Apple Day 2008

October is a busy month for cidermakers, orchardists, and lovers of all things appley alike. Common Ground's popular Apple Day, CAMRA's Cider & Perry Month campaign, and of course the month-long task of harvesting and pressing the fruit for next year's cider all help to focus minds on our wonderful orchard heritage throughout October.

Apple Day events are planned throughout the country, most not actually occurring on the day itself since the 21st of October falls on a Tuesday this year. A full listing of all known events can be found on Common Ground's Apple Day Events Calendar, which is already chock-full of great days out, and is constantly being added to.

Similarly, events which have been planned by local CAMRA branches for the Cider & Perry Month campaign can be found via the Cider & Perry Month page on CAMRA's website. The ukcider Events page is also worth a look, and is an excellent resource for cider related events throughout the year.

Personally, I wish that both these seasonal initiatives were held at a less busy time of the year. We rarely get the opportunity to attend any of the Apple Day events, we managed to get to Stamford last year and hope to attend at least one local Apple Day event this year. I can't help thinking that many more cidermakers would get involved with Apple Day and Cider & Perry Month, if the events were taking place at a time of year when all the cidermaking was done and dusted, and maybe they even had some cider to sell.

It's all kicking off...

This short, gloomy video is to help give you an idea of the activity in the ciderhouse at the moment. We added a cultured yeast to this batch of juice, and fermentation has been very quick to start. All 14 vessels are now glopping away merrily as the yeast converts the natural sugars in the apple juice into alcohol. Fermentation also produces a fair bit of heat, as well as a somewhat 'funky' aroma. We're leaving the garage door open whenever possible to help cool things down a little, but nothing much can be done about the diabolical sounds emanating from the busy airlocks. With our bedroom being directly above the ciderhouse, this constant noise will be lulling us to sleep for several weeks now.

Last Orders at the Bar for 2008

Today has been designated a day of rest, well deserved after the exertions of the previous few days. I say 'rest', but it's hardly been a 'feet up in front of the telly' kind of day. Even without actually milling and pressing apples, there always seems to be plenty of cleaning, tidying, and general mollycoddling of the apple juice to be done.

I did manage to stay awake long enough for a lunchtime pint down the village local. A couple of Streaky's from the award winning Potbelly Brewery really hit the spot, the perfect prelude to a planned afternoon nap which unfortunately never happened. The Red Lion had just ran out of Rockingham Forest Cider, and this triggered a key moment in our cidermaking year, the delivery of our very last box of this year's cider. I must admit, it was an emotional moment for me, although this could have been down to the heady cocktail of extreme fatigue and Potbelly Streaky!

Thanks to the stirling efforts of Kevin & Fiona at the Red Lion, and our other regular outlets throughout the year, we've now met our target of selling out of cider by the end of the Summer. It's important for us that the fermenters are empty by October at the very latest, so that they're then ready to be filled with juice for the new season cider.

We do have one barrel of cider put aside for the Uppingham Oktoberfest (9th - 13th October), but other than that, it's the Red Lion in Middleton if you want to try the last of this year's cider.

Pressing Engagement

Weekends are usually a time for rest and recreation. Sunday lunch, a potter round the garden, perhaps a few pints down the local. If only! At this time of the year there's precious little time for any of the traditional weekend pursuits when the apples are ripe and there's cider to be made.

This particular weekend is proving to a very long and exhausting one. The first cidermaking session of the year is always a challenge, but this year we've got the added difficulty of a new mill and press to get to grips with. Usually we have a small pressing session in September to help iron out any problems and get up to speed in readiness for the main pressing in October, but this year we've been thrown in at the deep end with a ton and a half of organic dessert apples urgently in need of processing.

Karen has pulled out all the stops, multi-skilling between washing apples, mashing tea, and delivering cider (see Billesdon Slow Food Lunch), whilst still managing to juggle the demands of three needy hens and an equally needy fella! Between the two of us we've managed to press 150 gallons of juice so far, with another 50 gallons or so to press on Monday when we've had a chance to recover.

The new press is a joy to use, delivering up to 13 gallons of juice per pressing. Fermenters are filling up at a dizzying rate, and the dry apple pulp (pomace) is accumulating almost as fast. This year we are very lucky to have Adam & Serena of Keythorpe Rare Breeds taking our spent pomace. They have a lot of hungry pigs to feed, and porkers like apples apparently. I'm pleased to say that Adam & Serena like our cider too, the feeling is entirely mutual since we very much like their pork!

So, everything in the orchard's rosy then?... Well, not quite!

Every great leap forward in technology comes with an equal and opposite, and often entirely unforeseen drawback. Our press is very efficient, squeezing the pomace satisfyingly dry, and therefore giving us a good quantity of juice. Unfortunately the apples we're currently pressing are delicate little things, and really not designed to be squeezed this tightly.

One of the characteristics of a good cider apple is that the flesh is very chewy. This makes them totally unsuitable for eating, but ideal for pressing in a traditional 'Rack & Cloth' press. In this system the milled pulp is wrapped in nylon cloths, and then sandwiched between slatted racks. The huge pressure of the press squeezes out the juice leaving the fibrous flesh neatly enclosed within the folded cloths ready for disposal. Unfortunately many dessert and culinary apples lack this chewy texture, and during pressing the mushy flesh can be squeezed through the weave of the cloth making them very difficult to clean following pressing. So this has been today's minor headache, the cloths are a mess.

Once again, our first pressing session has been characterised by a spell of glorious weather (after the fog has lifted), and a wide range of spectacularly aching muscles. Oh well! We can be comforted by the knowledge that nothing good in life ever comes easily.

Grape Vines and a Plague of Chickens

A little off-topic for a cidermaking blog, but the Rockingham Forest micro-Vineyard has finally come to fruition.

One of the first things we planted when we moved to Middleton, were three grape vines given to us by the owners of a Leicestershire Vineyard. The two Regent, and one Rondo vines produced a modest crop of dark purple grapes last year, which unfortunately ended up in the beaks of the local Blackbirds before we could turn them into wine. This year we netted the vines more effectively, and have ended up with a healthy crop of grapes suitable for making a gallon or two of red wine.

Producing red wine in the English climate can be a thankless task. Even when blessed with good Summer weather we're unlikely to achieve sugar levels to match the heavy-duty offerings of Australian wine makers. Our vines are planted against an (almost) South-facing stone wall which absorbs a tremendous amount of heat during the day, and radiates it out to the vines throughout the night. It was this factor which influenced our decision to plant red wine varieties, though only time will tell whether we've achieved the ripeness we need after such a poor Summer.

Gauging the ripeness of grapes for winemaking is a tricky business without the aid of expensive measuring equipment. We would normally be looking to harvest from the end of September, but circumstances prevailed and we had to pick now, ready or not. Our free-ranging hens were taking a very keen interest in what grapes they could reach through the netting. The sweet and juicy treats were working them up into a bacchanalian frenzy, and the greedy gobblers were threatening to break through the flimsy netting and consume the lot. If all was not to be lost, we had to pick now.

Actually, the chickens seem to have done us a bit of a favour. The grapes are soft and juicy, with a hint that some were on the point of going over to rot. We may therefore have picked them at their optimum ripeness. We've ended up with around 2 gallons of crushed grapes (we used hands rather than the traditional feet to crush the grapes), and hope to produce at least half a dozen bottles of 'Chateau Middleton' strictly for home use.

Normal cider service will now be resumed...