Cider Workshop Photographic Challenge

The grandly titled 2012 Cider Workshop Photographic Challenge is now officially open for business. The theme of this years competition is 'Pressing 2011', which I'll be taking as meaning all aspects of the pressing cycle, not just the squeeze itself. Even so, this years theme could present a slight problem for some people.

We wrapped up our cider pressing way back in November, and not a day too soon as far as I'm concerned, as the chill of Winter finally settled in the valley. I've heard of other hardy folk pressing on into December, and even well into the new year. That'll be 'Pressing 2012' if I'm not mistaken! Let's hope any late pressers snapped off a few award winning shots earlier on in the season.

For full details of the competition, which is an amateur and fun affair, follow this link to the Cider Workshop Photographic Challenge Rules. The Flickr photo group where you can view the entries as they trickle in can be found here. Do enter a photo of your own or other peoples pressing adventures, the more the merrier.

Perry Pear Day at Hartpury Orchard Centre

It's been a hell of a weekend of perry making action already, and we've still got pressing to do. Meanwhile, here's a few images from this years Perry Pear Day at the Orchard Centre in Hartpury, Gloucestershire. Exhibitors included the Gloucestershire Orchard Group, Charles Martell, Albert Rixen and friends, Out of the Orchard Cider & Perry, plus many other food and orchard related stalls.


What it's all about. A world record 90 varieties of Perry Pear on display, presided over by perry pear expert Jim Chapman. Jim couldn't make the event last year, so I was delighted to meet him this time around, and deliver my small collection of unknown perry pear varieties for identification.



Workhorse of the world, a Lister Junior powers the Scratter for the vintage pressing demonstration



Levelling out the Perry Pear pomace on the vintage Workman Press.

  

Charles Martell, accompanied by Britains youngest distiller George Lewis, presented their new 'Owler Pear Spirit in the afternoon sunshine. I can confirm that it's very nice indeed, and despite being a little pricey for a young spirit, I've now secured a bottle for future enjoyment.



Gloucester Cattle crop the grass in the recently planted Perry Pear orchard.



The Goodnature Squeezebox Press in action



Perry Pears. All types, prior to washing and sorting.



Building the Cheese on the vintage Workman & Sons press. The pressing demo proceeded at a leisurely pace, interrupted by lunch breaks, downpours and the odd sample of last years vintage. Just as it should be.

 

Washing and sorting perry pears the 'hand-raulic' way, much as we do at home.



End of Term Report

The 2010 pressing has finally come to an end for us here at Rockingham Forest Cider. The final day went well, a little too well in fact, and we had to rummage around our old homebrew equipment to find enough fermenting capacity for the juice we pressed. In total we've pressed around three and a half tons of fruit, giving a little under 2500 litres of juice. This is what we've got:

Perrys
Malvern Hills (130 litres) 1.060
Blakeney Red (260 litres) 1.050
Green Horse (260 litres) 1.050
Unknown (70 litres) 1.064

Ciders

Welland Valley Festival Special Cider (200 litres) 1.058

Mixed Bittersweet/Sweet Alford/Sharps (130 litres) 1.059

Kingston Black (70 litres) 1.055

Kingston Black/Sweet Alford/Sharps (400 litres) 1.056

Yarlington Mill/Dabinett/Sweets/Sharps (840 litres) 1.055

Sweet Alford/Sharps (130 litres) 1.047

Most of the ciders and perrys are now gently fermenting away, with only those pressed over the last week or so showing no signs of life yet. The wild yeasts have been slow to get going this year, possibly due to the slightly later pressing time which has meant colder conditions. Meanwhile, it's time we put our feet up for a bit. We've been picking, panking, and pressing almost every spare day for two months now, and whilst we enjoy most aspects of the work, there comes a time when it's nice to just.... well... Stop!

End Game

As the 2010 cidermaking season draws (slightly painfully) to a conclusion, with just one more day of pressing to go, I thought I'd post a few of Karen's pics of the weekend action. If I look half asleep in these photos, it's because I was, though sufficiently alert to operate dangerous machinery safely.... obviously!!!

We've been pressing our main Rockingham Forest Cider blend this weekend, consisting of mostly Yarlington Mill, some Dabinett and unknown Sweet cider apples, plus various Sharps to help balance the pH. We should end up with around 170 gallons of this blend, which we may blend in turn with the 100 gallons or so of Kingston Black which we pressed earlier in the month.

