Torkard Cider

Catching up - Again!

2011-02-19T04:04:00.000-08:00

Where did the time go...?

Well here we are in 2011 and I see that the last time I scribbled anything on here was back in November 2010...

So what's happened since? Well, snow and lots of it, of course, which caused us major problems of frozen fruit, burst pipes on the water-feed to the cider-shed and worst of all, a shattered valve and tap on our water-heater in the washing and cleaning area of the cider-shed. The latter took a lot of time and expense to repair and replace, and stopped us dead. All is fixed now so we are up and running again.

We let some of our cider out to two festivals in February this year - way too early of course, but folks want it, so... The first was one box we sent out to the Chesterfield Beer Festival where it seems to have had a hit-and-miss reception - as we expected to be honest, with it being so young. However, over the weekend of the 11th - 12th February, we agreed to sort out some cider for the Hucknall Beer Festival & Farmer's Market, the first after an absence of seven years.

Rather then get the usual rubbish of national "ciders" often seen at small festivals, I wanted to match the beers, virtually all LocAle to Hucknall, that were being sorted by the good folk at Nottingham CAMRA. So I thought I'd see if the local folk were up for some Local and East Midland's cider and perry...?

The East Midlands Ciders on sale at the Hucknall Beer Festival.

My first call was to Mark and Karen at Rockingham Forest Cider to see if they had anything I could beg...? I was offered a 2009 cider made with Worcestershire-grown cider apples and a 2009 single-variety 'Malvern Hills' perry. Perfect! To this I added a box of our popular "Floppy Tabs" cider made from a blend of Nottinghamshire-grown dessert apples and a box of our "Sheep Wash" cider which is also made with Nott's grown apples, with a good dash of tannic crab-apples thrown in.

We opened at 11am on Friday 11th and by 7pm all of the Torkard cider was gone, quickly followed by the Rockingham Forest cider. The perry held out until closing time due to the mouth-drying tannic after-taste which we thought was great but was perhaps a little too stringent for the locals. So I had to get up early the next day and fill another 3 x 20L boxes of cider: two "Floppy Tabs" and another "Sheep Wash". These too were emptied very quickly and all had gone by 8pm on the saturday. I think that is known as a Sell Out.

We were very pleased by all of the great comments and positive feedback about the ciders - even the vicar liked our "Floppy Tabs" - and we hope to be involved in the planning and running of the 2012 Hucknall Beer Festival. Oh the beers? Well they all sold out as well - by about 9pm!

Ownership of stuff on-line

2010-11-19T01:38:00.000-08:00

Fess up those who abuse copyright...

I'm not very happy at the moment to find that a certain James Russell, blog writer and 'author' of 'The Naked Guide to Cider' is using one of my photos both on his blog and (apparently - because I haven't read it) in his book. Now I'm an open minded and dare I say, helpful chap, giving up lots of time to help folks learn about and become confident in making their own cider - and for all the hours I help people I don't charge a penny. Most of what I do is of course on groups such as The Cider Workshop (the real one; not the sub-standard clones generated by ukcider's empire-building activities) and in particular as an Admin member of the Cider Workshop Google-group . I am also helping a number of folks local to me here in Nottinghamshire and across the border into Derbyshire with help vie email or at the end of a phone.

I was surfing those blogs with stuff about cider when I spotted a link to an article about my good friend and fellow cider-maker Rose Grant, when I stumbled across one of the photos that I took in 2006 during a visit to Rose's wonderful Dorset cider-making emporium (shown left). The photo showed no acknowledgement of the photographer. After contacting Rose, I am told that the same photo appears in James Russell's book for which I assume he is getting money. Again, it would appear that the photo has been used without checking whether he has the right to use it from the owner of said image (me) who I would assume still owns intellectual and moral rights to the image...

I don't blame Rose, she just passed over some images; as she says, she doesn't take photos of herself. Rose asked if she could use the image on her own blog and of course, I had no objections. But I am not happy that the person who now uses these images for profit did not check fully that he had the right to do so. Let's make it clear as well that I don't want any money out of Mr Russell's pocket; judging by all of the mass email onslaught and on-line 'presence' being generated to publicise his book, he should be making a pretty dollar out of it? However, if I started copying stuff out his blog, book(s) or whatever and started making money from it, I'm quite sure he wouldn't be very happy.

I have tried to contact Mr. Russell via his blog and via a direct Twitter message to ask him about why he is using my image without my permission or acknowledgement, but he hasn't responded. Maybe he's out of the country...?

If anyone spots him at one of the events to publicise his book that he pushes via Twitter and Facebook, maybe you could let him know that I am trying to contact him? Or perhaps ask him on my behalf whether he is certain that he has the right to use all of the content in his book with the permission of the copyright owners?

Out and About with the Beeb

2010-09-29T08:58:00.000-07:00

The good folks at BBC Radio Nottingham have been very supportive of our efforts to produce true, real Nottinghamshire ciders. They have also cottoned on to the fact that as Nottinghamshire's only commercial producers of real cider, we are a bit unique. OK I know we are a very small producer but size isn't everything (cough!).

Following a recent visit to the BBC Radio Nottingham studios to chat with Andy Whittaker (who is a very nice man) and taste our cider - at 8.20 in the morning I might add - a quick appeal for apples and pears has resulted in the good folk of Nottinghamshire answering the call to arms. We have been very pleased by the response of folks who have fruit to spare that would otherwise be going to waste, composted or left to rot. We don't want to take the best fruit, as for cider it doesn't really matter what it looks like or if it is a bit bruised. Lots of people have phoned us or emailed us to let us know what they have going spare; some folks like Mr. Chappel in Hucknall, just turned up at our base with the car loaded with ready-picked and boxed-up apples. How kind and cool is that?

However, we would just like to point out that we can only collect so much fruit per day - and Nottinghamshire is a big county - so if we haven't got back to you straight away, don't panic. Many varieties of apple are still not fully ripened sufficiently for cider-making (they need to be starting to soften) so always remember that just because they are falling from the tree does not mean they are fully ripe. Thankfully we didn't need to turn many folks down as nearly everyone heeded our plea that Bramley's are not too much use to us for cider - they contain too much acidity for cider unless left to ripen for some months.

So yesterday I wound my way around Nottingham's ring-road (joy of joys) to the little town of Ruddington, just south of the city. Here I met up with Verity Cowley, radio journalist for BBC Radio Nottingham and Dan Sinclair who is a 'back-room boy' if you like, at BBC Nottingham - whizz-kid with a camera and website production. We went first to Kathy and Ken's house who had phoned me offering Worcester Pearmains from their trees. I also spotted a pear tree in their garden and Ken kindly offered to let me have any spare Winter Nelis (the pear variety) for use in making a Nottinghamshire perry. An offer not to be refused! Verity followed the activities with microphone-in-hand getting sound bites and noises-off, while Dan snapped away from multitudinous angles and distances.

We then went across town to visit John and Jean, who had phoned me that very morning saying they had a couple of trees if I was interested...? John's garden was very large and impressive with neat lawns, productful vegetable plots and greenhouses, and some lovely big old apple trees: Beauty of Bath, Newton Wonder and some unknown apple that was very crisp and sweet, and reminded me of a Cox of some sort. John did point out a very large Bramley tree, but quickly added; "I know you are not interested in Bramley's..." The Beauty of Bath were a lovely deep red, very juicey and when cut open, showed red and pink tinged hues through the flesh. John thought they were too soft, but with a quick press of the pad of my thumb, the juice flowed - perfect state of ripeness for cider-making.

Once again Verity and Dan started recording sound and images while I spread out the tarpaulins under the tree and started to shake the apples down from the branches. John joined in and soon the apples were raining down and slapping onto the tarpaulins. Sack after sack were filled and the trailer was soon full of sweet-smelling apples. Time was against us so I am going back to John's to collect more of the Cox-like apples, perhaps in a couple of weeks when they will be riper.

The fruit of Dan's labours can be seen here on the BBC Nottingham website - just try to ignore the fat bloke with the glasses on... Verity's interviews and sound-bites will be broadcast on the morning of 30th September on BBC Radio Nottingham, between 8.00 and 9.00 am.

Great day, great fun. It is good meeting up with the friendly folk of Nottinghamshire.

Tempus fugit - ad nauseum!!!

2010-09-25T05:22:00.000-07:00

Sunset from Croft Ambrey on summer-solstice 2010

There just aren't enough hours in the day at the moment... What a busy summer - where did it go? One minute we were watching the sun set on Summer Solstice day from the summit of Croft Ambrey Iron-age hill fort north of Leominster in the company of the Marches Cyder Circle, the next... Well - being inundated with offers of apples and pears of all sorts from the good folks of Nottinghamshire, after listening to our little interview, tasting and appeal for excess fruit on BBC Radio Nottingham. Mind you, drinking our 8.4% ABV cider at 8.20am is not the sort of thing I'd recommend you do on a daily basis...

The work on the plot continues - sadly I have not been able to reach the big pear tree in time so I fear the pears - whatever they are - will be lost for this year. We have had bumper crops of Blackberries, Blackcurrants, Gages, Damsons, Plums - and of course apples. We threw lots of these into jams and crumbles and pies. The battle with the brambles shows little sign of success but we have shifted a great deal and are making headway. We need to clear the rest soon to get the heeled-in trees into the ground. Yarly was sort of helpful, but wasn't too keen on the bramble thorns having-a-go at her pads.

Yarly posing in front of a wall of brambles

The cider shed is now filled with lovely smells and delightful 'plopping' sounds as the first ciders of 2010 get underway on their fermenting-journey into 2011. Gravities are still low-ish compared to last year, being around SG 1046 - SG 1050 (6.0% - 6.5% ABV). We hope to have a little cider ready by the early part of 2011 to supply a festival or two. However, we do want to keep the sales limited this year until we are sure it is at it's best. But the phone keeps ringing, the emails still keep coming in and people still want it for their pubs and festivals, even though we sold out in early August. We are hoping to take delivery of some 1,000 litre IBC's soon so that we can try to satisfy demand with our planned increase in production.

The last of the pre-ordered 2010 ciders will go out of the door in a couple of weeks for the 2010 Nottingham CAMRA Robin Hood Beer & Cider Festival (14th - 17th October).

Morgan Sweet

The first fruits have ripened well on our new 'orchard plot' - the lovely big and juicy Morgan Sweets have already been processed and the bright red Tremlett's Bitters will join them soon. A few Yarlington Mill's and Harry Master's Jersey's will need a few more weeks to ripen I think.

Tremletts Bitter

Figgy Pudding...

2010-05-20T03:48:00.000-07:00

Maybe one year......?

A wander around the Torkard Estates revealed that the Fig tree that we planted in 2009 has survived the winter cold and the wet. This was a great surprise being that we bought this sad little specimen from the local Wilkinson's hardware store when they were selling them off; it had been left on the shelf, un-watered and was in a very bad way. For a few pence though, I thought it worth a go and so it was taken home and planted where we used to have a large Madeleine Angevine grape vine growing up the wall of the house. Lots of TLC and plenty of grit have meant that it has struggled through and now has lots of bright green fresh growth. I love figs and when we travel around Spain, I am always amazed by the number of wild fig trees growing at the side of the country roads. I have no idea whether it will ever bear fruit, but it is in a sheltered sun-trap so we will see.

After journeying to one of the further-flung Torkard Estates, I was very pleased to find that the blossom had opened on some of our Tremlett's Bitter cider-apple trees. This is the second season that these trees have been in the ground, so I am going to let the blossom stay on the trees with the hope of getting a couple of these full bittersweet apples. I will have to thin them though if too many apples set - these babies really need more time to develop strong roots and some form of structure before I can let them (hopefully!) go mad and bear lots of fruit. Yarly (our young dog in the background) can't understand why I spend so much time fiddling with the trees instead of playing with her...

Yarly was very inquisitive and provided good company when I went exploring around the third side of our plot... We have cleared one side and spent some time repairing, training and replanting the original Hawthorn hedge; we have also had to remove a great deal of Elder, which although provides flowers and fruit great for wine, is a pain in the way it stunts and slows the growth of Hawthorn by the amount of shade it casts. The second boundary has been partly cleared of the tangle of briars and other growths - the old Hawthorn hedge had previously been mostly hacked down apart from a couple of stumps - but there are a number of plum-type trees growing further along the boundary which I suspect are either Sloe or Damson, though I've not seen much evidence of typical blossom.

The above photo was taken after we'd eventually reached the far opposite corner of the plot from the entrance. It took a good few hours to hack and chainsaw my way through the undergrowth to reach this corner, where I uncovered a pear tree of unknown origin - it had been so well hidden by the overgrown hedges and ivy that I never knew it was there! Looking at the photo, the amount of work still to be done to clear the rest of the plot before the autumn is daunting, but it will be fun (I hope). Fingers crossed that I do not find any more Japanese Knotweed...

I also have a bag of onion sets that I need to get into the ground... plus a load of Garlic sets that I have nurtured from our own garden. Better start digging.

Fresh young thing...

2010-04-29T13:00:00.000-07:00

2 Bees has landed

We were offered quite a few Jonagold apples last year and as these are dessert apples, I was not sure what to do with them. Jonagolds are an American-bred apple from the 1940's, produced by cross-pollinating Jonathan apples with Golden Delicious... hence the name. The fact that Golden Delicious apples were part of the Jonagold parenthood, did not endear them to me! However, after consulting with the good and knowledgeable folks on The Cider Workshop the news came from some folks "across the pond" in the US of A that Jonagolds make a perfectly good cider. So the idea of fermenting them separately and seeing if they were suitable as a single-variety cider germinated.

