Yeah, no, it was just last year I got some. The price was crazy, like $9 for a 1/2 gallon, but it was pretty good. And I bought some in a gallon jug for less money at the new WINCO grocery store too, I think.
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Try frozen/organic juice if fresh cider is not available. Pasteurization/irradiation is not a problem, but preservatives are. Once you inoculate the juice with live yeast, the previous pasteurization does not matter. It often has a negative impact on aroma and flavor. You get better results by controlling the fermentation than by relying on natural yeasts-unless you are going for a traditional product.
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Well, if I am drinking some cider that may contain a few of these little maggots while eating a hot dog that most certainly contains a list of ingredients such as livers, heart, kidneys from various animals, along with chicken “trimmings,” I would likely be thinking more about the hot dog. 
I picked and sorted my apples yesterday, and since there weren’t as many as I had hoped, decided I would use some that have signs of codling moth, but that I will take the time to cut and remove the infected parts. I kept only apples that were not too ugly, or do not have multiple entry holes, and which still look healthy. Last year (my first year), I was surprised the cleaning, grinding, and pressing went so quickly, and so this year I thought I could afford the added time for cutting out the bad parts. We shall see. Some of the apples are only thumb size, so cutting those may not worthwhile or too time-consuming.
I am still uncertain about whether or not to add any potassium metabisulfite, however. I will just wait and see how I feel about the juice–how many maggots are in there?–after pressing and doing my PH and acidity tests. All the apples were picked from the tree, none from the ground, and there are none that are over-ripe or rotten. Jolicoeur says he only uses sulfites when using over-ripe apples picked from the ground, and he makes roughly fifteen 5 gal batches each year without sulfites and only rarely has a “minor problem” such as film layer on the top of a carboy.
Johnny, my wife uses a melon baller to tidy up cut apples - does a quick job of scooping out the core, etc, and can’t cut your hand with it. Just FWIW!
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Potential marketing campaign for cider with maggots or worms: New and improved — now with extra protein!
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Update: Lesson learned the hard way–again. Wow. Never again will I waste my time sorting and cutting-up apples with maggots to make cider–wa-a-a-y too much work! Never again will I fail to spray for those dastardly codling moths! Oh the disappointment, to get only 2 1/2 gallons for all that work. And what is worse is that the juice has a PH of 2.8 and extremely high acidity–so it will need to be blended with apples I do not yet have.
I am expecting to get some apples from a couple different friends this year, but not sure how many…and it is never a good thing to have to count on a friend.
Oh well, I guess I’ll get over it. It’s time to load up the camper and take an extended fly-fishing trip, I think, somewhere uncrowded and away from all of today’s politics and news coverage. Time to slip on my waders and disappear for a week or two, away from the farm and city life. Gotta get out and do that Thoreau thing a while with my “little mrs.” Me an’ ol’ Ruth sorely do need us some rejuvenatin’.
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Wondering/curious… do you have TA and SG measurements?
Yes, @LTCider . The SG is 1.040, and TA about 11.25 g/L or 1.125%. Tastes good though.
Tring to decide if I should ferment it now, by itself, and blend later with either apples from friends (maybe I’ll get some?)…or maybe buy some frozen organic juice to blend it now–for primary fermentation–or later, after primary???
I’m not sure how much acidity is in frozen juice cans(?) This 2 1/2 gals I have seems so acidic, I am guessing I could add it to three gallons of store-bought frozen cans, or…? That might be easiest solution, and it could then fill a five gallon carboy (rather than two 1 gallon jugs.).
Any ideas?
That thar’s an acid bomb in the making! Yowzers! Your alcohol level is gonna be really low too. Definitely get the sugar level up somehow. Sugar, honey, other fruit… something.
I’d be tempted to avoid a straight cider and maybe go for something crazy… Maybe a black-currant cyber? add a can of black currant extract (or a big-ole-pile of fresh berries if you have ‘em) and some honey to get an SG to yield in the 12-14% range, then expect to sulfite and sorbate it to back sweeten a LOT to temper the acidity from the apples and tannins from the currants.
Also sounding good to me right now… crush a couple gallons of blueberries (use pectic enzyme before starting the ferment…do this with currants too, if you go that Route) let it ferment for a week with punch-downs. Then pull. A brew bag is your friend here! If you have it, a handful of toasted oak chips in the bag might be interesting too.
If you’re gonna go with a straight cider, I’d definitely cut that juice with something to prevent stripping paint. 
Also, look into yeasts that will eat up some of your malic. I’ve had good luck with 71b. If you get a clean ferment with that and can bulk age, then MLF could help more as well. My favorite MLF sat on the lees for over a year. It went from an acid bomb to something that was silky smooth and delightful, even though it was dead-dry. I think it was chaptalized to about 9% abv. I’ve only ever had wild MLF occur, but you can purchase cultures to get it going. Lactobacillus. Using sulfite will prevent MLF, so if you’re firmly entrenched on the no-sulfite side of things, this is a great time to try it out. If you do so, I’d recommend periodic sniffs and tastes (every 2-4 weeks or longer once you can gauge the rate it’s changing at) to make sure you don’t end up with noxious butteriness.
Even with any of these ideas, I worry about that pH/TA. I think Joliquoer had a bit on using calcium carbonate to manage acid. I’ve never done it, so won’t comment any further.
On a related note, I’m wondering if the apples weren’t ripe yet, what with the low sugar and high acid, especially compared to last year… Did you do a starch test before picking? I think it’s listed in Joliqouer’s book. If not, google will lead you in the right direction.
I used to get frustrated with ferments that didn’t turn out how I hoped. Now, I see it as a puzzle and enjoy figuring out how to improve on less than ideal situations. Have fun with your acid-bomb juice!
Keep us posted on this, eh?
edit: I haven’t taken measurements, but store bought juice concentrate is said to be high sugar/acid, low other stuff that you want. …it makes uninteresting cider. Go crazy with something!
The brain cells kicked in a bit more this morning… MLF likely won’t take off with a pH of 2.8.
Stock up on codling-moth lures and keep them in the freezer. Also, take inventory of the chemical controls you plan to use and lay in a supply.
A new version of WeeWX weather-management software for Linux-like operating systems has been released, so I’ll have to update the extension that helps me schedule my chemical applications.
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… and, now, I have a new version of my codling-moth extension to go with it:
This runs on Linux computers. It is a collection of Python 3 scripts. It has been tested with WeeWX 4.4.0.
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