The specific gravity of the Yarlington Mill juice was 1.056, which is a little below last years figures. This reflects the sugar levels we've been getting across all of our apple and pear juices this year, which are generally very good, though not quite at the 'Vintage' levels of 2009. The blend itself is averaging out at 1.054, which should give an alcohol level of around 6.9% if fermented to dry.

Traditionally, the spent pomace (apple pulp) which remains from pressing would have either been spread on the land as a low-grade fertilizer, or fed to local livestock. We've a fair size garden, but it's certainly not big enough to deal with a ton or so of dryish apple pulp. As for livestock, the Rockingham Forest Cider Hens will have a peck at most things, but there's a limit to how much a flock of four can consume before the poor little cluckers develop the Chicken equivalent of IBS! I'd like to think they'd give it their best shot though, and it's probably worth a small experiment if only to see how good the eggs would taste!

Luckily for us, our friends Adam & Serena of Keythorpe Valley Farm have a real passion for Pomace. Actually it's their rare breed pigs that have the passion, in fact they go wild for the stuff. By close of play next weekend, these pampered porkers will have snouted out over a ton of pomace, and if you want to know what apple-fed pork tastes like, you know where to go. The latest load of pomace was picked up by Adam & Serena last night, and we were delighted to receive a Brace of Leicestershire's finest feathered game in return. I plan to hang these handsome beasts for a few days yet, which will give me ample time to 'pluck' up the courage for the messy business of dressing the birds. I think they'd benefit from some time spent in a pot, possibly with something sweet and alcoholic. Any excuse to open a bottle of cider.

(someone else's) Ciderhouse News...

Our friends in the north Ray & t'Gail of Torkard Cider have hit the headlines in a big way recently. Everything from the Skegness Bugle, to the mighty BBC East Midlands Today programme are falling over themselves for a piece of Torkard Ass at the moment. All I can say is they must have done something very bad to warrant this kind of attention...

The blanket media coverage has got so bad recently that Wayne Rooney himself is apparently '... a bit miffed...' with the Hucknall Headline-Grabbers. There simply isn't enough bandwidth available on this blog to list every piece of Press, Radio and Television coverage the 'Hucknall Two' have appeared in, so here's a link to the latest offering. Two and a half minutes of hardcore Hucknall cidermaking, presided over by Nottinghamshire's answer to Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall... in the bath! View from 16.10 minutes.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00vn75v/East_Midlands_Today_03_11_2010/

Coming soon: Ray & Gail host their own television series: 'Drink Up T'Cider Me-Duck'

The Ciderhouse is Buzzin'

Here's another mystery apple from the orchard in Worcestershire. The single tree that these orangey, speckled and striped apples come from is now mostly rootstock, producing a sharpish, green, ribbed apple of little value to us for cidermaking.

The original grafted variety produces a reasonable crop of early bittersweet cider apples, most of which have already dropped by early October. Once they've hit the ground, they have a tendency to rot, so we pressed them today along with some of our own home-grown bittersweets, the Sweets we harvested last weekend, and a few sharps to help lower the pH.

My best guess on these is Ashton Bitter, an early bittersweet usually grown alongside Dabinett as a pollinator. This tree is in the same part of the orchard as the Dabinetts.

We also pressed a small trial batch of Kingston Black today, finding very few rotten fruits, and giving a respectable gravity of 1.055. It will be interesting to see how this variety develops over the coming weeks. I'm hopeful that we may get closer to 1.060, and maybe improve the flavour if we can leave them a little closer to December.

The Kingston Black apples are producing the most wonderful candy-apple aroma as they mature, and the fragrance in the ciderhouse today has been quite heady. The Wasps find it very attractive too, and I had to fish several out of the juice as the afternoon wore on. Look carefully and you'll see a couple buzzing around the cheese on this short video of today's pressing.

A Day in the Sun

There's a slight lull in the cider and perry making, so I thought I'd post a few pics from the recent Day in Praise of the Perry Pear at the Orchard Centre in Gloucestershire.

It was a fine day, characterised by lovely late Summer sunshine, and a good crowd of interested visitors, and interesting exhibits. Sadly, Jim Chapman, the resident Perry Pear expert who I was hoping would help identify my own pears, had taken ill and was forced to miss the day. It must have been a huge disappointment for Jim, and I wish him a speedy recovery.

Blue skies, good crowds.

The Perry Pear Display, later to appear at the Malvern Autumn Show.