After careful racking and blending of the various containers of Jonagold cider, I was very pleasantly surprised by the results and so we decided that it was worth the gamble in offering this cider as a Single Variety. Now we are not claiming that this is a "vintage" cider - but it is light, refreshing and crisp. Dessert apples are often higher in acidity than the traditional cider-apples like bittersweets such as Dabinett or Yarlington Mill, but the Jonagolds seem just fine: slightly sharp, but no more than many a West Country cider I have tasted. It is also much hazier than I am used to, with a fine pale burnt-orange colour; whether the haze and colour will last as it matures, I'm not sure. However, after years of making clear ciders without trying, we are quite amused to have produced a hazy one. Hopefully this will also please the die-hards who claim that it can't be a "proper" cider unless it is cloudy... Hmmm - I'll pass on that one! At present it is slightly sweet, sort of off-dry rather than dry, and has an ABV of about 8.4% - this is a reflection of the naturally high sugar-levels of Jonagold apples, as we do not add any sugars to our ciders, they are fermented from pure fresh-pressed apple juice. At the moment it looks as if "2 Bees" first public appearance will be at the 15th Newark CAMRA Beer Festival 28th-30th May, 2010 - a Nottinghamshire debut for a Nottinghamshire cider: very apt.

By the way, the name for this cider came before the cider... I wanted to name one of our ciders in celebration of the fact that Gail and I got married in 2009, and as we both now have the same surname beginning with "B" so calling it "Two B's" - or "2 Bees" - seemed natural. I've always had a fondness for Bumble Bees so the image for the label popped into my head almost instantaneously - with a little artistic licence of course.

In praise of Sol (Part II: The Sequel)

2010-04-22T09:28:00.000-07:00

Humph - everyone's a critic...

After spending the last 12 days or so exploring the cider-makers, real-ale brewers and watering holes of Norfolk, it is pleasing to be able to report that there are other cider-makers with vision out there who are also fans of solar panels...

Jim and Pete at Whin Hill Cider, Wells-next-the-Sea, are waiting for final planning approval for their array of Photovoltaic solar panels to be fitted onto the roof of one of their cider shed roofs: much better looking than sheets of corrugated iron... This will not only supply all their electrical power needs, but will also make them a tidy profit by selling the surplus electricity to the National Grid. Plus the fact that grants are available for installing Photovoltaic panels makes this a no-brainer for Jim and Pete.

I hope that a certain Middleton-based cider-maker will (*cough*) remember the six bottles of Whin Hill's best SV cider (3 Brown's and 3 Major) that we have brought all the way back for him - at great personal sacrifice, may I add - when he next compiles his Top Ten Cider Blogs... Otherwise they may meet an "accident" before being delivered...

More on our travels later.

In praise of Khepri, Ra and Atum...

2010-04-02T01:58:00.000-07:00

A few words about Solar Power - or in this instance, Solar Water Heating.

We've had a Photovoltaic solar panel for some years now to provide electrical power for the 12v systems on the caravan - its a large 50 watt panel, so produces loads of useful power and drives the numerous 12v systems in our van even on a cloudy day. The concept of "free" energy is a non-starter of course as manufacturing these systems and buying them are quite costly on many levels. However, the photovoltaic panel does give us the freedom to stay at many small caravan sites for long periods of time without having to worry about the battery going 'dead' and leaving us without light and water pumps. We are not keen on sites that have mains electric hook-ups because they tend to attract those with massive vans who spend 90% of their time sat in their vans in front of the telly... Why bother going away?

So with some real-world experience and a lot of background research, I was quite struck on the idea of using some form of solar power to heat or pre-heat the water for our home. I'd been to the Centre for Alternative Technology at Machynlleth in Powys, Wales in the early '90's and had been impressed with much of the stuff I saw - and I vividly remember seeing the amount of hot water they were getting by painting old steel flat-panel radiators matt-black, placing them in a sunny position, and pumping water through them... Hmmm.

The recent BBC TV series "It's Not Easy Being Green", with moustachioed Dick Strawbridge as the driving force, rekindled my interest, particularly with the advancements in solar technologies. I was captivated by the episode where they installed the solar water heaters at Newhouse Farm. I was also well impressed by the water-wheel providing electricity, but that's another story...

During our stint working the Cider & Perry Bar at the Moorgreen Show at Watnall in August '09, I had chance for a break and a wander round the site. During this amble, I came across a stall run by a local company who specialised in sustainable, renewable and solar heating applications, so I picked up a leaflet. Time to do some more research. Fortunately, the rear of our house faces SSW, so gets sunshine from about 9.00am until the sun sets, and the pitch of the roof is quite steep - ideal for a solar collector in these latitudes. The second photo here was taken at about 9.30am in late March. By December 2009, I felt informed enough to go for it, so started getting an idea of costs and quotes.

We decided on a local company called Solar-Heat UK, mainly due to Chris, the boss and technical wizard, being straightforward and open about the job and quote. No sucking in of air through teeth or loads of glossy brochures, nor did he turn up in a flash car and wearing a suit... With clipboard in hand, it only took him 10 minutes to survey the house, airing cupboard and loft. He said the job would be quite simple and it was, all done and dusted in two days. Apart from the solar collector array of evacuated tubes on the roof, the only other obvious signs of the conversion are a larger hot water storage tank and a few extra bits of pipe in the airing cupboard. There is a little bit more in the attic space with additional pumps, a pressure vessel and a small radiator to shed excess heat during hot sunny days.

As mentioned previously, the interesting bit for me is the animated information screen on the control panel; this shows the activity of the two pumps and the temperature displayed from the three sensors in the system: one at the solar collector, one at the top of the hot water storage tank, and one at the bottom of the tank. Over the past fortnight at the end of March 2010, with showers of rain and sleet, cold winds, the odd sunny spell and an ambient outside day-time temperature of 10C to 14C maximum, the hot water boiler hasn't even fired up for four days, the solar collector easily raising the water temperature at the bottom of the tank to 51C... And this is with the cold feed coming into the bottom of the tank at about 10C - 12C! Even on the grim and cloudy days of this early spring, the solar collector has managed to pre-heat the water at the bottom of the tank to between 25C - 30C, so reducing the amount of energy needed by the boiler to heat the water. So looking good so far. I'll be very interested to monitor the meter readings and energy bills though over the long term.

So would I recommend solar water heating? Definitely, but with some provisos. Financially: If you have an electric shower and don't use the bath much, it will take many years to pay for itself. We have a gravity-fed shower from the hot water tank, so are already reaping the benefits. Some sources quote savings on heating water of only £50 per year; I think this is pessimistic - and is also based on recent fuel prices. If we do only save £50 per year, it could take us over 60 years to recoup our costs - strewth! However, as we currently pay over £700 a year for our energy (so little you cry?), I am convinced that the savings for us will be much more than this. Does anyone believe fuel prices (Gas / Electric) will fall though? From a long-term viewpoint, I think we have made the right choice from both an environmental and financial stance. Better still for those thinking about it, grants for renewable and sustainable energy resources - including solar hot water systems - come on-line in 2011. We decided not to wait...

Oh and for those who didn't know, Khepri was the ancient Egyptian God of the rising or morning sun and Atum was the ancient Egyptian God of the evening or setting sun. Ra was of course the God of the noon-day sun.

Flying out the door...

2010-03-31T11:50:00.000-07:00

It is turning out to be a busy Easter for us.

Last Thursday evening we delivered a 20 litre box of our Sheep Wash cider to the The Hand & Heart on Derby Road in Nottingham NG1 5BA, on more of a trial basis than anything, to see how it would go down. Yesterday afternoon (Tuesday), the pub manager Austen phoned me to ask if he could have another two boxes as it had sold out already... Selling 20 litres of draught local cider in about four days is quite a result and we are well chuffed. All being well, Torkard Ciders will become a regular feature of the fare available at The Hand & Heart.

We delivered another box of Sheep Wash to the Talbot Taphouse on Butterly Hill in Ripley DE5 3LT this afternoon for their Easter 1st Taphouse Beer & Cider "Best in Cask" Festival, starting this Friday at 12 noon. Afterwards, Yarly (the mutt) and I went on a long circular walk around Felley Mill, over the fields and through the woods. While strolling along in the biting wind and sleet, I amused myself by trying to work out how we could all get to the Talbot Taphouse for their festival (they are a dog-friendly pub), as they also have on some of our favourite ales too: Thornbridge "Jaipur" and Whim "Hartington IPA" to name but two. The festival is also to celebrate "National Cask Ale Week" which is a good excuse (as if you need one...) for a pint of real ale.

Tomorrow I will be boxing-up two ciders for The Victoria Hotel, Dovecote Lane, Beeston NG9 1JG. The Victoria are also having a festival over Easter and have decided to try out our cider to see how it goes down with the festival goers and locals: fingers crossed... Landlord Graham has asked for two versions of Sheep Wash so I think it will be something dry-ish and something medium-ish - or maybe medium-sweet-ish.

Torkard Cider on the media trail...

2010-03-27T04:13:00.000-07:00

The last couple of weeks have been very busy for us from a local media point of view.

Budget day was the day when we were contacted twice by BBC Radio Nottingham for comments about the 10% plus inflation hike in cider duty. Typically, with it being a nice day and Gail having the day off, we had gone to Burnt Stump Country Park for a wander round, and to exercise and train the dog. So when my phone rang and the nice lady from BBC Radio Nottingham asked if they could interview me, and get some sound bites about the cider duty proposals in the Budget, I had no idea what she was on about as the Budget had not even been unveiled before we left home. Caught out there! However, by the time they phoned again for a live on-air interview around 6.00pm, I was genned-up and ready.

One question though: why, Why, WHY do radio interviewers insist on playing the Wurzel's song "I am a cider-drinker" and talking in a faux West-Country-yokel accent when interviewing people about cider? Grrrr! I find it really irritating and condescending - but of course, you laugh and smile politely and carry on through gritted teeth. Please try to find something else to play next time - and I am a Nottinghamshire cider-maker which is way away from the West Country - unless my geography is not what it is cracked up to be!

I'd much prefer a local dialect, like the "Erewash Valley" dialect from the Derby's / Nott's border where I grew up, which is much richer to my ears and brings back memories of my childhood / youth and listening to my dad's workmates from Sandiacre, Long Eaton and I'lson (Ilkeston to the uninitiated). So something like: "Aye up me duck, wot yer reckon t'budget then?" would be far more appealing to my ears!

We were also visited by Spyke Golding, chair of Nottingham CAMRA and editor of their excellent Branch magazine, who wanted to interview us for an article on local cider makers. They have a regular section on "Meet the Brewer", so we became the first subjects of a "Meet the Cider-Maker" article. The April/May 2010 issue containing the article can be found in many pubs around the locality, or you can read the article online at: Nottingham Drinker

Aaaargh! Where has the time gone...?

2010-03-26T11:54:00.000-07:00

Here we are at the end of March, spring is almost upon us - chronologically at least - and I haven't added anything to this blog since last December. Shame on me.

So much has happened it is difficult to know where to begin...?
How about snow; frost; snow; more snow; deeper snow; ice; burst pipe in cider shed; colder frost; frozen and cracked airlocks; snow..... I think you get the picture. The weather has really made life difficult in trying to get the trees planted up on the orchard, as we still have a lot of land to clear and trees to heavily prune and pollard. Still, the heeled-in trees look happily snug and smug in their little bed for the time being.

Santa came and brought me lots of goodies in the shape of three varieties of crab apple trees (from my mum) to aid pollination and to give us a range of edible crabs which we can mess about with. More about them later. My brother and sis-in-law brought me a Felco No. 8 pruner which is excellent, along with a Silky Fox 300mm Gomtaro Apple pruning saw - which is a bit frightening at the moment. However, both have already seen use in trying to bring some shape and structure back to our Stoke Red.

We have also invested in a mutt... Namely a "Lollie" which we have called "Yarly". I kid you not. A Lollie is a cross between a Labrador and a Border Collie (a sort of glorified mongrel if you like), and we have named her Yarly after our favourite cider apple, the Yarlington Mill. Yarly has really interesting colouring: her mother is a sleek black Labrador and her father is a chocolate-brown and white Border Collie, so Yarly has turned out silver-grey with black patterning which is the result of Blue Merle patterning from her father's Border Collie genes.

Yarly - The Movie. Cert: PG

On the home front, we have had a Solar Water Heating Panel installed on our roof which is already proving its worth - much to my surprise and amazement, I have to add. The bare bones of the installation involved a panel full of the evacuated-tube solar collectors, a much larger (and better insulated) hot water storage tank, a couple of pumps and motorsied valves - and a fascinating animated display panel (boys toys). It is amazing to see (and feel!) hot water being pumped from the collectors into the storage tank at over 45C when the outside ambient temp is only 14C... Our hot water boiler never even fired up yesterday - I can't wait until there is some proper spring and summer sunshine...

