1.050..?

...well that's 500 litres. It's a lot for me when every single apple passes at least twice through my own grubby mitts! Got some more of those sweets (as yesterday) - when I finished work it wasn't quite dark, so there's another 13 kilos to add - more to be had too, but the quality is suffering now and I got enough for around 800 litres anyway. My thinking is that I'll cross bridges when I come to them... see what I can turn out... for no other reason than I can really...
The pint of 2010 batch 12 is going down well... tell thi...

[later]
Tch, just done the press boards... what did I forget to do..? Off we go again...

[later still]
To be honest I've a job reading the bloomin' thing... though after much squinting and closing of one eye... then the other, I make it: dah dah - 1.048 (+/- a gnat's cock - or crane fly's...) which is interesting, merely because it's different...
The hydrometer is something of an introduction the clean end of the 'business'...
One guy, having lent me his wheelbarrow a few years back sampled one of the apples I came across his lawn with. He took a bite out of one apple and decided against chucking it back into the barrow as he'd taken a bite and maybe thought he'd somehow 'contaminated' it, saying, 'You'll not want this one now.' He tossed the rest of the perfectly good fruit into the trees as I replied: 'It's all right. You could piss on 'em and it wouldn't make any difference.' The freebie that you don't get with beer...

Yay...

more sweets in... over 43 kilos, with another bag (13.5 k) of some that I can't remember whether they're sweets of sharps... Needing more containers now... tonight's pressing (25 litres) is into an ex citric acid container - and is still in the press as it's struggling to get the last litre or so. Should be there on next check... better do that next as it's about bed time now...
Well that's that - I'll wash the boards down in the morning - another 1.050 as near as damn it. I'd got the next batch pulped ready which will make 500 litres but out of time tonight. You just can't be out collecting apples and pressing juice... still, a good day!

Miss Identified

I've had some troublesome Misses in my time - usually it's Miss Adventure... Miss Fortune... the list goes on, but this be bitchy! The expected sweets collected last Sunday to the tune of 21 kilos turned out to be sharps... and my little hastily scribbled apple map from around 5 years back (when first discovered) does indeed show them as sharps... so tomorrow becomes the new 'last big push' as I'm down on sweets now... it's stressful...

Cat's Eyes

15 pressed tonight - 1.050...
4 batches racked this afternoon, making room for 4 incoming - note thermometer - stays around 17 degrees in the kitchen. Incoming juice at far end as this end (nearest camera) is the door end - being somewhat cooler

Dressing apples..?

(no, not like peg dolls...) More attention is to be expected at this time of year - birds (deep pecking), rot (brown is good, black is not), overly deep bruising, slug holes, wireworms (can affect long standing windfalls), grubs (though more common in early windfalls), mud, sliminess (harmless but unappealing), deep cracks... Windfall fruit will more likely need washing too.
It has to be said, I'm a reluctant washer - for me this entails filling a bucket with water, adding a few kilos of apples and tipping from one bucket to another a few times, or more, depending - a pot brush then for removing any stubborn mud - but in fact all you're doing is diluting any 'contamination'. Once you start with the knife though it becomes a 'labour of love' and as you go on with fruit after fruit you can find yourself trimming quite unnecessarily...
One of these years I swear I'm going to press all the timmings - just out of interest you understand - pound to a penny, the resulting cider would be no different... if not better..?

Ah...

It's all too easy to lose track of what it's all about... being the 'dirty end' of the business at this time of year - but sitting down to a glass of last year's bottled conditioned brings it all into focus! Ah...

'Manic Street...'

Hurried management of the spreadsheet meant I'd entered an incoming batch of sweets twice... which now leaves me 4.5 kilos down on that 750 litre target... though good news is I'm up on sharps and bitters. With a bit of luck I should be able to get some more sweets in yet though... hmm, see there's the graveyard yet - still some on there and the golf course is worth another visit - and then there's that field...
Someone commented yesterday that I look tired...

Last big push..?

Being ahead of schedule (sounds like work dunnit?) and having pulped the apples for batch 14 yesterday (Sunday) morning I had the afternoon for a sortie - heading back for the newly 'found' trees.
It would be a long and tedious post to list all ports of call, but it's still worth parting the fallen leaves. The birds are turning to the fruit now as part of their seasonal diet and I always try and leave some for them - a kind of unwritten Country Code - 'fasten all gates' ...and leave some for the birds...
Long story short then I returned with 99.4 kilos from, ooo, lets see... [counts] eleven trees - so it's getting thinner. All up I got enough fruit for 750 litres and about run out of space... thing is, where the hell am I going to store it all..?
14 pressed last night made - you guessed: 1.050 - beginning to wonder if my hydrometer's sticking...