Peter Mitchell of the Orchard Centre demonstrates the revolutionary Goodnature Press. It still looked pretty hard work to me.

Out of the Orchard is the brand name for ciders and perrys produced at the Orchard Centre.

Albert Rixen brought his beautifully restored Workman Press to demonstrate perry making the old-fashioned way. This mill and press are displayed and demonstrated by Albert and Eric Freeman at shows and events throughout the Summer.

Cider & Perry - Herefordshire Style

The Scale of the Job...

This is what we're pressing at the moment. Mostly Yarlington Mill, but also a few Dabinett, Harry Masters' Jersey, Kingston Black, and Blenheim Orange for acidity. The Yarlington Mills are coming out at a very pleasing gravity of 1.060, which is much better than we've had before and with the potential for around 8% alcohol.

There's also a small quantity of unknown Perry Pears, enough to fill a 60 litre fermenter, and also giving a gravity of 1.060. The tree these pears came from is adjacent to a well used footpath, and I was asked on three separate occasions what I was doing, and what the strange fruit I was bagging up was. Perhaps not surprising really, perry pears are quite small, and often not very pear shaped. What continues to surprise me though, is that nobody I talked to seemed to have any idea what Perry is! A reminder of just how rare this ancient drink has now become, and how important it is for people like us to continue making perry whenever we get the opportunity. Thanks to this year's bumper crop of perry pears, we've now made nearly ten times as much perry as we made last year. The sad thing is we could have made ten times more given more time...

Pressing (Contains Graphic Images)

It's been a very busy few days, and I'm too tired to blog about it tonight. Until tomorrow, here's a short 'superior' video showing all the action from todays pressing. It's 'superior' because I don't speak over it! Enjoy.

Perry Making

It's nice when a plan comes together. When the niggles and obstacles are few, your system works, and everything is smoothness and efficiency itself. It's particularly nice as it so rarely seems to happen!

Yesterday was one such day, and it came on the back of several preceding days of smooth efficiency in the orchard. Up at the crack of dawn, and up to our elbows in Perry Pears and water. The Blakeney Reds were in very good condition, very few rots, and since they were mostly shaken down onto a tarpaulin, not too dirty either. I was helped with the washing for an hour or so by Colin Bates, a chap from nearby Great Oakley with a surplus of apples and a desire to learn how to make cider from them. He brought along a friend who gamely set-to with the washing up.

The pears pressed very dry indeed, and released around 250 litres of juice with a thoroughly respectable specific gravity of 1.050. Not exactly a 'vintage' sugar level, but still better than last years Blakeneys which were 1.048. We were all finished, everything cleaned down, and ready for a relaxing bath when Serena & Adam of Keythorpe Rare Breeds arrived to whisk the dry pomace off for the delight of their pigs. Not only did they arrive with impeccable timing, but brought with them a wedge of unbelievably creamy Lemon Cheesecake. We sent them home with our thanks and a bottle of Rockingham Forest Cider, and still feel we got the better end of the deal!

Tomorrow it's back to the orchard with my brother Paul as a willing (?) volunteer. We've our sites set on apples this time. This perry making is all good fun when it goes well, but it's high time we made a bit of cider!

The Orchard Centre - Hartpury

On what turned out to be quite a busy weekend, I managed to squeeze in a visit to the shiny new Orchard Centre in deepest rural Gloucestershire. This is the latest venture from cidermaking guru Peter Mitchell of Mitchell F & D Ltd, in partnership with the Hartpury Historic Land & Buildings Trust.

The centre is based in rolling pastureland near the historic village of Hartpury, well worth a visit in it's own right. The trust are active in preserving a number of historic buildings in the parish, including a fascinating medieval Bee Shelter, but they are also custodians of the area's unique orchard heritage. The name Hartpury is derived from the Saxon word for the pear: Hardepirige – hard pear tree, and there is a long history of perry making in the area, as evidenced by the naming of the Hartpury Green perry pear.

So this was the background to establishing a centre of excellence for traditional orcharding and the various crafts associated with orchard fruit, near the village of Hartpury. Cider and Perry making are an obvious bolt-on, and this will represent the initial core of activities run from the Centre. The processing barn will shortly be equipped with a full fruit processing plant, which will enable production of Cider, Perry, Fruit Juices and other products designed to add value to orchard fruits. The idea being that the best way to preserve traditional orchards, is to make profitable use of their crops, and so the centre will act as the UK base for a wide range of courses and associated services, all designed to help people like myself and the wider industry achieve this end.