Our cider has started to go out - earlier than I'd really like, but the customer is (nearly) always right. Our first outing this year was at Chesterfield Beer Festival in February, where we trialled our new blend called "Sheep Wash". It was / is very young, but rather tasty. The cider and perry list was really impressive - as was the beer list - but we stuck to the great ciders and perries available and worked our way through the lot (apart from the couple of sickly-sweet ones and the Broadoak rubbish... ugh!). We were very surprised to find out from Trev, one of the organisers, that our 'Sheep Wash' cider was voted "Cider of the Festival" by the punters - great news! Another framed certificate to add to our "multi-award winning" portfolio of five winners.

We delivered a box of 'Sheep Wash' to the Hand & Heart pub on Derby Rd in Nottingham last night - our first pub outlet in the city. A lovely pub, great atmosphere, good food, good local real ales and two local ciders: ours and one from "Three Cats" across the border in Derbyshire. It is very pleasing to find publicans willing to wholeheartedly embrace local ales and local ciders! Well done.

Next week we are off to Ripley in Derby's to deliver our cider to the Talbot Taphouse, the brewery tap of Amber Ales. They are having a festival over the Easter weekend and have asked for our cider; hopefully it will go down well and they will want more over the coming warmer months.

Darn it to heck...

2009-12-18T07:29:00.000-08:00

Or more precisely, damn you Ashridge Trees!

I recieved a phone call yesterday telling me that the six "Sweet Alfords" we'd ordered from Ashridge Trees wouldn't be arriving on Monday after all. No, nothing to do with Santa or the current "heavy snow" (yeah, right. When I was a lad... etc. etc.). Not even Rudolf having a blow-out. No. Apparently "...the packer has made a mistake..."

So even though they'd been on order since June/July with my credit card details, they have disappeared into the ether due to some technical error of the human-counting / not-enough-fingers kind. Maybe they've found a new home somewhere in sunnier climes. Maybe they got a better offer. Maybe my order for six little trees wasn't important enough. Who knows. So now I'm wondering: do I hunt elsewhere for six little Malus Domestica Sweet Alford or just call it quits until next planting season...?

I have drowned my sorrows over the Sweet love affair that was never to be by doing a bit of bottling. Not for sale this time, just to give out to some of the neighbours as gifts in this time of giving. I'm still loath to part with it though... I need to get one to my doctor as well, as he has always shown great interest in my endeavours and encouraged me in these appley and cidery antics. Not to drink the stuff you understand, just to make it...

Meanwhile back at t'orchard the shed floor has had all the coats of heavy-duty floor paint it is going to get and the heeled-in trees are cold in the biting wind but their roots are snug in the earth. I'd like some nice dry-ish weather now, with a bit of sun so that I can get stuck-in.

We are on-line...

2009-12-11T12:32:00.000-08:00

No not the trees! Doesn't look like there are 53 trees in those two trenches does it? Popped up to the plot yesterday to paint the concrete floor of the shed and put a lick of preservative on the woodwork. Why? Because for the first time in what seems like ages, it wasn't raining or even cloudy - the sun shone, the sky was blue and it was lovely and pleasant to be out.

Not like today: frosty, cold, foggy first them misty and damp all day. So I've spent most of today trying to put a website together for Torkard Cider. And I did, and I have and we are all-systems go:

Torkard Cider is on-line!

We have lift-off, green for throttle up, etc. etc. etc.

Cooking with Cider

2009-12-09T22:59:00.000-08:00

Delia: Look away now...
Gordon: Don't even f****** go there!

Following our annual pilgrimage to Somerset to visit some of the many pukka cider-makers down there, we always return with a goodly selection of ciders in an assortment of containers. And unfortunately we often end up with a drop or two which are past their best; so these are used in cooking.

My cooking is based on the: if-it's-there-bung-it-in approach and frequent tasting.

This week I have mostly been using the slow-cooker: every lazy cook's dream...

Note that our slow-cooker is a 3-litre job, so provides at least four generous servings.

Cider braised vegetables
Gail came home with some venison sausages, so as these cook quickly, we used the slow-cooker to cook the veg ready for the evening meal. Our slow-cooker has the facility to be used on high or low heat, so I turned it to High, put a pat of garlic and herb butter in the crock and added about 1 pint / 500 ml of dry real cider. I suppose any dry or even medium cider would do at a push... I then added a bay leaf and plenty of black pepper, followed by a crumbled chicken stock cube. While the cider was heating through and the garlic butter melting, I sliced up some leeks, mushrooms, and potatoes (leaving the skins on), and diced some sweet-potato, carrots and swede. Any root veg will do really, though I tend to shy away from parsnips as their flavour can be a bit over-powering at times; for my tastes anyway. After stirring the cider and making sure the stock-cube had dissolved (a chopstick is great for this) the veg were tipped in, the lid added, the heat set to Low and left to it's own devices for around 8 hours - apart from the odd gentle swirl with the chopstick, that is. When the goode wyffe had returned from the office, the sausages were popped under the grill and as they cooked, a little blended cornflour and cider was stirred into the veg and cooking liquid to thicken it a little. The veg were lifted onto the plate with a slotted spoon, followed by the cooked sausages and some of the veg cooking liquor spooned over the top.

Spicy Cidery Beef
I can take or leave meat cooked in red wine. So when we picked up some diced beef during a recent shopping trip, I decided to experiment... In a large freezer bag, I placed four tablespoons of plain flour followed by two tablespoons each of mustard powder and ground dried ginger. This was topped off with a good pinch of salt and freshly ground black pepper. The bag was closed up and given a good shake to mix up the dry ingredients, then opened and the 450 g of diced beef tipped in. The whole lot was then given a very good shake to ensure the beef was well and truly coated with the spicy flour mix. In a large heavy pan I heated a knob of butter and a couple of tablespoons of olive oil, lifted the floured beef out of the bag onto a plate and then tipped the beef into the hot pan, tossing and turning until lightly browned. I added a couple of sliced onions, then tossed and turned the lot frequently until the onions were just starting to caramelise. I sprinkled over a little more of the left-over spicy flour mix from the bag, stirred and cooked this for a minute or so, then turned the lot out into the pre-warmed crock of the slow-cooker, which was set to Low. I put the pan back on the heat and in a little more olive oil, sweated a couple of fat peeled and crushed garlic cloves from the garden. I then added about a pint and half of dry cider and used this to de-glaze the pan, scraping any of the beef and onion cooking residue and flour mixture from the base and sides of the pan. After bringing the cider to the boil, the pan contents were added to the beef and onion in the slow-cooker, and thoroughly stirred in. This was followed by sliced leeks, carrots, parsnips and mushrooms, covered and left for 8 hours or so. After a thorough stir and checking the seasoning, we served the spicy cidery beef with mashed potatoes. It goes equally well with rice, or spooned over a jacket potato - we had this two nights on the trot. Comfort food. Yum.

Creamy Cidery Green Beans with Leeks
I love runner beans. I could eat them three-times-a-day between meals... However, the goode wyffe prefers more variety, so another experiment ensued. After preparing and slicing the runner beans as usual, they were tipped into a hot oily wok and tossed to coat them in oil. After a couple of minutes stir frying, a good splash of dry cider was added to the hot wok followed by some finely sliced leeks and more cider. As the cider evaporates, more is added to prevent any of the veg browning, the veg cooking through the steam of the cider rather than actually frying in oil. After a couple of minutes a few finely sliced mushrooms were added and, after a little more cider and stirring, the heat was reduced. When the veg were cooked through but still had a little bite, a small pot of soured cream was stirred in along with freshly ground black pepper and salt to taste. If required more cider can be added. These piquant creamy cidery green beans with leeks were served up with some oven-roasted belly pork slices which had been sprinkled with 5-Spice powder. Mmmmmm.

Heel, boy, heel!

2009-12-09T00:50:00.000-08:00

Get 'em in...

The weekend was spent digging a couple of long trenches on our plot so that we could heel-in the apple trees, along with the two Denniston's Superb gage and two Merryweather damson trees. We hoped to get it done in one day, but the twitch and briar roots made it very heavy going, so we had to split the task into two sessions.

I wish now that I had saved some of the briar stumps for seasoning and carving - I well remember my brother in his smoking days having a Peterson pipe with a briar bowl. I bought it him for Christmas when he was about 19 or so and he liked the "Sherlock Holmes" style and image of pipe. Mind you, with the amount of briars still to be dug out, I think I'll have plenty to choose from... I can also remember the fascination of being introduced to such terms as "Whisky Flake", "Ready Rubbed" and "Rough Shag"... Ooo-err! Not Finnbarr Saunders, but of course terms used for types of tinned pipe tobacco. I still have some of Mike's old tobacco tins, full of rusting fishing tackle.

So I wielded the spade and dug the earth out onto a plastic sheet, while Gail forked through the solid blocks of black, root-locked soil and teased out the masses of briar, nettle and dock roots. We then placed the young trees into the trench at an angle of about 45 degrees to the leeward and sifted the soil over the bare roots of the saplings. We didn't have to water the plants in - the teeming rain did that for us. Oh, the joys...

Next-door plot tenant and good-old-boy Charlie came round to see what we were up to and had kindly bought us half-a-dozen fresh eggs from his chickens as a thank-you for the many bags of spent apple pomace or apple-cake we had dropped off for him. His chickens like to root around in it and he is composting some of the rest. Charlie had also spotted something in the hedgerow of our plot and asked if he could help himself...? He came back a few minutes later with a handful of Lepista Nuda - Wood Blewits or Blewies to you and I.

In fact, our plot is covered with fungi of all sorts and I'd not spotted the Blewies. I have often toyed with the idea of joining a mushroom foraging group - I've got a few books about identifying, collecting and cooking with muzzers, but I think you need to be out with an expert or three to know what you are doing. Wouldn't do to inadvertently pick an Amanita such as Death's Cap or Destroying Angel. No no.

So the next task is to attack the remaining areas of the plot now that the briars, nettles, willows, birch and other assorted undergrowth are dying back. The forecast is for a few good frosts, so hopefully this will expedite matters. We spent some time on Sunday deciding which existing trees will need pollarding to open up the canopy and to allow us to set about improving the remaining two hedges and boundaries. We also need to sort out the two large, old apple trees; one definitely needs a hair-cut, whereas the other needs the removal of a large bough which has grown out over the plot. A "Hucknall Chainsaw Massacre" is imminent.

Pressing...

We are still milling and pressing, and with the arrival of our new Vigo press, we are now much more efficient at turning fruit into juice. I am hoping to go and pick up some Vilberie bittersweet cider apples from good friends Mark and Karen at Rockingham Forest Cider which we are going to ferment separately and blend to add some tannin to some of our cider. Vilberies are a French variety that mature very late and are rich in tannin to help give body, and the dry-mouth finish so often found in real ciders.

We have been very surprised by our results so far this season, some of our juice has the potential of producing an ABV of over 9% - and remember this is without the addition of any sugar or anything else, just the product of the natural pure apple juice. Better keep that a secret from the Tory knee-jerk reactionists who are planning to raise the tax on anything over 5.5% ABV to stop "binge-drinking" and alcohol abuse by teenagers, and the under-age. What about the rest of us who don't binge-drink and are not under 18?

Queen's Head, Watnall, Nottingham (-ish)

2009-12-05T05:22:00.000-08:00

Just thought I'd better mention the "Beer in the Tent" festival being held at The Queen's Head, Watnall, from the 10th to the 13th December, 2009.

This will see almost the last of our 2008 ciders: "Floppy Tabs" and "Heritage Orchard" available to the general public. We have supplied F.T. as a medium-dry and back-sweetened H.O. to a medium-ish taste. I really like the Heritage Orchard now, it has matured into a crystal-clear tangy and tasty cider with many subtle flavour levels. OK, I'll stop "doing a Jilly" and I know it's not-on to compliment your own stuff, but... well I am reluctant to let it go!

Click here for a link to the Queen's Head website and full details of the festival. You can find the Queen's Head at: 40, Main Road, Watnall, Nottingham NG16 1HT, at the side of the B600.

Tree planting time...

2009-12-05T04:16:00.000-08:00

Here we go, here we go, here we go....

Santa has come early this year (though the Tooth-fairy was late for my Birthday), but not in time for us to take part in the "Tree O Clock" planting today. Probably more due to my forgetting when it was... treeoclock

Anyway, pictured above are the parcels that Santa dropped off on his way to the North Pole to finish pressy-wrapping. In those parcels are:

6 x Foxwhelp

6 x Kingston Black

6 x Brown's Apple

6 x Major

6 x Herefordshire Redstreak

6 x Tommy Rodford

3 x Sops in Wine

3 x Hangy Down

3 x Katy

3 x Tom Putt

and 1 x Tremlett's Bitter (to replace a casualty...)

There are also two Dennsiton's Superb Gage trees and two Merryweather Damson trees = pies!!!

So although we have missed the Tree O Clock planting record, we hope to show that we are holding our end up. However it doesn't end there, as we are awaiting to hear if our order for 6 x Sweet Alfords will bear fruit, but we don't expect to hear news from that until later this month or into January 2010. We also have the 6 x Dabinetts that have been happily growing-on in pots to take to their new home.

So if my maths is correct, we have at least 59 - and a maximum of 65 - trees to plant. Phew! First though we are going to heel them all in so that we can lift and position at our leisure, as we still have more than half of the plot to clear of brambles, willows, birch and nettles.

Talking of leisure, it will be something I am likely to have a lot of in the future as I am in the process of leaving the teaching profession after 29-odd years at The Chalk Face, man and boy. Our new shed is up, and the barbecue, table and chairs are already in - I am a great believer in priorities! - so I am likely to be spending a lot of time there from now on while Gail remains at work keeping me in the manner to which I have become accustomed.

