Its Cider Season

Its cider season again and as Saturday was a working day, and a long and hectic one we delayed the weekend cider season until Sunday, today it was a day for most of the village to come together abd collect the first batch of ripe and unused apples and we sent the kids up the trees to pick the ripe and unused apples and to send them down to us on the ground, yes I know kids shouldn't climb trees in this H&S environment but they love it and we let them do it. As apples were thrown down they are caught in bags and transferred to containers which are carried to my neighbours outbuilding in which we leave our equipment ready assembled for apple pressing and once again most of the kids were cutting up apples with sharp knives (H&S alert again) and they threw the cut apples into our fruit shredder to produce the apple pulp ready for pressing.

As the pulp comes out of the fruit press it goes down a new chute, straight into our apple press and this year we have modified it, Instead of making large cheeses ready for pressing we are using cheesecloth sacks which were filled directly from the chute and laid into the press, when they were all filled it was pressing time and one of the food grade containers was lifted into position ready for the apple juice to run straight into, and everything was ready. Now, we dont have any of that knocking in of wooden chocks or tightening of screws to exert force as we use hydraulics instead, but we do now have a safety screw which is wound down to prevent any lift in the event of the ram failing, and it all began. Within an hour of picking fresh organically grown apples we were producing apple juice for bottling or turning into cider, and we produced around 800 litres of fresh apple juice which is enough for 32 brewings at 25 litres a go, and it was all allocted for turning into cider.

Cider making is so easy that I am surprised more people dont make it, for a home brewing session making the equipment is easy as you can cut apples and pulp them using a food processor and make a simple press, and use a car scrow or hydraulic jack as a power source.

Hi assassin, can you make good tasting cider from cooking appples? What varieties of apples do you use?

Use a mixture of cookers and eaters for the best results, but cookers will be fine on their own and make a decent cider.

Thank you.

Hi Joe, you can pick up windfall apples for free, many large estates allow people periodic access to pick up windfall apples and you only have to cut out any rot from them, alternatively, if you have access to farming land or similar, or friends with apple trees who dont pick them they will often let you pick them, this way you get different varieties.

Thanks assassin, that's useful to know.