Tuesday 30 March 2010

Not much left...

Well, car mending and trying to run from one side of the country to the other have finally come to fruition in the harsh reality of having just one glass of home-made cider left... boo hoo... tis a sad day. I got as much out of the last barrel as possible, including quite a bit of crud, and allowed it to settle out before racking the last few pints at the weekend. Had I not been so tied up at the back-end of last year I'd have some new stuff ready now... but there you go - can't do so many things.
I did make a few (very poor) vids of the home-made scratter in action when making the last few batches. It's had two years of use, and this mk1 version does tend to clog as the apple pieces tend to stick to the bottom plate (plywood) - but it does clear easily and made the task of apple chopping much quicker and takes to pieces easily for cleaning. Even with de-clogging it would scrat around 90lbs (5 gals worth) in under an hour ready for futher pulping to maximise juice extraction.

apple scratter 1

apple scratter 2 (this gets suddenly loud when the drill is switched on!)

Draper drill powered (variable speed) - also from Wilkinson's for about £15 (currently £20 - Nov'10)