Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1916-11-24

viii be over at the plant of the
Northwest Fruit Products company
OF this city, which. has been working
cay and night since early in October
pressing apples for its new soft
drink product, "Applju,' but within
a short time thereafter the big bot
Ting works below the Northern Pa
cific depot will be reopened and kept
running practically all the time until
the apple-pressing rush again next
fall.
When the present rush at the
plant is over the company will have
pressed and extracted the juice from
. 600 tons of apples and will have
stored 100000 gallons of juice in
huge tanks, most of which are made
OF steel lined with glass. After it
is placed on the market the Juice
will retail at 25 cents quart. which
fitures the contents of those tanks
into valuation never before at
tanned by any one lot of fruit Juice
There is enough of it to float a bat
tleship and not enough alcohol in all
OF it to befuddle flea. When the
pressing season ends the bottling
works will have enough material to
work on until next apple harvest and
in that operation will use 200 car
leads of bottles.
Cleanliness Chief Consideration.
Exacting cleanliness in every part
of the operation of converting the
apples into juice is the particular
thing that strikes the visitor to the
plant. Quickly he learns that the
functions of the scrubbing crew are
one of the important activities of the
establishment. And, incidentally,
nothing below the best grade of cook
ing apples will serve the purpose of
the new drink, and they can be as
rnuch above that as can be profitably
procured.
The apples are brought in by the
carload, and on one day recently
whole trainload of "a cars heaped
high with red and yellow fruit was
delivered. the freight bill alone
amounting to $3,4O0. Most of these
were brought from east of the
mountains. but Coast fruit that
reaches the required standard is even
more acceptable.
From the cars the apples are un-
loaded into deep flume filled with
artesian water, which winds around
fol a distance Of 500 feet and appar-
emily leaves the fruit as clean as
could be desired for eating. Yet,
they are elevated from the fiume by
a hydraulic washer that not only re-
moves remnants of dirt, but stain
and soft spots as we'll. From this
trey travel along in shining stream
TO the sorting tables where six wo-
men at each table remove the last
sign of unsoundness.
Ground Into Pulp.
AS the sorted and pruned apples
leave the tables they pass through
final jets of cleansing artesian water
and are swiftly elevated to the grind
ing machines that transform them in
to smooth pulp. This slides down
chutes to the presses. where the most
interesting part of the process fol-
lows
On push cars a Slated frame re-
ccives a thick layer of the pulp.
hich is eve lly spread in the frame
aid EMBODIED in hugh cloth made
OF supertwine, basket woven. Such a
layer is called a cheese. AS each
cheese is completed another frame is
placed on top. filed and folded until
fourteen cheeses are stacked one on
top of the other. Already the rich
brown Juice is pouring out at the bot
tom through spout into its proper
reservoir, simply from the pressure
Of the pulp's own weight.
The loaded car is then pushed un-
der a hydraulic press, which by a
huge piston pushing up from beneath
at first exerts merely a nominal pres
sure of 800 pounds to the square
irch. BY this time the Juice is
streaming from the cheeses and
pouring a foamy, fragrant flood out
OF the press spout. At the proper
time an attendant gives the hydraulic
its head and the pressure mounts up
to 2.500 pounds to the square inch.
At the end Of twenty minutes
every drop Of Juice 1t is mechanically
possible to force out has trickled
away and the remaining layer OF
rumice has almost the texture OF a
blanket. 1t can be picked up IN
pieces and would dry into a sort OF
Jumher Vet II still contains all the