All I need now is a puppy, so that man and dog can sit munching sausage sarnies while gazing out over the growing apple trees...

Blimey!

2009-09-19T04:29:00.000-07:00

Where did the summer go?

More likely, I didn't realise it was so long since I last posted anything on here! Holidays, working full-time, and building and planting have so occupied our time that writing anything on here has been low on my "list of things to do"...

Anyway, a quick update on the past two months:

France. Cidre. Spain. Sidra. Planting trees. Weedkilling. Mowing. Moorgreen Show. Cider-Shed altering. Cider-Shed adapting. Environmental Health. Local Council. Spending lots of money we don't have... Installing permanent water supply. Installing electricity supply. Stainless steel. Planting more trees. Radio Mansfield 103.2. Interviews. A & GCSE Results. OFSTED. More pressure. More stress. Harvesting. Pressing.

Phew! I'll go into detail later when I have time (Yeah! Right! As if!!!). Mind you, I am enrolled on a Retirement Planning course in a couple of months time, so who knows?

"Floppy Tabs" has been our best seller and is very popular; we finally were presented with our fourth CAMRA "Cider of the Festival" certificate for Mansfield Beer & Cider Festival where FT received almost as many votes as the winning beer! Ha! We were well chuffed. At Moorgreen Show, our ciders were the first to sell out: FT first, followed by our "Heritage Orchard" single-orchard cider.

On a parallel note, due to some difficulties in obtaining what we wanted for the Cider & Perry bar at Moorgreen Show and some slight hiccups with the order, we ended up with mainly Dry and Medium-Dry ciders and perries. We only had 3 out of the total of 20 which came anywhere near Medium-Sweet, and nothing really Sweet at all. Did that stop folks enjoying their ciders and perries? Not at all!!! We managed to find something to suit everyone and had totally sold-out by closing time on Bank Holiday Monday. Don't let anyone tell you that folks young and old will only drink sweet ciders - utter codswallop! And don't forget that this was a mainly Horticultural show, with a very wide mix of folks - not a cider-tickers CAMRA festival.

We pressed our first fruit of the year (season?) last weekend, a mixed bag of our own Tom Putts and windfalls, plus a couple of carrier bags of Conference pears from Mark at work, and a bag of John Downie crabs from our friends Paul and Julia. The juice was absolutely wonderful and fragrant, and had less acidity and a higher Gravity than I expected (Ph 3.1; SG 1052). I have long been tempted to let the fermentation naturally run it's course without adding anything at all - so with just 5 gallons of juice, I thought why not?

The photo above shows the surface of the juice after just four days: a fine mousse of froth showing that something is happening... The smell is still fresh and fruity so I am hoping that the fermentation that I am seeing is due to the desireable strains of Saccharomyces cerevisiae (yeast) that live on apples and produce fruity and cidery-type flavours.

If not, I could be in trouble...

We have also started our 2009 "Damson Vodka" off, with a few litre "Kilner" jars slowly filling with lovely ruby-red juice. It's been a great year for Damsons. I have also just bottled some Damson Vodka, Raspberry Vodka and my special Damson & Clove Vodka that has been maturing in the cool and dark for the last few years - at least 5 years we reckon (forgot to label it...). Whatever, it is super stuff and really smooth. Ready for long cold nights by the log burner...

Our autumn-fruiting raspberries are loaded this year, many going to the wasps or falling to the floor before we can pick them. More Raspberry Vodka perhaps...? Hmmm... My mum came up to see me earlier in the month and we went up to our plot to pick Blackberries - another fruit that has done really well this year. We picked about 10lbs between the two of us (and throwing the ball for the dog - the eponymous "Floppy Tabs" AKA: Shambles.)

The hedges around our plot were groaning with big juicy blackberries; I must plant some damsons, we already have Sloes (Blackthorn) but I've had to hack them back this year to bring the hedges under control. We have two old trees on the plot which we inherited: one is very ancient and at some point has been grafted over to 3 different varieties, while the other is some form of wilding. The 3-in-1 has Bramleys plus some other unknown cooker and an unknown eater, while the wilding may well prove very interesting... more on that later.

Whatever, my mum went home with bags of windfalls from the two trees to make Apple and Blackberry pies and lots of apple-sauce.

The Cider Workshop...

2009-07-15T13:20:00.000-07:00

Will the real: The Cider Workshop please stand up?

As you trawl round the internet, you can come across all sorts of domain names and titles for websites, groups, etc. etc. Sometimes the websites are real and as expected, but sometimes they are devious traps set by the calculating to catch out the unwary. Occasionally they are there to trick you into parting with your hard-earned money and are therefore blatantly illegal.

However, there are some folks who go out of their way to trick you into logging-on to their site just for getting hits and to stop you accessing the site you may want to get to. I'm not talking about porn or major crime here - just cider. Maybe it's driven by fear or something to hide. Or from having made a mistake but not being prepared to admit it. Or maybe being totally wrong but being unable to see anyone else's point of view?

Some months ago, a few like-minded and democratic cider-makers got together after being blocked from and effectively kicked-out of the on-line cider group they belonged to. They were ex-communicated by the group and websites owner, Andrew Roberts, because they stood up for one another, dared to speak their minds, believed in open and free-speech - and believed that campaigning and fighting for real cider and real perry was best carried out on a variety of fronts. Well the latter is fine in a democracy or where you think you have a voice and a say, but not in an autocracy where one person thinks their word is the only way: a despot.

So one by one, all the free-thinking and long-standing members of this cider group - which claims to be (quote) "...the main body representing real cider enthusiasts and small producers in the UK..." (unquote) - left because of their own frustrations at seeing free-speech crushed and fellow cider enthusiasts ejected from the group just for mentioning other groups with similar and roughly parallel aims. It soon became clear that Andrew Roberts lives in a virtual world - not a real one - when it comes to talking about, having knowledge of, and campaigning for real cider and real perry. He doesn't make the stuff, just drinks it and pontificates about it.

So the free-thinking cider-makers and enthusiasts got together and set-up their own group. It was democratic from the start, involving a small group of people from across the globe who not only drank real cider and perry but most importantly, made it. This small group quickly flourished and soon encompassed a wide range of very expert and knowledgeable people, often because they had also been blocked from ukcider - for that is what the old, dying group was called - for flirting with or daring to join the new kid on the block: The Cider Workshop.

Now it is quite common for a number of on-line groups to exist side-by-side and share membership and knowledge - car clubs for instance. The Cider Workshop hoped to do just that and collaborate with ukcider - but unfortunately Andrew Roberts was having none of this and so started a "Cider Workshop" war. Someone has joined the Cider Workshop discussion google group under the false and misleading name of "CiderWorkshop" - originally it was "Wokshop" but we won't hold that against him - and is using the false email address of: ciderworkshop@google.com Now who would do that if they didn't have something to hide? This person has been asked to use a username which cannot be confused with the real admin side of the real and genuine The Cider Workshop - but they have refused. Now why is that? Who could want to cause mischief by pretending they are something that they are not? Some have suggested that it must be Mr Andrew Roberts, but that remains to be proved. But their actions are certainly devious and, most suspect, ultimately malicious. The posts which emanate from this character are also bizarre.

It gets worse... If you google "ciderworkshop" you'll will get lots and lots of hits that lead you back to... yes, you've guessed it: ukcider or, surprisingly Mr Andrew Roberts; he even uses a photo of himself alongside the name "Cider Workshop" on sites like the knol and edocr. Now why is that when he has nothing whatsoever to do with The Cider Workshop - unless it is intentional of course.

Andrew Roberts also uses "CiderWorkshop" on twitter - why, when "his" website is ukcider? Unless he is out to deliberately deceive and undermine any attempts to get a truly democratic and friendly cider discussion group and cider resource site, up and running? Some may claim that Mr Roberts is afraid of any competition whatsoever. I'm sure that deep inside he is so concerned with promoting real cider and real perry in the UK, that he is more than happy to let ukcider stand on it's own without trying to prop it up with false domain names and false links to lead all searches to ukcider.

Oh, I mentioned edocr earlier. I hear on the grapevine (not sure whether it is true or not) that my good friend Rose Grant is very unhappy that Andrew Roberts appears to have lifted some of her work from her own blog without permission in order to post it elsewhere in connection with his name and links to ukcider? (Alongside tags falsely leading to "ciderworkshop" of course. By falsely, read "to ukcider"). I do understand though that Rose's argument is over moral and intellectual rights seeing as she wrote the blog herself in her own style. Is nothing sacred? Plagiarism is a very low act indeed.

But plagiarism and cloning are exactly what you will find on ukcider's wiki it seems. Many folks tried to remove their work when leaving the group, deleting it en masse - but it has miraculously reappeared it seems. There has been the odd clumsy attempt to re-write stuff, but unfortunately the names of the recently departed are still to be seen attached to articles which they thought they'd deleted. It is very easy to spot re-written articles when they are re-written by someone who personally seems to know very little about the subject in hand.

Allegedly a number of providers and web owners have removed some of these false links set up by Andrew Roberts to ukcider which purported to be links to The Cider Workshop group and website. Likewise, someone hiding behind the logo of ukcider has been attempting to get permission to use photographs from the flickr website under the false user name of "Cider Workshop". Now who could that be...? Answers on a postcard to....

The Cider Workshop goes live...

2009-06-04T10:58:00.000-07:00

Well, sort of...

At long last a cider site which is free and caring-and-sharing has come on-line. No hang-ups, no dictator-ish blocking of posts and posters, and no paranoid personalities to split a once-friendly bunch into a schism. Just a bunch of folks who want to be free to discuss real cider, how to make it, where to drink it, how to improve it, what apples to grow, etc. etc. etc.

This very friendly co-operative group of like minded individuals goes under the title of The Cider Workshop http://ciderworkshop.com/ and is the brainchild of an evil genius who was dismayed to see folks with passion drifting away from a common cause. He single-handed (well, almost) brought the throng together to give life to a simple shed next to an apple tree or two...

Come along and join us if you have an interest in apples, pears, apple trees, pear trees, cider, perry, or any combination of the six...

What more could a girl ask for?

2009-05-25T14:02:00.000-07:00

The ideal start to wedded life...

The day after we got married, we (ie: I...) decided that we really needed to get up onto our plot to tidy up a little and carry out some weed maintenance. Due to going away for our honeymoon imminently and the poor wet weather we've been having recently, the plot would be left to it's own devices for longer than I cared for.

I was also very keen to try out our new petrol mower, with the biggest diameter cut I could get my hands on that wasn't a ride-on mower. To be honest, I'd been hanging my nose over ride-on mowers and little tractors for some months - but then I thought about my waistline and my doctors advice regarding exercise, and thought the extra exercise of walking behind a mower would be good for me. Never mind the £700-odd saving we would make on our new wee beastie.

It was good to see everything green, but the nettles had grown at an amazing pace. Gail was let loose with the Ryobi Expand-It with the hedge -trimmer attachment first to trim the Hawthorn hedge, while I got the McCulloch mower off the trailer and fired it up for the first time. The mower has a 3-in-1 feature which means it can be used with a large grass box, as a mulching mower or with the side-eject chute which I chose to use.
I was very conscious of losing all of the goodness contained in the green vegetable matter that I was mowing so I think the side-eject chute will be its normal mode of operation. With it on its highest setting, I was soon making short work of the grass and weeds. Gail converted the Ryobi to Brush-Cutter mode and started to attack the bigger stands of nettles while I moved onto the grass lane outside to mow our "patch" and mulch up the cuttings that Gail's hedge trimming activities had left behind. Everything started to look pretty tidy quite quickly. I met up with plot neighbours Charlie and Judy while chugging up and down the green lane, and they were far more interested in whether we had consummated the marriage yet rather than how well the day had gone...

A more serious task to be undertaken was another assault on the Japanese Knotweed that we had inherited with the plot. It has already cost us quite a few pounds in weedkillers, mainly Glyphosate-based types and the effect of these was slowly making itself apparent. However, we have heard on the grapevine that some people are taking an active interest in the Knotweed - surprisingly no one seemed bothered about it until we took the plot over... - so we are feeling the pressure to get rid of this alien monster before it has any chance of spreading. Not that we aren't working on the problem already, of course! As usual, I just wish folks would come and talk to us about what we are already doing and have done, rather than spreading gossip and panic about this Triffid-like invader of our shores.
It was time to start playing Dr. Death - or Dr. Kildare - take your pick... I'd bought some Ammonium Sulphate systemic weedkiller that targets the roots in a similar way to the Glyphosate-based products. We've used this stuff before and it is very effective, but you need to get it inside the plant to be really effective. I mixed up a very strong solution of the weedkiller, suitably protected with surgical gloves, and then loaded up the syringe.

As the stems of Knotweed are hollow, the theory is that you inject a strong solution of a systemic weedkiller directly into one of these stem chambers. The problem I quickly found was that the pressure build-up inside the chamber is quite considerable! To overcome this, I first pushed the needle all the way through the stem and then pulled it back halfway; the stream of air-bubbles followed by weedkiller emerging from the far side of the stem told me when the chamber was full - or there abouts. The larger diameter stems would quickly take all 20ml that the syringe would hold without any sign of being full. The downside to my Dr. Death machinations was the sheer number of stems. Within an hour I was longing for one of the mass-inoculation kits that vets and farmers use on livestock, or better still one of the high-tech versions as demonstrated on Star Trek...