The Open Day on Saturday was blessed with fine, if blustery weather, and the wide-open landscape made it easy to spot and avoid incoming showers. The smart, traditional oak-framed main building is situated on the edge of what may be the centre's most important project, the Hartpury National Collection of Perry Pears, also known more prosaically as the Perry Park. This is Hartpury Trust member Jim Chapman's pride and joy, over 100 varieties of rare and unique perry pears, planted in pairs across several acres of gently sloping meadowland. Even now the sight of so many fruit trees planted at such wide spacing is inspiring, but when mature, this orchard will be a truly glorious sight, though sadly one which many, including Jim himself, will probably never get to see, since perry pear trees take quite some time to reach maturity!

During the open-day I had a chance to chat with Peter Mitchell, someone I've bumped into on many occasions since attending one of his early cidermaking courses at Pershore College. There were a few stalls to peruse, including one with samples of Herefordshire perry from award-winning producer Tom Oliver, and Gloucestershire apple juices from Day's Cottage.

I also had a very useful chat with Jim Chapman, who kindly put me straight about our own small batch of perry. We've always understood that the pears we used to make our perry were Blakeney Red and Moorcroft, but Jim's much greater knowledge of perry pear growing indicated that this couldn't be so. Moorcroft are an early ripening pear, which would have gone over by the time we harvested our fruit, so in all probability we have made a single variety Blakeney Red. Oh well! we like Blakeney Red perry a lot, so nothing lost there.

The day was rounded off with a visit to another award-winning cidermaker, Mike Johnson of Ross Cider & Perry. The samples were as generous as ever, and I was particularly pleased to try the cider blend which won the top prize at the recent Big Apple Cider & Perry Trials in Putley. A very well balanced medium/dry cider, which Mike & Sophie were busy bottling-up for sale. I also returned with some excellent new-season Blakeney Red Perry to compare with our own. This perry will also join ours at the Red Lion, Middleton, during the forthcoming Welland Valley Beer Festival.

Pick 'n' Mix

Today was almost certainly the last day of pressing this season. It's been hard work, but gratifyingly we've managed to make more cider than ever before, around 400 gallons in total.

Today's pressing session was quite significant as we were making a new batch of our Welland Valley Special, the cider we make from local apples and which we usually sell at the Welland Valley Beer Festival in June. The picture above gives a good indication of the mix of apples which have gone into this year's batch, around 8 different varieties in all. The dessert apples which make up the bulk of this blend were very full flavoured late varieties, including some small, yellow, and very sweet apples from Rockingham, a sack full of huge russeted pippins from up the road in Cottingham, and the deep purpley red apples in the picture which had a wonderfully rich, slightly bitter, sweetness. These apples came from an old orchard on the Rockingham Castle estate which contains at least eight different varieties of apple and pear alone. If only we know what they were! The specific gravity of the juice is 1047, which should give a reasonable level of alcohol, and I think this blend will produce a very good cider.

We used some of the juice from todays pressing to top up the earlier batches of cider, particularly important where the fermentation had all but finished. In the event I slightly overfilled one of the tubs and had to remove a little so that it wouldn't overflow into the airlock. This gave me an opportunity to sample some of the cider we pressed in September, which was made from a blend of organic dessert apples.

The cider is obviously very young and still quite cloudy. It's quite hard to evaluate the aroma at the moment, as the yeast has not settled sufficiently and it still dominates the nose. Other than that it shows great promise. The flavour is sharp, but pleasantly so, and there's quite a bit of fruitiness despite the cider being quite dry. The first taste is a little bit too full-on to really enjoy, but after a few sips it starts to taste remarkably drinkable. Not bad for a cider made only a month ago, and I'm confident this will mellow nicely for early Summer drinking.

Home Grown

Perry

Yesterday was the first day of our annual October cidermaking week, an exhausting round of milling, washing and pressing which should ultimately lead to a ciderhouse full of busily bubbling fermenters. The day went reasonably smoothly, and progress was steady. Today has been a well-earned rest day.

The first fruit into the mill was a small batch of ripe perry pears harvested from the Worcestershire orchard we visited last weekend. We knew there were several old perry pear trees dotted throughout the orchard, including several of the highly regarded varieties Blakeney Red and Moorcroft (sometimes known as Malvern Hills), but with many Three Counties perry makers reporting very poor crops this year I wasn't expecting much from these ancient specimens. By commercial standards the crop was indeed pretty poor, but our more modest production levels made the meagre crop just about worth harvesting.