Batch 13... Apollo 13...

Got there in the end but it was a bit fraught... the 2.5 tonne jack just isn't up to it, which is a shame as it's certainly tall enough but it just hasn't got enough umph, so I discarded it in favour of the 6 tonne Clarke to get the last few litres, otherwise I'd still be in the bloomin' garage...
Batch 10 is now underway after a spell in the emergency 'warm room' (the toilet compartment in the motor caravan with 800 watt oil filled heater set on low) - I always get a bit nervous if they don't get underway in a few days and the kitchen (pretty constant min 15 deg C) is at max allowed capacity at 240 litres (8x30) and it is, I would be willing to admit, something of a stumbling block to using bigger containers for me as I'm used to the 'portability factor', that said some 220 litre containers are on the cards.... more space would be nice...

footnote:
the Apollo 13 connection is a bit tenuous of course (the element of superstition)  - I was watching the documentary examining just how real the events were depicted in the film starring Tom Hanks on the aborted mission... turns out no one actually said: 'Houston, we have a problem' - something similar, but they went with it as it had more impact...
my batch 13 just didn't behave in the cheese stack - if it's not 'all square' it can push the press boards sideways - in a 'worst case scenario' juice then misses the tray and has to be restacked. Relieving the pressure and whacking them back into line with a brick hammer and block of wood is the easier alternative (as in this case)

Turns out it always good to have a roll of Gaffa tape just in case though...

Oh and...

...yes - Ampleforth again, I forgot to say: they don't sulphite their juice and allow only natural yeast present for fermentation, though do correct the original gravity with sugar - the cloudy stuff is 8.3%

Make cider - meet interesting people!

Once again in passing... a site I've passed many times. This time I saw a guy on the drive that appeared attached to the land with the apple tree. Turns out he planted the site as he liked to make damson jam for his friends and included some apple trees. The one bearing fruit he thought was a Bramley, but on tasting didn't seem acidic enough, so I filled an onion sack as he said I could help myself. He then came across and suggested his neighbour across the road had trees and he would introduce me... I'd found a small bottle of cider in the car - probably destined for someone who hadn't been in - anyway, he seemed taken up with this and off we went... me pulling a kind of garden trailer he suggested I should take. Eventually a very old lady came to the door, and quickly established that I could have all the apples... First up a dual purpose very much like the first tree spotted over the road with far too many windfalls to collect... and more interestingly other trees still bearing fruit, with many windfalls in various states of decay and bird pecked. Noting four trees in all, with fruit needing panking I declared it better to return better equipped... meanwhile a carrier bag had been quickly filled. Back over the road, it transpired that the guy is a collector of vintage cars! Four, with another Bentley up on a ramp... one being a 1926 Buick -'straight out of Al Capone', he told me, and a 1500cc Riley (no modding allowed) that the guy had built from only the chassis (alu covered timber frame) and had been Hill Trialing in the Lake District only the week before!
In all 6 new trees and fruit to go back to...
I'd gone that way to pass the roadside crab that had provided so many last week - though short of bags, I was able to muster 2 carriers of the crabs (over 17 k)... after another few paying jobs (it was soon to get dark by now...) I called at the prolific sharp cropper to gain another 30k, so all in all a total of over 70 kilos to add to the stock.
I might get to 700 litres at this rate, though time is running out...

Tall story...

With the newly lowered press plate now in place (a bottle of cider secured loan of a collection of files) it's now possible to use the taller high-lift twin ram jack - could do with more umph though as it's only rated at 2.5 tonnes. The built-in gate valve designed to prevent overload means getting the last of the juice takes a bit longer too...

The wooden top sliding beam is a temporary solution until a steel one is fabricated and suitably large springs are procured. The bungee cords do offer a partial return and hold the beam up which saves taking it out at every pressing.

 

Batch 12 pressed yesterday (pictured) makes 1.050 - at least the OG remains largely consistent!

What did you do?

