Canning Adventures

Last week, I picked up my order of 80 pounds of "juice quality" apples from the Azure Standard route.  I love apples for $.50/lb.  What to do with all these fresh goodness?

I prefer to can with Myle, but I wanted to cut down on the four crates of apples hogging the counter space in my kitchen, so...

8 pounds, still cutting

half done cutting!

 I made apple juice.  24 pounds of apples and a chunk of finger later, I have three beautiful quarts of juice.  Do you know what I REALLY want to know?  Why, even when I follow a canning recipe precisely, I have significantly less yield than expected.  This time, I should have had 6 quarts and only have 3.  What am I doing wrong?

Isn't it beautiful?  (Ignore the dirt... there's a pile of tomatoes from the the garden just out of sight!)

Apple leather in progress.

With 56 pounds in my basement, I see lots of applesauce in my future, and I might even branch out and try apple pie filling or some other tasty variation.