We came away with around three sacks of ripe pears from three or four different trees, and we appeared to have two distinct varieties. Pears of all types have a tendency to be at their optimum ripeness for only a few short days, quickly going from hard-as-nails to mushy-with-rot before they can be put to use. These pears were no exception, and it was crucial that we process them as soon as possible.

Most perry pears are high in tannin, but some are so mouth-puckeringly tannic that the resulting perry could be virtually undrinkable. Tannin levels in pears and apples can be reduced by a process called 'Maceration' which involves milling the pears then leaving the pulp to stand for several hours prior to pressing. We decided not to macerate these pears, Blakeney and Moorcroft don't fall into the 'massively tannic' category, and are regarded by some as relatively easy pears to make perry from. Welcome news!

After our experiences pressing dessert fruit in September I was sure these (by now rapidly over-ripening) pears would surely clog up the pressing cloths and make a right mess of the racks. I worried needlessly, these pears milled to a fine porridgy consistency, and pressed beautifully. We didn't manage to completely fill the press, but did manage to extract a similar amount of juice to that of a full pressing of apples. The spent pomace was very dry and we managed to almost fill one of the smaller 70 litre fermenters. All in all, we like pressing perry pears very much!

Prior to pressing these pears I spent a bit of time researching the process, and one thing which cropped up time and again was just how much of a lottery perry making can be. Following all the rules is sometimes not enough on its own, you may also need a little bit of luck. Even a well-made perry can turn vinegary or develop other faults at the drop of a hat, so as novice perry makers we're hoping for a little bit of good old fashioned beginners luck to hover over this particular fermenter.

Pressing & Problem Solving

Cidermaking is of course an art. Selecting varieties of apple which are suitable for the style of cider we're trying to make is the start. The conduct of the fermentation, maturing and blending of the different ciders, and careful storage right up until the point of sale are all important in producing a high quality drink.

The actual physical process of making cider is much more a problem solving exercise than an art. Every year we aim to move the process forward, investing in new equipment and up-scaling production, but each great-leap-forward brings with it new and unforeseen problems.

Our terrific new Voran Press has been instrumental in doubling our efficiency this year, by both speeding up the process, and increasing juice yield significantly. The press delivers over 24 tons of pressure through the 8 layers of the cheese, effortlessly squeezing the apple pulp dry, and delivering around 13 gallons of juice each pressing. This sort of efficiency can of course lead to bottle-necks somewhere in the process, and it's in the washing and sorting of the fruit that we're now struggling to keep up. We may have to invest in a bigger bucket!

The huge pressure that the new press delivers can cause problems too. The dessert apples we've been pressing up to now have a tendency to squeeze out through the press cloths, making cleaning a very difficult task. This shouldn't be such a problem when we start pressing the more fibrous cider apples later in the month.

The Rotary Mill (or Scratter) which is attached to the press is also very efficient. It deals with bucket-loads of washed apples as quickly as we can pour them in, spitting out the finely milled pulp at such a high velocity that things could get very messy in the ciderhouse. Our ingenious solution involves a cheap storage tub, a Stanley Knife and a couple of Bungee's. The high-speed pomace is now directed straight down to the waiting tub, and another potential nightmare clean-up session has been avoided.

Talking of nightmare cleanup's, the Acacia Racks which separate the layers of cloth-wrapped pomace, are also a bit of a devil to get clean. Cleanliness in cidermaking is essential, and these racks will quickly develop a bloom of mould if not cleaned and dried properly after use. I've been searching long and hard for a reasonably priced container big enough to lay the racks in for a soak in sulphite solution. I finally found a tray in a garden centre which was the perfect size for the racks, though unfortunately not deep enough for all nine together. More cash spent, more problems solved.

The two larger pictures of the press were kindly sent to us by James, sometime resident of our village local the Red Lion, in Middleton.

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.

New Press

Rockingham Forest Cider is at last moving into the 20th Century! This weekend we braved the snow and ice, and took a van down to Worcestershire to collect our new (second-hand) Voran hydraulic press. Bigger, better, and considerably heavier than the screw press we sold-on last weekend, which meant calling on the assistance of a pair of family strong-men to ease its journey home.

