce is really satisfying.

How to get some

We’ve got jars and cans of every variety ready for you to enjoy right now. They come in boxes of 12—enough to keep you in sauce for months (or you could share with friends if you can bear to part with a jar or two). You can order online for shipping anywhere in the US.

If you’re in our Oregon, Washington, and Western Idaho delivery area, we’ll bring it right to your house during our spring delivery run. Just give us a call and our friendly folks in the front office will help you place your order: 541-298-1660.

I’ve had a lot of fun on this applesauce adventure over the last few years, and I hope you’ll enjoy eating it as much as I and my family do—I suggest having it warm with breakfast!