It's a good year for the apples...........

[pomme homme]

I've had a real problem this year. More apples than I had vessels in which to ferment the pressed juice! Despite having eighteen 30 litre fermenting vessels and a 200 litre former shipping barrel, this morning I was on my last available container. But fortunately, this afternoon I was able to buy another three 200 litre former shipping barrels which, hopefully, will be sufficient for my needs this year. I have approximately 650 litres of juice fermenting at present and enough apples still available to me to press, I think, another 200 to 300 litres of juice. I've been doing back to back pressings - I have a 160 litre basket press - for several weeks now and, I have to confess, I'm looking forward to the end of the work which has become almost all consuming. However next spring, when the cider has matured, I hope to be able to look back - with satisfaction and pleasure - on a good autumn's work and to be able to enjoy the fruits of my labour for some time to come!

 

[klaus]

sound like you are running a business .... I was intrigued with those shipping barrels and had alook round. 220 litre shipping barrels food-grade plastic can be had here for about £20. Could be interesting for a large brew!

 

[pomme homme]

Running a business. Now there's an idea!

The shipping barrels are little cheaper over here. I paid 15€ each for the three I bought yesterday. The previous batch cost me 12€ each. However as those had been used for shipping pickles, there was a lot more time and work required to make them fit for cider. Yesterday's barrels had no vinegar odour and after a good scrub, soaking and sterilising, they're going into use tomorrow. Or at least when I've built another two breezeblock bases to raise them up to a level at which it will be possible to siphon off into 30 litre vessels below.

 

[pomme homme]

The barrels are now in place. I didn't use breezeblocks for the bases. I didn't have enough. However a friend had bought a trailer load of pine roof beam offcuts for firewood, which he cut into 60 cm lengths for me to build the plinths out of these, which I then topped with plywood top surfaces. Two of the barrels are now full of cider in the latter stages of fermentation and I expect to be filling a third early next week.

 

[pomme homme]

Well, I'll just take the risk that I am boring people. If so, it won't be the first and I doubt that it will be the last time!

Today I've started what I expect to be my last pressing of apples in 2011. Whilst I still have available to me the clochard apples still on a large tree in the garden of a friend's maison secondaire, my wife has made it clear to me that there are other jobs that need doing. So after this one, I can give the press a good final clean - probably with the power washer this time - and put it to bed until next autumn.

Before starting today's pressing, I transferred the contents of another nine 30 litre fermenting vessels to the third of my large former shipping barrels and topped up the other two barrels - in which fermentation seems almost to have finished - so that the airspace at the top is reduced to the minimum feasible in the circumstances.

Having checked the spreadsheet, currently I have 940 litres which either has fermented, is in the course of fermentation or is about to start fermentation. Based on past experience, I fear that this means that I am going to end up just a few litres short of a hectolitre. That's the goal for which I've been striving in this execptional year in pomological terms. And if I find that this is the case, I might just have to risk incurring the wrath of my wife by doing just one more pressing, using the apples which remain available to me, in order that I have my red letter day when I achieve the hectolitre mark!

 

[muddy90]

currently I have 940 litres :shock: pomological terms. :rofl:

That's some achievment. :thumb:

 

[tazuk]

this my first year making cider i could have fill 2 of those drums but did not want to go mad first year i made about 150 ltr ( 1060 hydromiter reading ) ish but lost 27 ltr as i drop a glass carboy on the floor in kitchen ouch :shock: :whistle: and did make 50 ltr of perry fingers cross all good to drink march ish time :drunk:

 

[pomme homme]

I'm inconsolable. I've finished my last (?) pressing for 2011 and the total is only 991.5 litres! So do I just grin and bear it or risk incurring the wife's wrath by going to collect more apples and doing another pressing? No, on reflection I'm not that brave. So I'll just have to grin and bear it - or cheat, by going to Lidl, buying ten litres of its cheap apple juice and fermenting that in a demijohn! Whatever I do, I fear that it will be some time before I am in a position again to aspire to a hectolitre of home produced cider. Maybe it's not just a good year for the apples but an exceptional one!

 

[tazuk]

991.5 ltrs :shock: wot you going to do with all of that :drunk:

 

[pomme homme]

I'll give you one guess - although I usually get some help from friends to do so!

 

[tazuk]

:drunk: :drunk: :drunk: :thumb:

I'll give you one guess - although I usually get some help from friends to do so!

 

[shearclass]

I'm inconsolable. I've finished my last (?) pressing for 2011 and the total is only 991.5 litres! So do I just grin and bear it or risk incurring the wife's wrath by going to collect more apples and doing another pressing? No, on reflection I'm not that brave.

Man up! You've got to do it! Don't give in now!

Then you can say you have a kilolitre of cider!