We’ve been on the lookout for a bigger press for some time, and I’ve had my eye on a couple of antique twin-screw presses which I spotted were for sale in deepest Somerset. Our Summer project was to negotiate a reasonable price on one of these old and therefore expensive curios, construct a modest lean-to shelter for it in the garden, and upscale from the hard graft of pressing 5 gallons of cider a time, to the hard graft of pressing 30 gallons or more with each pressing. I was quite looking forward to having one of these original old cider presses about the place, the hope being that the lesser the number of times we have to build and dismantle a new ‘cheese’ of apple pulp, the more we’ll get pressed in a day. The other option for up scaling is to go hydraulic, an even more expensive option if you’re forced to buy new, and not really a serious option for us.

In the relatively small world of cidermaking, it’s worth keeping at least one ear permanently to the ground, figuratively speaking. Cidermakers from the traditional heartlands of the West Country etc. will occasionally call it a day, and rarely is there any interest from family members in continuing the tradition since there’s so little money in it for the effort involved. That’s where enthusiastic amateurs (idiots?) like us come into play, and it came to my attention that just such a West Midlands cidermaking enterprise had pressed it’s last a couple of years ago. The owner was happy to sell-on the press for a reasonable price to someone who would hopefully put it to good use, and so a deal was struck and the delicate business of transporting a third of a ton of steel-on-wheels up the M6 was undertaken on a bright and freezing Saturday morning.

Hamming it up during the offload at Middleton are the ‘Auld Fella’ Ron, and the ‘Auld Bruvver’ Nigel who both put in a sterling effort of brains and brawn, which is sadly more than can be said for the second-half performance of the England rugby union team. Ho-hum!

Press-Ganged

This weekend we had the pleasure of a visit from Ray Blockley and Gail Lomax, fellow cidermakers from Hucknall, Nottinghamshire. They came bearing the gift of cider, and after a short visit to the nearby village of Gretton for a pint of our local Great Oakley Brewery's beer, we set-to with a tasting session which went on into the early hours.

Ray and Gail had brought along a generous flagon of their own Torkard 57 cider, a sample of a batch which will be available at the Chesterfield Beer Festival (1st - 2nd Feb). We also tried bottles of our own Rockingham Forest Cider, Hogan's Perry, and finally, Sidra Leartibai, and Zapiain Sidra Brandy, both from Spain's Basque region. All good stuff, and useful (though sadly not tax deductable) research.

Sunday morning dawned rather too brightly for my liking. I seemed to be the only one suffering from a hangover, which was just as well since there was important work to be done, some of which required a clear head and a steady hand. Our sturdy Vigo Rack and Cloth Press, which has served us well over the last three seasons, and which only last September I swore I'd never be parted from, has found a new home in the upcoming 'cider heartland' of Hucknall. Ray and Gail already have a good homemade press, and plan to make a bigger version in the near future, but until then they require a little extra pressing capacity. Luckily for all concerned, we happen to have a little too much pressing capacity at the moment, so a deal was struck, and the press was loaded into Ray and Gail's trailer for the long journey 'up north'. For the first time in several years I find myself without the means to press apples. A slightly strange feeling, which happily should only last the few short days until we collect our shiny new (secondhand actually) hydraulic press (more of which later...)

Pictured here is Ray, struggling gamely with a multitude of bungees, and his 'Boy Scouts Book of Difficult Knots'. Karen and Gail look on admiringly whilst I help by taking photos! We look forward to following the further adventures of the Vigo Rack & Cloth Press, if and when the Torkard Cider Blog ever makes an appearance.

The Final Turn of the Screw

Ok, so this is perhaps not the most exciting video to be found on the Internet, but it's highly significant for us nevertheless. This is a video record of this year's very last pressing, a juicy blend of Yarlington Mill, Dabinett and Brown's Apple; and absolutely the last cider apples that will pass through these hands until next year's cidermaking season. Enthusiasm for the hard graft of cidermaking was definitely on the wane, and those old injuries, and the inevitable strains and pains of lifting and shovelling were starting to take their toll.

Having said that, there is something very satisfying about watching several gallons of dark, sweet juice flowing from a well made 'cheese' of apple pulp, and the steady burble of gasses escaping from airlocks has a busy, industrious cadence, which drives you on to press more apples, fill more barrels, make more delicious cider........

Oh dear! I think it's definitely time to hang up the rubber gloves for another year. This cidermaking malarkey could become a bit of a habit.