I have just gathered - picked - plucked a crop of apples for this year's cider brew.
They are mostly Bramley cookers but I plan to get some ready pressed Egramont Russet apples to help balance out the sharpness that the cookers will provide.
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I am booked into a nearby farm shop that, for a price, will reduce your apples and pears into lovely juice ready for fermenting. All you need to provide is the large plastic bottles to take the juice home, They keep the pressed apple pulp and feed it to the pigs on site so it is win - win, though you do have to pay $5 per gallon for them (actually one young lad) to do the pressing for you,
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The farm shop barn hold 300+ ciders from around the country - the National Collection - and 100+ of them are draught barrels that you can fill your own bottles from.
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I am currently drinking some from the 13th barrel along on the middle shelf - Countryman Scrumpy 6..5% rather nice.
This will be my first cider batch for 5 years so I hope to get 12 gallons or so out of the crop. You may notice one of the bins holds a nice lot of pears that will be done separately - probably only a gallons worth.
I was going to call the batch JUSTIN CIDER but the wife thought that may be a bit to racy for the old folks at the Bowling Club Christmas dinner so instead, since it was the very kind Helen that donated the fruit I shall call it HELLEN'S CIDER. More acceptable I think. A new label is required I think. The small batch may be called MATHEW'S PERRY (one for the Friends Fans perhaps?)
I will try and document the progress of the cider brew.
Next week will be a double beer brew for my Christmas tipple - Santa;s Grog and an IPA, probably Yankee Pankee.
Cheers!!! |
Post time 2022-10-17 17:28:03