While injecting away like it was going out of fashion, I came across a number of stems clearly affected by our previous treatments; the walls of the stems were very thin and soft, and the new leaf growth was much smaller, very distorted and sickly-looking. I hope that when we return from our short break there will be much greater evidence of this.

After two hours of injecting, I began to realise I should have brought a can of spray-paint with me to mark the stems treated. Its amazing how the stems all look alike. Once you've seen one...

Everythings coming up... green?

2009-05-23T03:10:00.000-07:00

1st Movement...

I am very pleased that after a couple of months of worry and sleepless nights, that a couple of projects appear to be nearing fruition. In the front garden, the half-standard Dabinett has finally started to show signs of life with fresh green growth bursting out of the once-dormant buds.

The Dabinetts that have been resident in the back garden for some years now have finished blossoming and so we were starting to worry a little about our new baby. However, the new Dabinett whips that we potted up are also very slow in coming forward, in fact they are only just starting to show signs of life. I wondered whether it was the soil or lack of sunshine - or even if the roots had drowned in all the rain...

2nd Movement...

Eureka! For the first time ever, I attempted to graft something. Phill from South Wales sent me three cuttings that he had spare, to have a go at grafting myself.

I had a few self-sets of apple tree seedlings coming up in various places around the garden, from some of the spent pomace that got scattered around, so these would provide my rootstocks for this venture. Unfortunately, either the hated neighbour's cats or the even-more-hated pigeons seem to have dealt a death blow to the Frederick graft, which I found separated into two parts on the ground. So it was up to the Pig Aderyn or the Cummy Norman to spark into life to prove that I could actually create a chimera... Frankenstien has nothing on me!

I am happy to report that the Cummy Norman has sprouted, as can be seen in the above photo. Yes! I'm glad it did, for it's name as much as anything! The Pig Aderyn unfortunately is still showing no real sign of life, though one of the buds remains swollen and glossy. Time will tell, but I feel like an expectant father.

Finale...
Yummy yum yum yum! May I introduce you to our Wedding Cake?

Yep today is the day that Gail and I are getting married - it is also Gail's birthday, so a double celebration. This is the mother of all wedding cakes for two chocoholics who also make and drink cider!

We knew that we didn't want a traditional wedding cake and had always joked that we would have a chocolate one. So I had a word with Helen, one of our technicians at work who makes cakes in her spare time, to see if she could help us out? We left her pretty much with free reigns, the only thing we wanted was one layer to be dark and bitter chocolate for Gail and I to pig out on, and a second layer to be a sweeter milk chocolate layer for all the others...

So this superb piece of culinary artistry is the result. Is that a cake or is that a cake?

The little apples are marzipan, the stalks are cloves; feel free to decide upon your own variety of apple that they represent. What more could you wish for, for a cider makers wedding cake?

Rail Ale

2009-05-17T03:01:00.000-07:00

A bus man's holiday...

We had a good time yesterday at the Rail Ale Festival at Barrow Hill Roundhouse, near Chesterfield. Travelling by train from home via Nottingham was fine, but the free bus service from Chesterfield train station to Barrow Hill was overloaded - I don't think they quite expected the numbers who turned up. A couple of blokes behind us in the very long queue for the bus mentioned getting a taxi but were concerned about the cost - so we volunteered to split the cost with them. £2 each for a quick comfy trip and to save us standing in the cold wind and rain for another hour was a bargain!

A couple of the ciders had already sold out by the time we arrived at about 12.45pm, so we started off by going for the ones we really wanted to try - or those with a high ABV as these are usually the ones to go first. What is it about ABV-tickers? After two or three to set my palate, I always like to try our own when it is on. This might seem strange but when we are blending our ciders, it is sometimes difficult to judge it in isolation, so a taste comparison with a range of other ciders is always worth it. Plus we have to check that it has travelled well - Quality Control and Quality Assurance and all that...

We needn't have worried as our "Floppy Tabs" blend stood up very well against the others. It was also selling very fast. In fact we were surprised by just how many folks were drinking cider and perry; not in a get-it-down-yer-neck way, but clearly discussing and enjoying what was on offer. As the afternoon wore on, the sky cleared and the sun came out so we migrated out into the sun. We met up with our friends Paul and Julia, Carl and David, and later Andy and Julie, though Andy had a shift to work behind the bars.

I enjoyed the Green Valley "Rum Tiddly Tum" rum-cask cider (very rum-my), the Orchard Pig Dry and the Westcroft "Janet's Jungle Juice" - the latter also being really dry for once. Hurrah! We are fans of Westcroft ciders and like to visit when in Somerset, but at festivals J's J.J. is nearly always medium-sweet or sweet, rarely medium and we've never come across it dry unless we fetch it ourselves. It's a great pity as it is best appreciated dry when it's depth of flavour and subtle apple notes can shine through. Yum yum.

A disappointment was the Prinknash cider dated at 2004 - how would a cider stored for 5 years stand up? Not very well and I found finishing the half quite a challenge. It had a strange mouldy-mushroom taste that was not pleasant and I guess this meant it had not been aged in stainless steel, but had been aged in wood and possibly not a sterile barrel at that. There was also a distinct nose and after-taste of acetaldehyde - the sort of smell you associate with sherry - which pointed to a level of contact with air. Oh well, least I can say I've tried it.

Our "Heritage Orchard" blend was also on, but it was tucked under the bottom shelf being held back. About 4.30pm, I got a text from Carl saying that the Heritage Orchard was being put on, that folks were queuing up for it and that it was "flying out". This was the first time we'd let any of the Heritage Orchard out, so I was eager to see how it stacked up against "the opposition". I needn't have worried, as it was very good indeed - so I had another... Sounds a little incestuous, but I had tasted everything else that was left.

After a few more repeat ciders and trying some of the best pork scratchings I've ever had, it was time to go to get the bus to the station and the train home. Carl had bought us a bag of pork scartchings as an early wedding present! As we walked past the cider and perry bar, there was hardly anything left so we were glad we had chosen the Saturday afternoon slot again. The bar staff were having to tip our box up, so we knew that wouldn't last long either. I doubt there would be any cider or perry left for the evening session.

Back in Nottingham, we had 55 minutes to wait for the train home so decided to take the tram and stop off at The Lion at Basford. Nice pub, interesting decor and a nice mix of folks inside. However, we were disappointed to find the only cider on offer was Black Rat, a Thatcher's clone, not a patch on the old Mole's version but still tasty enough and better than many real ciders you'll find on a bar. The real ale selection was much better and though I was tempted with one at 10% ABV, I decided to be safe and go with a Castle Rock Harvest Pale, while Gail had the Black Rat.

Mu-wha-hahahaha!

2009-05-16T01:48:00.000-07:00

Death becomes you...

Pretty sinister title and image - and what the hell has this got to do with cider?

Well, we are currently having a battle with the dreaded Japanese Knotweed which was present on our proto-orchard when we took it over, in three large clumps and is busily spreading itself around, even though it is costing us an arm-and-a-leg in weedkiller to try to kill it off... I don't particularly like using lots of weedkiller so we have had to look for alternative methods. The law with what you can and can't do when you have this stuff on "your" land is pretty tough and tight, so we have to act before it spreads onto anyone elses plot.

Reading up on t'interweb, I came across an explanation of how some folks have found injecting weedkiller directly into the fat fleshy stems of Fallopia japonica is a very good method of destroying it and of course, limits both the spread of and contamination caused by the weedkiller. Hence the syringe and hypodermic needle. I'll have to be careful with this though, don't want any accidents...

The needle is actually blunt and we use them at work for applying solvent cements to bond plastics such as PMMA (Acrylic) together.

This will have to wait though, as we are off to catch the train to Nottingham and hence to Chesterfield for the Rail Ale Festival at Barrow Hill. The cider and perry list is very good - but so is the beer list! Decisions, decisions...

Dabinett shows it's colours

2009-05-12T23:29:00.000-07:00

Could it finally be...?
Yes, I think it is! The new Dabinett in the front has finally started to show a little bit of green growth. To be honest, I had a hard job finding it, but it is definitely there so I can stop worrying so much. All I need to do now is ensure that some pesky caterpillar doesn't nibble it off or that the ants don't shepherd a herd of grazing aphids along to bleed it to death.

Bob update...
Bob has flown the nest with his brood. Awww. Sad to see them go as I'll miss the cheeky chappy chuntering at me as I plodded around the garden. Mayhaps he'll be back with Bobess to start another brood before the summer's out?

Linking up...
Just got a private message from a guy on the SeatCupra.net forum (for SEAT car owners btw) whose name is Matt, who also makes cider and wants some advice. I'm not the only loony on the SEAT owners site then... Must remember to get back to him, though things are terribly busy at the moment, both at'mill and back at the ranch.

Need to get off to The Arkwright Arms tonight to drop off four boxes of cider - two for the Arkers and two for the Rail Ale bash at Barrow Hill this weekend. Mind you, can't go there until we've been to the photographers to discuss the photos and arrangements for our up-coming wedding - only a week and a bit away. Yikes! Now what have I forgotten to do.......

Is it Spring yet?

2009-05-10T05:02:00.000-07:00

Busy, busy, busy...
What a month it's been so far -and we are only just into it. Strong, cold winds and heavy rain, the odd touch of frost; I think April must be a month late. Still, my grandad used to quote: "Ne'er cast a clout 'til May be out" so I reckon he must have been right. Mind you, it's been tough on the wildlife. I managed to capture our resident Great Tit (Coal Tit?) loading up with calories on the home-made fat and oats cake that we tie around the trunk of the Stoke Red at the top of the garden. It was a cold and miserable day with driving rain. We've called him: "Bob" (said in a Rowan Atkinson / Black Adder sort of way...). As we have no idea which is female and which is male, they are both "Bob" or maybe "Bob-ess". Whatever, they obviously have a good brood judging by the noise from the nest box.

Bees are another matter, with no honey-bees sighted so far. However, we have got a few bumble-bees around and plenty of wild bees. We have a small exposed earth bank at the bottom of the garden and this attracts all sorts of solitary and (I think) masonry bees; they appear to be attracted to the exposed clay layer, into which some of them have tunnelled. Whatever, they do seem to pay a visit to the apple blossom which is great to see.

They are also breeding as can be seen from this "bee porn" pic here, where a couple of them are having a good time amongst the blossom on the Dabinett espalier...

Less good is the apparent lack-of-life exhibited by the new Dabinett that we've planted on the front. It's been in the ground for 6 or 7 weeks now, but there is absolutely no sign of any life, bud-burst or anything. I'll keep my fingers crossed, but my hopes are fading.

More shed action...
Work on the Cider Shed continues, this time we've added insulation to the inside of the roof. Not to keep heat in necessarily, but to keep the heat out! On a sunny day, the heat radiating from the metal roof is quite impressive - even when its windy and the air temperature is low. We opted for the stuff designed for use behind radiators or inside lofts - sort of a large bubble-wrap with a shiny foil skin. We've mounted it foil-side up and its proving very effective. The pic shows the job half done.

The smooth plastic surface on the inside (underside) should also be fairly easy to clean and the air space between insulation and roof provides good ventilation. Next is to add the lighting and power sockets.

Down on the floor of the shed, we've been racking and blending using the new pump.

I knocked up a simple MDF trolley at work, and after a coat or three of varnish and a couple of wheels from Machine Mart, it was ready to go. I raided my "gash-box" for some suitable wire, an in-line fuse holder, surface-mount box and a light switch, and after mounting the 12 volt pump and connecting up the pipe work, it started to look the biz. We have a couple of heavy-duty 12 volt deep-cycling batteries that we use in the caravan and for the van winch, so it was a simple job of attaching the battery clamps and flicking the switch.

It is very quiet in operation and very powerful. We pumped fresh water through first, then some sterilising solution, followed by more fresh water and then it was into the cider vats. The last metre or so of each pipe is actually a rigid plastic pipe and this makes controlling the pipe over the sediment (or lees) very simple. This racking also gave us time to have a taste-test and decide on which container should be blended with which. We have to get some ready before mid-week to go to the Rail Ale festival at Barrow Hill, Chesterfield.

New label

2009-05-03T03:16:00.001-07:00

Heritage Orchard is ready to go...

I couldn't sleep yesterday morning. I think I'm becoming an insomniac - or maybe it's just the things going off elsewhere on the web, where someone with no integrity and too much ego is trying really hard to pass other's work off as his own and who truly believes that he is the sole arbiter of all things cidery....

So I got up and started to play around at producing the new label for our "Heritage Orchard" blend which is coming on nicely. This is the cider we made exclusively from the wide range of apples we collected from John Hempsall's Heritage Orchard last year.

Without wanting to sound immodest, I'm quite happy with it as a first attempt and it prints off really well. It needs a tweak here and there to comply with regulations, but otherwise it's good to go! I need to go round and see John first, and drop off a sample - if he doesn't like it or it doesn't meet his expectations, he might not want his name on it!

New kid on the block...

Due to a whole heap of unhappiness and unrest in the virtual-cider-world (see above), a number of key players have left the site about cider in the uk (which claims erroneously to be the "main body" representing cider makers and drinkers in the uk...). This has resulted in a new forum-based site being set up: http://www.ciderperry.co.uk/

It is very early days yet, but go check it out.

