Back on the Green Horse

Green Horse - One of the few!

One of the good things about harvesting fruit from a truly mixed orchard, is that for every tree having an 'off' year and bearing little or no fruit, there's likely to be something else fully turned 'on' as it were. It's not good for consistency, but it means there's always something to press.

There are two Green Horse perry pear trees in Johns 'Far Orchard', one of which has cropped very heavily for us for the last couple of years. The other tree is tucked away in the corner, close to a row of conifers which compete for water and nutrients, consequently it's never had much of a crop on it. This year, Green Horse is having an 'off' year, which means instead of the usual half a ton or more of fruit, we've got barely four sacks of pears to play with. To fill our press we need something like seven sacks of fruit, so there will be no single variety Green Horse Perry for the 2012 season. A great shame as its one of my favourite perrys, even more so because its specific gravity came out at a whopping 1.064, up from 1.050 last year. I guess this is down to a combination of factors, including the dry Summer, optimum ripeness (these pears really needed pressing today), and the paucity of the crop.

To fill the press, and go most of the way towards filling a large fermenter, we pressed the sharp Green Horse pears with a few sacks of another more tannin rich perry pear (another whopping gravity of 1.068). This will be topped up tomorrow with a vigorously fermenting 25 litres of Blakeney Red from last weekends pressing session, making a three pear blend which will hopefully taste great, and won't be as lumpy as our last blending experiment.

The weekend harvest included our first few sacks of apples from one of two Blenheim Orange trees we'll be using to produce a nice sharp blending cider. This will be used for much needed acidity, and as a fermenting starter for the Yarlington Mill and Vilberie apples later in the season. There's perhaps one more perry pear pressing session ahead (Red Longdon is having an 'on' year), then it's full steam ahead with the cidermaking.

Brigstock Beer Festival 2011

Once again the Brigstock Beer Festival (Fri 23rd - Sat 24th Sept) neatly bookends our cidermaking year (well almost*), and once again we'll probably have to miss it.

It's unfortunate that this excellent village festival occurs slap-bang in the middle of our perry pear harvest. Whilst villagers and visitors enjoy the beer, bands, and bonhomie in this pretty Northamptonshire village, we'll be shaking trees again, up to our ankles in a carpet of fragrant perry pears. Maybe next year...

In addition to the ales on offer, we've delivered barrels of our Red Kite 'Yarlington Mill' Cider, Kingston Black Cider, and the very last box of Malvern Hills Perry (well nearly**). There will also be cider from Cromwell of Huntingdon. Friday night is a comedy evening, with live bands on Saturday evening. The Saturday afternoon session is entirely free entry.

* The mighty Nottingham Beer Festival is still to come
** We've held a barrel back for the 2012 Leicester Beer Festival

Blakeney Red - Yields Down, Gravity Up

Our Perry merry-making continues. This time it's the Blakeney Red pears that need our attention. The orchard has (or had) three Blakeney Red trees, good annual croppers, and more compact than the huge old Malvern Hills trees making them so much easier to harvest.

Sadly, as with many of the trees in this elderly orchard, the Blakeneys are not in the best of health. In fact one of the three trees appears to have given up the ghost this year. We've noticed die-back on the odd branch before, not necessarily a fatal situation, but the whole tree now appears to be either dead, or having a very serious rest! I think that an already struggling tree may have been pushed over the edge by the extremely dry Summer we've had this year. John will be leaving the tree in for the time being, just in case it shows a spectacular recovery next year...

So, only two trees harvested, which is a great shame as the Blakeney Red Perry was probably our most popular drink this year. Even so, we've come home with a similar quantity of pears to the Malvern Hills, and managed to press almost 50 gallons of juice from them, which is a little less than last year. I think the pears were close to a peak of ripeness. Larger than usual, mainly yellow and still quite firm, but perhaps not as juicy as the Malvern Hills. The sugar levels are similarly high, with a very respectable specific gravity of 1.060, the highest we've recorded for Blakeney Red by a long way. It's that dry Summer again I think.

A quick scan of the orchard revealed that the Green Horse perry pears are almost ready for harvest, once again around 1-2 weeks earlier than last year, so we'll be hard at it again this weekend.

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.



Thoroughly Modern Milling

I've got a love-hate relationship with Malvern Hills perry. Obviously I love the taste or I wouldn't bother making it, but from a commercial perspective the high tannin is a bit of a problem.

Here are some other loves: Usually nice weather for harvest. Loads of fruit available. Consistently high sugar levels can give very high alcohol in the finished perry. A naturally clear perry. Nice name.

...and for balance, some hates: Very tall trees make harvest difficult. Harvest/Pressing time ultra critical. Consistently high sugar levels can make for a perry which is hard to sell.

Freshly Milled

But back to those high tannin levels. Malvern Hills perry is a clean, fruity, and quite subtle tasting drink, but the tannins are really quite fulsome and astringent. That's to say they dry the mouth in an uncompromising way. I'm fine with tannins generally, but even I find them a bit 'wearing' at this level. It means that our Malvern Hills Perry is perhaps more of a connoisseurs drink, when we'd much rather it had more general appeal, though the last thing we want to do is dumb it down.

After Maceration

After our recent disastrous blending experiment, I've decided I need to tackle the issue at source. My new-fangled innovation for this years Malvern Hills perry is the old-fangled processs of Maceration. Maceration is simply the process of milling the pears to a fine pulp, and leaving well alone for a few hours before pressing. In this way, the tannins in the pears oxidise, and hopefully precipitate out, leaving all the lovely perry taste but with less of the mouth-drying tannin. It's a bit of extra work because it spreads the processing out over two days instead of one, but hopefully the results will be worth the effort. I went for a 24 hour maceration, milling the pears on Saturday, ready for pressing on Sunday.



I can't say that the pressing was a pleasant experience, but then the first of the season never is. Nothing is in the right place, every piece of kit needs a thorough clean, and fatigue takes hold as we're using muscles that have lain idle since the last cidermaking season. Putting the fun-factor aside though, it was a successful weekends pressing, giving us around 220 litres of juice with an average Specific Gravity of 1.070. One batch achieved 1.071, the highest gravity we've recorded, with the potential to give a final alcohol level of around 9%.

The warm weather we're having at moment should mean fermentation will romp away, and it now remains to be seen how successful our maceration has been, and whether it's worth repeating again next year.