 

[matth]

I have always wanted to grow my own cider apples for cider - just out of interest how many trees has this come from, or are they all collected from different people?

 

[pomme homme]

Ah, if only they were cider apples! I live in an area in which there are many commercial orchards but they produce table apples. But fortunately our local apple - the Clochard or the Reinette de Parthenay - is very versatile and produces a more than acceptable cider, as well as being a splendid crisp, sweet and acidic table apple. Probably 70% of the apples that go into my cider are Clochard. As to the rest - I have to confess to being unsure. They are French varieties and as my directories of apple cultivars came out with me from the UK a decade ago, they don't shed a lot of light on the identity of the others.

Whilst I have a good number of my own trees, I have to confess that, this year, the majority of my apples were sourced from others. I'd say that it represents the crop of about twenty mature trees. It's astounding how many people have small orchards in their gardens and these tend to be traditional varieties. For those people, unless they are cider makers, there's only so many apples they can use. To paraphrase one - "I've eaten apples, I've stored apples, I've cooked with apples and I've preserved apples but I've still got hundreds of the b*****s rotting on the grass, being trodden underfoot and attracting swarms of wasps and hornets". So that's where I come in. Many such people are just grateful to me for taking them away. Others are pleased to let me have their surplus apples in the knowledge that they will not go to waste. Those who wish to have something in exchange usually are content to receive cider or my wife's jams, conserves, chutneys and pickles. So it's a 'win-win' situation!

 

[screamlead]

My next door neighbor just brought round the local mayor of a village near me.
Him and his sons want me to help them turn 10,000 apple trees into cider :shock: :shock: :shock:
They are well impressed with my turbo sour cherry cider too - lol

 

[tazuk]

:shock: :shock: omg you going to be verry buisy wots you going to use to do that lol :shock: :shock:

My next door neighbor just brought round the local mayor of a village near me.
Him and his sons want me to help them turn 10,000 apple trees into cider :shock: :shock: :shock:
They are well impressed with my turbo sour cherry cider too - lol

 

[screamlead]

LOL no idea yet as have to wait for swmbo to get back from uk as cant leave the animals alone all night - they want me to go to their village for an overnighter and major chat about it all. I was showing them some stuff i had and how much the turk web sites charge over here - upto 10 times as much as uk.
i.e. airlock bubblers 10 tl each here 10 for a tenner uk less in some places.
Apple presses 3500 tl exactly the same as made in UK for less than 200 quid although we talked about custom made using I-bar and 5 ton jacks when jonny turk mentioned using tractor hydrolics lol even i understood that.
They are deffo serious about setting it all up to produce cider as theres not much choice here apart from imported stuff costing a fortune - but theres deffo a market for it from both turks and ex pats.
Need to source bulk cider yeast though if anyone knows anywhere? Wont have any problems with importing as hes the mayor, even mentioned the ongoing corny saga too and how much they are in germany - may push that as i will get them here then - they can have all the hassle of bribing border guards and importing!

 

[tazuk]

is cider yeast cheaper in uk ie send some over in the post ???????
build your own press like on of the cornish cider press things out of 5 x 2 i got plan if you need it :thumb:

LOL no idea yet as have to wait for swmbo to get back from uk as cant leave the animals alone all night - they want me to go to their village for an overnighter and major chat about it all. I was showing them some stuff i had and how much the turk web sites charge over here - upto 10 times as much as uk.
i.e. airlock bubblers 10 tl each here 10 for a tenner uk less in some places.
Apple presses 3500 tl exactly the same as made in UK for less than 200 quid although we talked about custom made using I-bar and 5 ton jacks when jonny turk mentioned using tractor hydrolics lol even i understood that.
They are deffo serious about setting it all up to produce cider as theres not much choice here apart from imported stuff costing a fortune - but theres deffo a market for it from both turks and ex pats.
Need to source bulk cider yeast though if anyone knows anywhere? Wont have any problems with importing as hes the mayor, even mentioned the ongoing corny saga too and how much they are in germany - may push that as i will get them here then - they can have all the hassle of bribing border guards and importing!

 

[screamlead]

Any plans would be apprieciated please. :thumb:

 

[pomme homme]

Mea culpa. I thought a hectolitre was 1000 litres. But yesterday the error of my ways was pointed out to me. It is, in fact, only 100 litres. Thus I have not nearly one hectolitre but 9.915 hectolitres of cider maturing! Having acquired another three shipping barrels at the weekend - for the princely sum of 15 € each - I am now in a position to do my first racking off this month (when I've bought a 1.5 m length of plastic pipe, 2 m of flexible plastic hose and a hose tap in order to create a mega siphon tube). Probably I'll need to do another racking off early next year before leaving the cider to complete its maturation so that it's ready to start drinking in the spring.