Stove Top Apple Butter

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Recipe bydaleblue

Notes:

This is version 3.0 of this recipe

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Ingredients:

4.5 lbs small granny smith apples (approx 15 apples)
3 Imperial pints (16.9 fl oz size cans) of dry cider (Crispin Dry Cider works well)
3 cups sugar
1 Lemon
2 teaspoons McCormicks Apple Pie Spice (cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg)
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves

Wash the apples, remove stems then quarter them without coring or pealing. Place these in a stock pot.
Poor one pint of dry cider into the stock pot with the apples on high heat and bring to a quick boil.
Reduce heat to medium low and open another can of cider to drink while cooking the apples approximately 20 minutes until soft and peels separate from the fruit.
Run the fruit through a food mill with a course blade to remove most of the peel.
Run the puree through the food mill again with a fine blade to remove the seeds and any remaining peel. The consistency should be like baby food style applesauce.
Measure the applesauce back into the stock pot - there should be about 5 to 6 cups of sauce.
Add the zest and juice from the lemon.
Add 1/2 cup of sugar for each cup of applesauce.
Add the Apple Pie Spice and cloves.
Bring to a rapid boil and then reduce heat to medium low to simmer. Stir constantly.
Open the last can of cider and drink this while stirring the apple butter - you're going to be here a while.
Cook the apple butter for 1 to 2 hours. You should be able to drag a trench through the mixture and see the bottom of the pan. The apple butter will not fill the trench in completely when it is finished. You're looking for something that has the consistency of a thin peanut butter, not a thick apple sauce.
Remove from heat and spoon the apple butter into sterile canning jars. Process the jars in a canning boiler for 10 minutes.