Out and about

2009-04-25T00:41:00.000-07:00

The Invaders...
Nothing nasty though, but as I was messing around under the Royal Somerset sharp apple tree t'other day, there was an unholy racket coming from over my head. Looking up, I saw a small bird with a beak full of wriggling grubs watching me closely - and complaining bitterly about my presence. Coal Tit or Great Tit? Not sure. Whatever, after a moment or two (still watching my every move) it flew over and into a nesting box that we have mounted on the side of the house. Now this nesting box is allegedly a Sparrow box, having three entrances and compartments adjacent to one another, but it has been empty and unused for some 3 or 4 years now. No longer!

I'm getting quite used to our residents and hopefully, they will to me bustling around "the estate". At the moment though, every time they spot me, they start loudly complaining. It is good to see them searching around the apple trees with great diligence and I hope that they are leaving the spiders and lacewing larvae alone, and instead going for any aphids, scale-insects and caterpillars that may be getting ready to dine out on my apples. I'm going to set the camera up and try to get a photo of one of them diving in and out of the nest box. Watch this space.

Real Cider comes to Hucknall...
Hurrah! Finally one of our local pubs has opted to try a box of real Nottinghamshire cider made on its doorstep. The landlord and a party of regulars popped up to the Mansfield Festival and tried our cider; one of them, Lee, took a particular shine to our cider and took the details back to Hucknall with him. The result is that The Flying Bedstead on Watnall Road, Hucknall, is the first Hucknall pub to feature a cider made in Hucknall, from fruit grown in and around Hucknall. We dropped the cider off yesterday evening and Jacqui, the landlady, is going to let us know how the regulars get on with it and give us any feedback. It will be interesting to hear what the locals think of a local real cider.

Dog on the loose

2009-04-06T03:16:00.000-07:00

Those ears are unleashed...
Mansfield CAMRA Beer & Cider Festival has now finished and while we recover from four days of hard work and mayhem, we can look back at what was a very successful festival for both us and the Cider & Perry Bar.

We decided (well, I did...) to name our newest cider blend after my mum's dog. Well, not the whole of the dog actually, but her ears! "Shambles" is the moniker given to this young Welsh Border Collie who is a bundle of hyper-active fun and fur. To all intents and purposes she looks like any other Border Collie - apart from those tabs! They are on the large side, to put it mildly and are more like semaphore signalling equipment. I have never seen a dog with such expressive and mobile ears, which are capable of any number of permutations of movement and terpsichorean abandonment. Imagine a Basset Hound's ears on speed and you pretty much get the picture...

The name was also an antidote to all the folks who cannot say: Torkard. Now they could just ask for "floppy tabs", "tabs", "the one with the dog", or most amusingly, stand in front of the bar flicking their ears. We sold out of the first container by 9.00 pm-ish on the Friday night so took another container along on the Saturday - this second one was empty by 8.00pm. A number of folks took carry-outs of Floppy Tabs away with them too.

The cider itself has a character that matches the dog - lively, young, sharp, complex and refreshing. I think the only thing missing is the agility, which my niece Katie takes Shambles for every Sunday...

Another First for the Mansfield Festival was the promotion of local ciders, under the NearCide banner. I'd tried to assemble a few East Midlands Ciders to show folks that real, good-quality cider is available almost on your doorstep, if you look for it. To this end we had Three Cats from Derbyshire, Skidbrooke from Lincolnshire, Rockingham Forest from Northamptonshire and our own Torkard from Nottinghamshire. The idea is to have something for ciders and perries which parallels the LocAle concept for Real Ales. The ciders generated a lot of interest and questions, and I hope that folks will be spurred on to find out more.

Mark from Rockingham Forest came along on the Friday afternoon for a sampling and a chin-wag. He also kindly brought along three other local ciders that he'd discovered while working out around Spalding in Lincolnshire. They are from three small producers but showed that good quality cider is available at a very local level, with all the carbon-footprint and food-mile benefits that such enterprises entail. I wish them all well. I really enjoyed the Spalding Scrumpy.

Chris from Three Cats turned up later in the afternoon after cycling the 18-odd miles from his home and the three of us got together to chat about cider (surprisingly!). Chris has a sweet-tooth when it comes to cider and he believes that sweet ciders are the future for sales; something that Mark and I are at odds with, preferring to taste the fruit and depth of flavour without too much sweetness masking subtle notes and wiping out one's palate. Talking of subtle flavours, I was intrigued by the DanY Graig Welsh cider we had ordered; it had a distinct nose of ginger, but a burst of lime-and-lemon on the palate. Very nice and zesty.

Friday evening Julie and Andy, our friends from Chesterfield Branch, came over to work their way through the cider bar's offerings. To be more accurate, Julie did, while Andy worked his way through the beers, while having a sip of everything that Julie tried.

Overall the Festival was great fun, though Gail and I were both exhausted by the end of it. Take-down on Sunday was very onerous, but at least we'd sold out of everything, which is a great feeling. Saturday night was less fun, as a few idiots were present who were just intent on drinking too much and being abusive. They forget that we are all volunteers and not professional bar workers. Or maybe that's giving them too much credit and they actually don't care.

We'd also met and chatted with loads of really nice people, which is the key thing for us when working the cider and perry bar. We can pass on information, dispel myth and legend, help folks find out more and encourage the planting of more apple trees, whatever the variety. It is especially great when folks come to you before they leave to thank you not only for having the time and knowledge to chat with them, but also to thank you for having such a good selection of ciders and perries available.

So I'd like to thank them in return for making it all worthwhile. Cheers!

2009-03-21T02:42:00.000-07:00

Roof action.
Oops upside your head...

The screed has finally dried enough to walk on and paint. Don't let anyone tell you that the instructions that the screed will: "....flow over the surface with minimum tooling..." are accurate! I actually added a little more water than recommended to ensure the stuff was like runny cream - still just sat there when poured... However, the final job is quite acceptable for me. Well it was until I painted it with the nice glossy concrete paint. It's amazing how the slightest surface imperfection is highlighted by a shiny surface. Oh well. Reminded me of what I have to tell my kids at school though, who think that the secret to a good finish on their work is umpteen layers of gloss spray paint. No, the key to a good finish is an excellent sub-surface.

The additional damp-proof membrane has made a big difference to the comfort and "dryness" of the shed.

I've bought a couple of bulkhead lights for the darker times and evening work, and these will be attached to roof timbers. As I don't want to have to dig up the garden to put in a permanent power supply for the lights and power, I've bought an external mains socket as used in caravans and intend to connect up the shed with the 25 metre mains lead that came with the caravan.

As the floor is almost sorted, the roof and insulation (mainly from radiant heat) is next. I've bonded battens to the inside of the roof and intend to attach insulation that contains a damp-proof membrane to these battens by stapling it to them. We've opted for the stuff which is a mixture of foil, foam and something akin to bubble-wrap; it's often sold as radiator reflecting insulation, but its ideal for our purposes. We need protection from heat radiating from the metal roof (sunlight) and something to prevent condensation from the cold metal surface at night.

Our first order of 36 cider-apple trees has finally arrived, thanks to some intervention by Tracey Deacon of Deacon's Nurseries who are supplying them. We were starting to worry that the trees would not arrive before we are due to go away for a couple of days over Easter. We are going to Norfolk to commune with the good guys at Whin Hill Cider and to consume vast quantities of Fish & Chips from French's chippy. We may also be tempted with a pint or two of luvverly Wherry at the Three Horseshoes in Warham....

Lots of work to do first though. Better go and get planting... More Morgan Sweets are going in today!

Job done

2009-02-23T11:14:00.000-08:00

Well, the first bit anyway...

The 50mm screed on t'cider shed floor is now completed, and curing and drying nicely. The above pic was taken before the final section was laid. The main concrete base was given a good coat of liquid DPM and blinded with sand, before laying and trimming a sheet of 1000 gauge polyethylene DPM to float on top. The sharp sand / cement screed has been laid on top of this. Next job is to lay a very thin liquid screed over this to get a perfectly smooth and flat floor which we can give umpteen coats of concrete paint to. It'll be better than the house! Be able to eat my dinner off it? Doubtful, but at least it should be spot-on for ease of cleaning and keeping clean. The other main requirement is to provide a nice flat surface for the framework and racking to support the two levels of 60 litre containers which are ready to move back into their improved home ASAP.

However, before that we need to sort out the insulation for the walls and roof, and some form of washable sheeting to provide the inner wall surface. Got to keep the E.H. folks happy...

Screed baby, screed!

2009-02-21T03:53:00.000-08:00

Heavy mixer-action while the sun shines.
Just having a quick break with a cuppa of Earl Grey tea and a couple of slices of bread-and-dripping (oh, the savoury bliss of it all!) before going back to laying the screed over the cider-shed floor. Got about halfway so far, but had to dash back to Wickes this fine morn for more sharp-sand and cement. Does anyone else encounter black holes when doing any work with recommended quantities? How come you never have enough despite following the instructions on the packet? Where does it all go? I reckon the evil fairies that live at the bottom of my garden nick it while I'm not looking...

The original concrete floor was fine, but always intended to screed it so that we can paint it so that it's more easier to clean and keep clean. Also invested in a "Wet 'n' Dry" vacuum cleaner for same purpose. What a beast!

Getting a consistent depth, in this case 50mm, while screeding is challenging but intellectually stimulating. Using 50mm battens as when plastering is my preferred option so far.

Oh Cider Trees - Where art thou, Cider Trees?
I'm getting frustrated waiting for the newly-ordered trees to be delivered... especially when the weather is nice and dry. We've got 6 x Yarlington Mill; 6 x Tremlett's Bitter; 6 x Morgan Sweet; 6 x Harry Master's Jersey; and 6 x Dabinetts on order, all on MM106 rootstock's. This should give us a good start while we wait for the next delivery this coming Winter 09. We wanted the early-cropping Morgan Sweet to blend with the Tom Putts and other early fruit that we collect. We also have some Major on order for later in the year, another early-fruiter, our aim being to lengthen and even out our cider-making.

We've also ordered a standard Dabinett on M25 rootstock and this eventually quite large tree is to go in the front garden at home, now that we have removed one of the large conifers that was growing like a rocket and dwarfing the house; I love Deodar Cedars, but it was a mistake to plant one in the garden! After 20-odd years it showed no sign of slowing down so had to go. Anyway, the Dabinett should look pretty in blossom, give us some fruit and not block light in the winter months.

What's in a name?
Why oh why do some folks insist on pronouncing Dabinett as "Dabin-ay"? I often come across it with an "e" on the end too. Pseudo-posh Frenchness? English name not good enough? Answers on a postcard too: Mr William Dabinett was a Somerset man, and wouldn't have a poncy name like "Dabin-ay" or "Dabinette" attached to any tree discovered and named by him!

Tree life: The ascent of man (or woman in this case)

2009-02-15T04:47:00.000-08:00

Gerrup't' tree, lass!

I am no technophobe but the technology of getting images off my mobile phone onto my computer has defeated me - until now. Finally managed to get some shots taken during a collection expedition to the luvverly village of Lambley, near Nottingham, where Helena and Dean had kindly offered their excess apples to us for the second consecutive year.

In her usual ultra-competitive spirit, Gail was determined that she would climb the tree to give it a damn good shake to try to bring down those crafty and sneaky little apples hiding in the upper-most branches. That's the trouble with "standard" trees, ie. those with a lot of bare tree trunk (usually about 1.5 - 1.8 metres) before the branches start - it can be a pig to get up and into the tree. Luckily we had a step-ladder to help, so Gail was quickly up the tree.

Gail also has considerably less girth and weight than me, so maybe it was better for the tree for Gail to go up it...

For the uninitiated, a half-standard is a tree which has been cleared of shoots and growth for the first metre or so. A bush or pyramid tree has growth close to the ground and is limited in height by it's rootstock, so is the sort favoured in most modern orchards as it makes fruit collection much easier.

You can see the walking-stick dangling from the tree in the photo - we use this to hook around branches to give them a good shake to loosen the fruit and cause it to fall. We really need to make ourselves an extendable panker, the name given to very long poles with a large hook on the end, which were traditionally used to reach up high into the branches of apple and pear trees to shake down the fruit ready for being made into cider or perry.

Catching up - again!

2009-02-13T09:05:00.000-08:00

Snowy days!
Here we are in mid-February 2009 and I realise I haven't added anything since last year... Sounds worse than it actually is, but I need to get more regular with this blog lark.

Anyway, these images were taken during our late-November foray into deepest, darkest Nottinghamshire to collect another load of apples. We once again travelled north to the Hempsall Heritage Orchard to see what the wind and rain had encouraged the trees to drop. After un-hitching the trailer and pushing it into the orchard, Gail unloaded the trailer while I helpfully took photographs.

Due to all the recent rain, the ground was really soft and I was worrying how we'd get the trailer off the orchard before we'd even got any fruit in it... The trees had dropped most of their leaves and the floor was littered with fruit of all colours, shapes and sizes.

We scouted round for the dessert and dual-purpose apples, and avoided all of the culinary varieties. It made it much easier to spot the best apples by looking for where the local rabbit and hare population had done most of it's nibbling! Curiously - or maybe not - the order Legomorpha do not seem to like to nibble cooking apples; unfortunately they do like to nibble and bite great chunks out of the russets. It wouldn't be so bad if they ate the whole apple, but the furry little bundles appear to browse over as many apples as possible.

