First attempt at Apple Butter

My family has a long history of making apple butter.  We used to do it in my grannies backyard in a copper cauldron, over an open fire.  That is one of the best memories I have from my childhood.  Last year we broke out the same cauldron and made applebutter.  This year I had to do it at home in my crockpot.  I had never tried this before, but I really wanted to give it a shot. 

Apple Butter
12lbs apples (sweet...not too crisp)
sugar
cinnamon
nutmeg
That's it.

    9:00pm. First peel an slice all those apples.  It took me about an hour.  Then add all the apple slices to a stockpot and add about 1/4 cup of water.  Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until apples begin to break down and volumn decreases enough to fit them into your crockpot.
   Next I added the apples to the crockpot, turned it on low, covered it and let it go until about 9:00am the next day.  Here is what it looked like at that point.  After I gave it a couple good stirs.

   I put the lid back on and let it go until 2:00pm that afternoon.  Stirring occasionally.  At this point I added my sugar and spices to taste.   I think I used about 3 cups sugar and only a little of the spices.  I like my apple butter to taste like apples....NOT Cinnamon, nutmeg or nasty, nasty cloves.  At this point I removed the lid and set the crockpot on HIGH.  I gave the mix a stir every 20 minutes or so until about 7:00pm. 
Here is what we had. ( I am talking on the telephone to my mother asking her for advice!) Thanks mom!

   I thougth the mix was thick enough so I stopped there and filled my jars with the apple butter. 

   It tasted amazing, but was a bit too thin.  I think I should have let it go a few more hours on high.  Mine is really about half way between thick apple sauce and thin apple butter, but at least I know how to do it now and can improve upon my technique next year!