I'll tell you what I did... (can't believe it really...)
As I've been given a bigger jack for the press, and as it wouldn't fit on top of the cheese/cheeses, I've drilled holes for the bottom 'carrier' 4" lower than the existing... all well and good..?
Well it would be if I'd marked out nice and square... Don't know whether I've marked out wrong, or popped 'em (centre punched) wrong but they ain't square - one angles slightly up and the other down... so under pressure will have the effect of twisting the bottom carrier.
right bollocksing pigs ear... so now all I can do is revert to some tweaking with a file... too disheartened to do any pics yet. Steel is so unforgiving and the hardest part is marking out, especially as I've only got a shit square, rusty pitted steel and no scribe... (and certainly no engineers blue!)
What's the saying about a poor workman and his tools..?

Well Chuffed...

... because the wildling visited today has much more fruit than I'd gauged!

It's one of the better cider apples I've found with a certain 'vintage quality' all of its own. I was expecting to gather just around a half bag, but came away out of time with two and a half with more to come yet.

On the scales - 34.5kg (76 lbs)

I also took the opportunity to cut through more of the thick ivy strangling the trunk that would surely be starving the tree of nutrients, light and air. Pretty sure I felt the tree sigh with relief... I've done a bit of work on this tree before - could be my fancy, but the fruit seems more plentiful and generally somewhat larger...

Well, batch 11 pressed tonight and I've yet to wash down the press boards - best get on...

later:
press boards now washed down - I forgot, I also needed to take the gravity of 11which turned out unsuprisingly to be 1.050. On 2nd glass on John Downie which tends to keep a bit of a head, that after a while forms a ring that clings to the side of the glass.

I also picked up some sharps today (6.7k) and 1 small tree of sweets - just 5 apples making just 900gms.
(Yesterday's stash -all sharps- came in at 38k! and there's loads more yet, though I've more than enough sharps now to make that 600 litre target...)
I think that's about it for today...

'It's After Mid...night...'

and this is what happens if you drink too much cider...

'...all I need is a hopper on this end', lol

Sick as a dog..?

"...after all, beer and cider don't mix."
I'm quoting the guy at Cropton Brewery here. On the one occasion I did mix them I was indeed most unwell... as to the saying, I can't say I've obseved a dog in the process but I can sure as hell testify to cats giving it a good old 'honking up' on a regular basis.
Of course the above quote is a final testament to a failed business venture - after all, apple trees by the acre don't come cheap, but there is truth in the statement and I'm always very quick to correct those who talk of cider as a good brew...
Pedantic..? Not at all.

more Ampleforth...

(ps. the beer is made under contract by The Little Valley Brewery and is dark and tasty...)

...back to earth, batch 10 (2011) is almost gone:

and sweets and sharps prepared today for this year's batch 11

Back to Ampleforth

 Back to Tom who's running the shop until sufficient apples come in for another pressing as they've pressed all of their own this year. More cider purchased including a litre of the cloudy stuff.
Lastingham was well worth the visit - quick lunch up by the Lion Inn (I'd forgot to put kettle in Panda, so no cuppa... plenty of gas for the little portable stove, got water mugs tea bags, but no kettle or anything else to heat water in...) then off for quick recce of where the Lyke Wake Walk meets the road near Fat Betty - as another Coast to Coast attempt could be on for next year... (this time using the LWW as a more direct route over the moors)

Next up the remains of the tower and steps at Rosedale Abbey, which is all that remains of the Priory,

before doubling back to Cropton to learn the sad news...


Still, plenty of cider to chose from tonight!

Edit:
In the end though, settled on a pint my own - this is 2010 batch 18:

(...and enjoying a glass of cider in the van in the evening reminds me why I began bottling it...)

cheers!

Cropton - big split...

Turns out the cider guy has done a runner... No more Yorkshire Cider - the newly planted orchard wasn't a success as planned it seems. Rather sad really I think. As I recall West Country varieties were planted on a 5 acre site and if someone doesn't take an interest in the project  it'll be gone for good...

Ampleforth Abbey Cider...

...is pretty damn good cider! I passed on their cloudy eastern counties style when told it was medium sweet... settling for the contract bottled (in Cumbria) clear (filtered) medium dry at £3.25 per 500ml - a very nice easy drinking cider with vintage qualities:

Crayke

With such an old van you can never be certain you're going to get there... It's nearly stopped raining here - on hardstanding at least, so won't get stuck.
Geared up for monks and cider tomorrow!
Just reminded myself why I started bottling my cider - tastes better in the caravan when away somehow...