Never mind, we worked on into the cold, dark and drizzle, and by late afternoon had the trailer full of fruit. By luck as much as brute force, we managed to manhandle the sinking trailer out of the orchard to a point where we could successfully hook-up the trailer onto the car. We need to adapt the trailer to take the weight it is capable of carrying, as full-to-the-brim we still have capacity to carry another 150Kg of fruit. I need to make some form of frame to raise the height of the sides.

Hot-aches set in during the drive home, but it was worth it. The next couple of days saw the apples rapidly milled and pressed until we had no more container space left. An impending Christmas trip to Spain to spend the festivities with Gail's father, meant we were pushed for time (and cash - £1=Euro1 is not fun!), so the containers would have to wait.

In early February we had a break to visit Chesterfield Beer Festival and our friends Paul & Julia kindly put us up (or should that be put up with us?) overnight so we could explore what was on offer. I didn't fancy the cider and perry choice much, so spent the night drinking the beers on offer, including the "Winter Ales" section which had a nice Thornbridge at 7.7%ABV and a really lovely rich ale at 12.0%ABV whose name unsurprisingly escapes me... It was good to meet up with Julie and Andy from Chesterfield CAMRA, who are also planning on coming down to the Ross-on-Wye Cider Festival with us in early September. Hopefully Karen and Mark (Rockingham Forest) can also make it so it should be a good bash.

Here in mid-February, the new containers are sat under cover - still empty - but I also have a new cider-pump ready for action, so the next week should see the pump proving it's worth by transferring the very-slowly bubbling (and very cold) cider into the new containers. This cold weather has really put everything back but I hope we'll have something ready by the beginning of April for the 18th Mansfield Beer & Cider Festival.

What else is new? Well after 14-odd years together, eleven of which we've been engaged and nine or so we've lived together, Gail and I are finally(?) getting married. Been to the register office today to sign on the dotted line and hand over some cash, so it is all systems go for May 23rd 2009 - which also happens to be Gail's birthday. Aaah, romance is not dead!!!! I'm looking forward to it - even though the date clashes with this year's Welsh Perry and Cider Championships at The Clytha near Abergavenny. Oh well. Next year we can go as Mr & Mrs. Nice.

Yum Yum

2008-11-14T09:42:00.000-08:00

Tasty...
Spent an enjoyable hour or two late this afternoon checking and topping up the tubs of slowly fermenting cider in t' Cider Shed.

The recent cold weather has certainly ensured a slow and steady fermentation in the metal shed; the tubs of cider were dripping with condensation and that is with an air temperature of around 12 celsius. Still, makes for a better, deeper flavour at the end - I hope...

Of course when checking that all is well, you have to have a sniff and a taste, so I entered armed with a large "wine thief" which I picked up in Ross-on-Wye during our visit for the Ross-on-Wye Cider Festival. A wine thief is a shaped glass tube, open at both ends, that you immerse into your wine or cider; as the liquid fills the empty space inside the tube, air is displaced out of the top. When you have enough liquid inside the thief, you put your finger or thumb over the top, so closing the open end and creating a vacuum. Then all you need to do is lift out your 'stolen' liquid and release the vacuum over a suitable glass.

After working my way through all 12 tubs, I can happily report that all is well. The earliest started cider, a blend of our windfalls, all our Tom Putts and a donated sack of John Downie crabs, is really quite dry already. The tannins from the crabs have given it a somewhat harsh bitterness, but then these are early days and this batch will be blended over the next four or five months as it matures, and approaches the time of the calls of the first cuckoos.

All of the tubs are working away quite happily without airlocks, but I am looking forward to the delivery of the bungs and airlocks arriving which I ordered from Brouwland in Belgium. It doesn't seem right to have anything fermenting without an airlock. Anyway, I miss the satisfying - soothing? - sound of a series of air-locks gently 'plopping' away.

Did you know each bubble from an airlock has resulted in an equal weight of alcohol being released into the cider?

Tomorrow we are off to the Hempsall Heritage Orchard to collect more windfalls for more cider. I must get my backside in gear and order more tubs...

725 litres and counting...

2008-11-10T10:20:00.000-08:00

Phew!
Cleared all of the remaining apples from our trees on Friday afternoon; we were surprised to find how much fruit was still clinging to the trees. We filled a number of 40 litre tubs with Royal Somersets (Sharp), Stoke Reds (Bittersharp), Yarlington Mill (Bittersweet) and Harry Master's Jersey (Bittersweet). I'm really pleased with the HMJ's - they are such beautiful apples and polish-up to a rich red lustre. In fact, I could get all prosaic and waffle on about how good looking some cider apples are when really ripe. I won't.

We mixed these with the unknown Bitters (definitely not Bittersweets) and unknown Sharps we collected from Dierdrie in Norfolk, and spent the rest of Saturday milling and pressing our time away. The weather was good, the November sunshine warm and welcoming. A great change from what we've experienced so far in our cider-making this year.

I must do some research to try to find out what the two varieties were that we brought back from Norfolk... Should have taken a photograph. Doh!

The juice was a rich red-brown in colour and slightly tart from the Sharps, but with an underlying dryness from the tannins in the Bitters and Bittersharps. I wish we had more to do a seperate blend, but we will have to blend it into the whole. So apart from these few bags of Norfolk-sourced apples, we are producing a cider which is going to be at least 90% pure Nottinghamshire-grown fruit - according to my calculator anyway (I always was crap at maths though!).

The end of the pressing on Saturday was rushed, as we were due to be picked up at 7 for a night out and meal with some of Gail's Ladies Hockey team - I was the token male. It's a hard job, but someone's got to do it...

We started off in the "Bread & Bitter" pub in Mapperley Top, owned and run by the guys from Castle Rock Brewery. Superb pub, great range of well-kept ales - but only one cider - Weston's "Stowford Press". So it was ales for me: Castle Rock "Harvest Pale", washed down with Thornbridge "Jaipur". Lovely. But I would have still preferred a good real cider or perry; I can get real ale anywhere! Well, almost...

Today we've been mostly milling and pressing apples...

2008-11-01T11:30:00.000-07:00

November dawns...

It was the turn of the trailer-load of mixed-apples from the Hempsall Heritage Orchard to be milled and pressed today. The apples are mainly mixed varieties of dessert apple, with some dual-purpose and a few culinary thrown in for good measure.

The aroma rising from the trailer was extraordinarily rich. We used some of the non-returnable builders sacks which held the materials we used for the base of the "Cider Shed" to hold the apples for the journey home. They are very useful bags, being strong, rot-proof and easily washable.

The apples were transferred to tubs to be taken to the bath for washing before milling. As all of the apples we collected were windfalls, they had quite a bit of mud on them so careful washing and in many cases scrubbing, was the order of the day. Worm casts in particular were a pain.

The apples looked great though, the few Norfolk Beefing being instantly recognisable; the colour of the skins looked just like aged beefsteak. I wished that I had not collected so many Russets though, as their rough skins really held onto the mud and soil.

The apples pressed really well; I know that some folks have had problems with the softer flesh of dessert fruit clogging the mesh of the press-cloths. Luckily we had no problems. Both presses handled the pulp really well and after two tandem pressings, we had another 18-odd gallons of juice to add to the total. So far this season we've produced about 115 gallons; small-fry sure, but great for us after such a late start.

The taste of the juice was something else...

Rich, full of honey notes, something like toffee... Toffee apple? The juice was also thick and syrupy. Acidity was quite high, with a Ph of less than 3.5, but we didn't expect anything else with the mix of apples we had.

Whatever, it tasted great - we just hope this rich fruity taste comes through in the cider!

The weather was lousy as usual, so Gail retired to mill the apples under the car-port for greater shelter, while I stayed inside the Cider Shed. As usual the morons were letting fireworks off most of the afternoon and they were also joined just after lunch by someone burning a whole load of garden waste - it was like a thick fog. Hope it doesn't affect the cider...

Busy, busy, busy!

2008-10-31T12:15:00.001-07:00

Thursday.
The lasy couple of days of "Teacher's Rest" have been very hectic.

Thursday we journeyed north to the Hempsall Heritage Orchard to collect the windfalls from a good proportion of the 300 varieties of apple trees that form the orchard. John Hempsall has planted at least two of each variety, the aim being to preserve some of the old and not-so-old apple varieties that have fallen foul of the fickle demands of supermarket-buyers and the fashion-dictates of the buying public. We crawled around under the trees for around three hours in a biting northerly wind, with something that was part-sleet, part-rain stinging our faces and freezing our hands.

But it was worth it, to end up with a trailer-full of such a wide variety of apple types. All the trees are labelled, so we focused on finding dessert or dual-purpose varieties with copious windfalls at their feet. Some of the varieties date back to the 1600's; some are from Canada and America, some from France, many old and forgotten UK apples. I was pleased to find many types of russetts and in particular, a lovely little apple called "Golden Pippin". I am very curious to see what they will taste like in our cider. We are hoping to get enough fruit to produce an orchard-specific "Heritage" cider.

Friday.
We travelled East to the land of the Iceni and the North Folk, and in particular, to the secret base of Whin Hill Cider. Our mission was to present Jim and Pete of Whin Hill with a CAMRA "Cider of the Festival" certificate for their "Brown's Apple" cider which was ever so popular during our 2008 Mansfield Beer & Cider Festival.

Jim and Pete kindly had a break from pressing their 2008 apples to pose for a photograph with Gail; they are two really nice guys who are passionate about cider, perry and real ale. They have been making some cracking ciders and perries over the past 14 years that Whin Hill Cider has been in existence - we first came across it in 1996 at the "Three Horseshoes" at Warham in North Norfolk (great pub!) and have been fans ever since.

After the presentation, Jim (on the left) had to return to manning the Voran belt-press, while Pete very kindly gave us a tour of the orchard, chaperoned by Fred, their chocolate-Labrador dog. Fred pointed out and barked at many a pheasant during the tour, while Pete explained their planting strategy and how they were grafting over a number of their trees to varieties that suit their style of ciders, and the local climate and soil conditions. They have planted a number of perry-pear trees and unlike some parts of the country, have had a good crop this year.

For more information on Whin Hill, check out their website: http://www.whinhillcider.co.uk/index.html

After leaving Jim and Pete, we travelled further East to the little village of South Creake, where a lady we have known for some years had sent us a postcard asking if we would like her cider apples...? Dierdrie had planted a few apple trees and after talking to us some years ago, had decided to plant a couple of cider-apple trees, sourced from "Keepers Nursery" in Kent. One of the two trees was covered in medium-sized green apples, obviously of a "jersey" shape, which have a sweet, slightly sharp taste - quite good for eating. The other tree had very little fruit left on it, but bless her, Dierdrie had saved all the fruit and put it into boxes for us. These small, spherical apples have a red-flush on a green background and are rich in tannins - quite mouth-puckeringly dry. Unfortunately, Dierdrie had "mislaid" the names of the apples, so what they are is a mistery at the moment. Anyway, we filled five large sacks with apples and totally filled the boot - a good result.

From then on, it was pure hedonism as we headed on into Wells-next-the-Sea and went straight to French's fish & chip shop for the best fish & chips we know of!

Brrrrrrrr...

2008-10-29T03:25:00.000-07:00

Winter bites...?

The first really cold and frosty day brought a few challenges to our cider-making... The sun was up and a bright day was in store when Gail asked me what the fountain was that was spouting forth from the middle of the garden? Looking up, I saw a myriad of drops of water glistening in the new-born sun... Very pretty.

Bugger! I'd left the spray-head attached to the hoze and the frost had frozen the water inside the spray-head, which of course had expanded and cracked the body. Gail was dispatched to fetch a new one, while I set about washing and milling the load of apples left soaking overnight. Well, I would have done - but first I had to break through the ice which had formed around the apples. I had to grit my teeth to plunge my hands into the freezing water. Such are the joys of cider-making in the open air at the end of October. Undaunted, the Shark was set running and fed a mixture of dessert, dual-purpose and a couple of containers full of our own cider apples.

Upon Gail's return, she donned some suitable warm clothing and took over the milling while I prepared the presses. We now have the two presses running side-by-side: the Mark II Homemade Press and the Rockingham Forest cast-off Vigo Rack & Cloth Press. Gail can quickly fill enough 5-gallon tubs for a days pressing, so I can work inside the "Cider Shed" to keep the presses fed.

As 'Machine Mart' had one of their "VAT-Free" days recently, we decided to buy a few hand-tools for the proto-orchard and also invest in a larger capacity hydraulic jack to power the Mark II handmade press. Moving from a 6-tonne press to a 10-tonne press has certainly made the job physically easier, but as far as I can ascertain, has had very little impact on efficiency; it still runs at about 1 gallon of juice per cheese. To get this figure, I used the frame supplied with the Vigo press to make the cheeses, so giving a direct comparison between the two cider presses. Both produced just under 1 gallon of juice per cheese using the same pulp; in fact the Vigo only manages just over 5 gallons for 6 cheeses, while my "Mark II Homemade Press with 10-Tonne Hydraulic Power" produces a fraction under 4 gallons from four cheeses. So each "tandem pressing" results in about 9 gallons of juice. I need to make another rack or two so that I can increase the capacity of my homemade press.

One thing that is painfully clear though: having my homemade press mounted in a "workmate" certainly saves my back! A priority must be to make myself a custom base for the Vigo press to raise the press-bed to an ergonomically suitable and less painful height!

