Tesco-itis..?

Someone once said to me: 'Why make cider when you can buy it from Tesco?' My response being, of course - 'You can't buy what I make at Tesco.' Or anywhere else for that matter. What he meant was - why go to all that trouble to make something that you can buy so easily.
Indeed this philosophy can be applied to anything - consider for a moment the humble mince pie - the 'deep filled' off the shelf epitomising, in this scenario, the worst of 'industrial cider' perhaps.
I relate this because I hear it over and over again - this year from someone who was going to make their own, but got scrattings/pulp on the kitchen wall and gave up. Last year it was a similar tale from someone who had bought a press (£100 no less...) and gave up because he couldn't get the apples to juice.
I hate the expression 'it's not rocket science' but, trust me, if I can make cider, ANYONE can. But it don't make itself!

Seek & Find ye shall

They're in the undergrowth by now, but there's a-plenty. I only had time to get a carrier bag full which, if time permits, should get me up to 400 litres for this year but I would like to try and get enough for another small batch of single variety... oh yes - a good way to get to know your apples!

Birds and meeces haven't bothered with them but not twenty yards away is another (the one I'd intended on...) that must be more flavoursome to the wee beasties as very few remain unblemished.

Hambleton Bard helpful yet again...

It's not necessary to have gas valves and such for cider but to ensure a good head of co2 I use an injector for the barrels of 'draught' (as 9, 16 & 17 of 2010 remain unbottled - 14 too up to last week where the last glass or two became a little cloudy as the lees were drawn through)
As Andrew Lea points out cider doesn't lend itself to barrel/keg conditioning under pressure, be it generated naturally by fermentation or introduced, but I find it useful to help get the cider out without introducing air via the tap which then passes up through the cider and any co2 'cover'. Without a little pressure the cap can be loosened as a partial vacuum develops but again this introduces air (though it doesn't 'glug' up through the contents this way and is preferrable) and will sit above the co2 'cover' (as the heavier than air video demonstration shows here)
So that's the 'long' of it - the 'short' of it being that a flying visit was in order for a refill.
As I've been doing some re-wiring of the garage electrics I was held up in discussion at ReCon Electrical (conveniently on the same industrial complex) on the best way to get electrics to the pond equipment... another story... and so it was dark and past closing time when I eventually remembered where Hambleton Bard's new premises were...
Clearly inconvenient, as the guy there was literally just coming out of the door ready to lock up and for many it would have been too much trouble, but no, 'no problem', said he, returning a few minutes later with a full co2 cartridge.
I post this as I've just revisited the site to see if they sell direct online yet (seems not) but the bag-in-a-box machinery video kicked off, which I thought was rather interesting... for wine kits you understand not cider, but one can dream...
(to see the video click on above HB link above and scroll down a tad)

Which reminds me...

Peter Fidler draws a blank, well, so far...
I have no idea who he is (or was) but a local nature reserve has been named after him, and a customer, who had recently walked there, told me of a crab apple tree - laden at that.
Last week gave me the opportunity to check this out... 200 yds in said he...
Maybe I took a wrong turn... but then down by the sewage plant LO - but crabs? NO.
Three sweets, within 20 yds or so - probably related - one clearly had cropped abundantly and the ditch and bank was littered. However, wildlings don't always make crabs with that mouth-puckering, face scrunching, cider-flavouring bitterness...
such is life

Wiser by the minute..?

'Growth in wisdom may be exactly measured by decrease in bitternes' - Nietzsche

Were it that simple...
- thing is, there's been a shortage of crab apples this year, for me at least, and so the last few batches have been mixed thus:

50;30;20 (%sweet;sharp;bitter)

- based on last year's batch 13 which turned out rather well.

Another cider weekend sees the addition of 11 and 12 in the kitchen (got to get some of that racked off!) Both batches making just 1.050.

Press was doing some creaking and groaning last night, but held yet again.
I need to do some hedge-bottom rummaging...

I know, I know...not

When on my own I tend to live off rubbish stuff out of the freezer. It was to be fish fingers and chips (oven variety...) as there's some peas as well... but then I spotted half-a-bottle of wine from Sunday... which ranks higher, right? And would be wasted with fish fingers. Yesterday 'was use up those well out of date grill steaks from the freezer' with some Smash and beans (hey, I enjoyed 'em!)...
so, spotting the wine set a new course - rummage rummage, finds a container of what appears to be Spaghetti Bolognese frozen left overs, but on defrosting is strangely missing any meaty bits - more like some sort of home-made pizza topping then...
Okay, it's defrosted now so best course is to cook a few sausages, slice 'em up and add to the whatever sauce it is - onions and stuff, marvelous...
You may well ask what this has to do with cider? Well while it's all coming together a good time to try a bottle. Up from the 'cider cellar' a bottle of 6P... Now the P stands for pasteurised - 'Hey Louis' - and batch 6 all got pasteurised... which is a shame really 'cos it certainly did change the flavour profile in a rather unfavourable way... now it just happens that I've already tried some form of adjustment in the way of sucralose based sweetener, which certainly makes for a more palatable drink... so all is not lost with no.6...

Dolly Mixtures..?

A cider weekend sees the addition of batches 8 and 9 - 1.054 and 1.060 respectively. Using up the last of some very sweet red-skinned windfalls from a local churchyard most likely accounts for the higher gravity of no.9.
With the scratter video on YouTube receiving so many hits, I thought I'd mention two simple modifications for this season.
1st the feed plates have been further shortened and a plastic skirt added. This is just a stretched out (at one end) strong plastic bag. Just held in place trapped between the body and plywood base plate - a simple but big improvement and the scratter hasn't clogged up like it used to.


Also a piece of plastic bag just held with a couple of drawing pins over the feeder chute prevents bits flying back out - again simple but effective.




Using softer apples and with the drill set to a slower speed it took 20 minutes to scrat over 40kg of apples. Although on a slower speed the scrats tend to come out a little bigger.


and those Dolly Mixtures..?


With other jobs needing doing, especially with the fine spell of weather through October, progress has been slow on the steel press, but the wooden press held yet again...