We've still got plenty of fruit left on our trees so are now going to visit some of the kind folks who contacted us ages ago about collecting their un-wanted apples so that we can blend them all together. We're still after a "Nottinghamshire Cider Taste" but are not really certain what that should be... What is for certain though, is that it will not be an imitation of a West Country cider.

This Yarlington Mill grown on an espalier still has about a third of it's fruit left on it. There are also lots of Royal Somersets, Stoke Reds, and a few Harry Master's Jerseys and Dabinetts still to pick.

Andy Dowson from Chesterfield CAMRA popped over in the afternoon to pick up a box of cider for the Chesterfield Market Festival which is taking place this weekend (31st Oct - 2nd November). This is the last of our 2007 cider, bar a box for The Arkwright Arms at Long Duckmanton (East Midlands CAMRA Cider Pub of the Year 2008). Now just one lone 30 litre container is all that remains of 2007's fruit - I think we'll drink that!

Catch-up

2008-10-26T23:22:00.000-07:00

Having a full-time day job as an evil destroyer of young minds (well that's what the kids think anyway...), means that term-time makes it a bit difficult to keep-up to date on here. Plus we have had a "Quality Assurance" inspection (like a three-week OFSTED) which in my view is not only a waste of time and resources, it also came at a very bad time of year for a cider-maker...

Still the apples will only wait for so long, so once we had cleared the crap we were able to start. Unfortunately, many of our existing and new contacts for apples had assumed we weren't bothered this year, so we have lost out on a lot of fruit. Fortunately, Liz still had plenty of apples left, so we headed up the A1 to load up; it's a pity that Bramleys don't make a particularly good cider, as Liz's plot is covered in them. Still, we got a good mix of dessert, dual-use and wildings, about half-a-tonne or so in total, filling our trailer. When we mixed them with our Tom Putts and windfalls, we ended up with 50-odd gallons of juice, but the Specific Gravity is quite low, as expected after the wet summer; we reckon we'll end with something around 5.5% - 6.0% ABV.

On Saturday 25th October, we popped down to "The Dumbles" to relieve Helena and Dean of their apples. The weather was grim - rain and gale-force winds - which were slamming into the slope of the hill where the apple trees stand. Gail was volunteered to climb the trees for a good shake-down and we quite quickly filled all our sacks and the car - with loads of apples still left on the trees. We may need to make a return visit! Surprisingly, the apples were only just ripening on the whole, much different to last year, but then so was the weather. We dropped off a 10 litre box of "Dumbles Special" cider for Helena and Dean as a thank you; hope they like it...

When the skies had cleared on the Sunday, we headed north to Hempsall's Heritage Orchard and spent a few hours wandering up and down the rows of apple trees marvelling at the variety of shapes, colours and sizes of the fruit. There are around 300 different apple varieties, covering a wide range of flavours and tastes; tasting is free and you can buy what you want for a cover-all price of £1.30 a Kilo. The place really is a revelation. We came across an apple labelled "Vicar of Beighton" which was large, pale-yellow in colour, sweet and had a distinct taste of aniseed - much to our surprise! However, according to my web searches, "Vicar of Beighton" is described as a cooker and the photos show it as a red apple with some russett. Confusing.

Today we hope to start milling and pressing the sacks of apples littering the driveway. Plus we have our own cider apples ankle-deep on the garden following the winds this week. There are still many Yarlington mills, Dabinetts, Harry Master's Jerseys, Stoke Reds and Royal Somersets still on the trees, but we'll probably pick and mill the lot this week to clear the garden.

We also want to try to get over to Norfolk at some point soon, having received a postcard from a friend informing us that their cider-apple trees are loaded with fruit and do we want the apples...? A long way for a load of apples but it will give us a chance to visit Whin Hill Cider in Wells-next-the-Sea and also pig-out on fish and chips from French's chippy on the quayside. Yum!

We also plan to lay a new deep-bed screed on the concrete floor in the Cider Shed, so that we can paint it to meet Environmental Health requirements. Then we can complete kitting the shed out, including purchasing some 120 litre containers for blending. We may also be getting some nearly-new IBC's to check over that have been used for food stuffs; they are used for one trip only to carry ingredients to Thornton's the chocolate people. Whether we take them will depend on what they've been used for of course. Chocolate-flavoured cider anyone?

Woah!!! So long ago!

2008-08-25T01:11:00.000-07:00

Sheesh! Been so busy over the summer what with still fighting nettles, brambles and Japanese Knot-Weed on our 'proto-orchard'; attempted car-jacking and robbery at 75mph on the Autoroute in Spain(!!!); visiting Cidre and Calvados producers in France; buying a new caravan; and working very hard on the Cider and Perry Bar at Moorgreen Show, Watnall... And this weekend we are off down to Ross-on-Wye for the Cider and Perry Festival at Broome Farm! I'm afraid I've got loads to catch up on - but too busy to add stuff at present.

However, I am taking loads of photos of the proto-orchard's development, so will start to post these and describe the (long) process of trying to clear 5-odd years worth of neglected ground. Feels almost Neanderthal, like we are the first folks who decided to settle down from a hunter-gatherer lifestyle and clear the primordial forest.... Slight exaggeration, but I hope you get the picture!

Derby Beer Festival: 9th July, 2008

2008-07-11T10:53:00.000-07:00

VIP SPECIAL

We always look forward to the Derby Summer Beer Festival, having been going there together for over 12 years; it's become some kind of close-to-end-of-term ritual for me and for both of us a prelude to the start of our holidays in a couple of weeks time. We also visit the Derby Winter Festival too, to support a local CAMRA branch and of course to taste lots of (hopefully new and different) ciders and perries.

And that's one of the great things about real cider and perry - they are natural products which are always slightly different due to the weather, climate and growing season. Not like beers which are always brewed to fixed recipes and are (usually) utterly predictable and, to be honest, sometimes a bit boring. Nothing like a bit of natural variation in something to add that extra bit of interest...

We were really excited before the Derby Festival this year, as we had received an official invite and according to the letter of invitation, were to be treated as VIPs! We have had our cider on sale at a number of festivals, CAMRA and otherwise, but unlike the brewers and hangers-on (of which there are legion!), we have never been invited to the Producers Session and opening ceremonies. However, thanks to Andrew and Carl we finally got the green light to attend.

Getting to my mum's house at Sandiacre (where we were going to crash-out for the night) was a nightmare due to the almost total gridlock situations on the roads west of Nottingham. But we made it in one-piece, just in time to shed work-clothes and leg it down to the bus stop to catch the Rainbow 4 into Derby.

We hastened into the VIP entrance at the Assembly Rooms and after showing our VIP letter and passes to the nice lady and gentleman on the door, made our way into the Darwin Suite where we were promised a free commemorative glass, free real ale and a buffet. We attached our Hucknall Cider Co. identity badges to our shirts, collected our glasses and made our way to the "free ale" bar, but found only beers; this was no surprise to us, but hey! no problem as there were six or seven tubs of cider and perry on the 'real' bar, so off we trotted across the room to slake our thirsts. Unfortunately, when we asked for a glass of cider, we were told that they couldn't serve us due to not having a till nor any float. We explained that we were official "VIP" guests, flashed our ID badges and so could we just have a 'free' half to wet our whistles, as we didn't want to mix beer and cider. The answer was that we were at least the third folks to ask for cider, but he was very sorry that he couldn't serve us - we'd have to make do with beer!

We weren't even allowed to buy our own cider, sat on a shelf a metre or so away!!! How ironic is that?

Someone else (who will remain nameless) then intervened and was extremely rude and brusque in language and attitude towards us. We explained that we only wanted to buy a half of cider as we did not want to mix beer and cider, and that we thought arrangements would have been made for folks such as us, who had been invited as cider producers. We were then very curtly told: "What do you expect? This is a BEER festival!". So it was a case of take it or leave it, it seemed. So we decided to leave it.

Were we being treated this way because as local CAMRA members we were known and deemed therefore un-important compared to the local brewers? Or maybe it's because the chief protagonist who was so rude is a confirmed beer-drinker and cider-hater?

Whatever, we left the Darwin Suite and decided to go over to the Great Hall to buy a glass of cider and bring it back to the VIP reception. The couple on the door were surprised to see us leaving after a few minutes, so we explained that we wanted to go over to the Great Hall to get a glass of cider and return. The nice and friendly door folks said not to worry, go back upstairs and if you push the side of the partition which separates the Darwin Suite off, you'll be able to get to the Great Hall - please just shut the divider after you. Great, we thought...

Ha, not so fast or easy. As Gail tried to push open the partition, we were accosted by the person-who-will-remain-nameless plus another side-kick. Again, we were treated with absolutely no respect or politeness and sent packing, no matter what explanation we tried to give. By this time were very unhappy and wondering why we had bothered going to the "VIP Reception"; we would have received much better treatment if we had gone along as regular punters, as we have never had any problems whatsoever in the past at Derby. So we made our way (again) down the stairs to the entrance, much to the surprise of the still-very-nice lady and gent on the door. We explained the situation to them and so they told us how to get straight into the Great Hall without queuing.

We went into the Great Hall and were treated with respect and friendliness by the staff working the bar, and their welcome, plus seeing friendly faces (such as Julian), helped lift our gloom and spirits. I started off with a very dry Naish cider while Gail opted for a dry Parson's Choice; we prefer dry ciders and perries so that there is nothing masked or 'hidden' by sugar and sweeteners. As we had attended the APPLE AGM last year at Derby, we thought we might be able to go through the same meeting room to slip back into the Darwin Suite and resume enjoying the "delights" of the promised VIP reception... No one challenged us, simply saw that we were wearing our VIP producers badges and let us through and so it was that we entered what had now become a bit of a free-for-all...

It must be a hidden rule for many Homo Sapiens that if there is something being given away, any group of people can quickly de-generate into an "owt for nowt" feeding- or drinking-frenzy. Such was the case in the Darwin Suite where the hangers-on and beer-groupies were pushing, shoving and squabbling over the remaining beer left in the casks on the "guest's bar". We stood on the sidelines and watched with amusement, tinged with a little disgust, at the antics of some of the beer-groupies. We noticed how some CAMRA members wearing the official Derby Festival T-shirts were fawning round and ingratiating themselves with some of the brewers, and with a certain Peter Tulloch who was there to test the beers for Cask Marque accreditation. Oh, to have received a soupcon of such politeness!

Fortunately, there were also some great people in there too, such as Rhoda, Russ, Rob and Andrew, who made us feel welcome, and who had time for a chat with a pair of cider lepers.

And that sadly, is how we felt. Throughout, we were treated like lepers or second-class citizens just because we wanted a glass of cider, not the free beer available. Some people cannot get it into their heads that Gail and I actually LIKE beer - you have to like real ale in a cider desert such as the East Midlands! - but sometimes we choose to drink cider or perry only. We don't like to mix our drinks and have no interest in getting "hammered" or "wrecked" by doing so.

It is perhaps unfortunate that too many CAMRA members, particularly (and sadly) those who hold responsibilities, appear to be paying mere lip-service at most to the National campaigns that are part of CAMRA's desire to promote and protect the production of real cider and real perry within the UK. Can a Leopard change it's spots?

So here's the rub:

I would be horrified to think that any other genuine un-known-locally non-CAMRA Cider or Perry producer would be treated the way that we were. Without respect, politeness, nor any attempt to understand what we wanted (ie: to buy one glass of cider each!).

Back to pleasanter things: Cider and Perry

We decided to leave the Darwin Suite for good and not bother getting involved with the free-for-all bun fight which we now knew the VIP Presentation Buffet would degenerate into. Back in the Great Hall, I tackled the dry "Ostlers Scrumpy Blackcurrant" - which looked like normal cider, but had a distinct aroma of blackcurrant and a subtle taste of the same fruit: weird, but nice! Gail had a Hecks Glastonbury Port Wine, which pleasingly was much drier than when we've come across it before.

We had a chat with Chris Rodgers who had put the cider and perry list together, along with wife Sue. Chris is an interesting, animated guy, with a real passion for cider and perry - and like us he also likes beer! Chris was dismayed to hear about our experiences so far and apologised for being treated that way; he's going to try to ensure something similar does not occur again, perhaps by having special tokens for those who do not want to / can't drink the beer, but making it clear that they can ONLY be exchanged for cider / perry. As we said to Chris, two tokens each would have been ample for the duration of the VIP Presentation. We congratulated Chris on the cider / perry list; it was nice to see a balance of very dry through to sweet ciders and perries.

Carl stumbled past looking harrassed and busy, but had time for a quick chat on his way back. I wonder how Carl manages to fit all his CAMRA activities in and still find time to earn a living - and find time to eat! Kim landlord of The Old Poet's Corner, Ashover, stopped for a chat and asked if we had some cider for him? Unfortunately, we've sold out, but I've told him I'll put some on one side for next April / May. Kim also asked if I still do my cider talks and would I be prepared to do one at his new pub, The Poet & Castle at Codnor? Kim explained that cider sales have really taken off there and we agreed that was due to the fact that it is really obvious that they sell real cider / perry; it isn't hidden away and has to be asked for like many pubs - it is in-your-face. I told Kim I had recently given a cider talk to the Ladies' Monday Club at Heath (including the lady vicar, who sat on the front row!) so would be happy to do another one for him.

Now that the presentation stuff was over, we walked back to the Darwin Suite and again met up with the very friendly and helpful guy who was on the door downstairs; he remembered us and asked if we were sorted now? We thanked him for his help and efforts, and said we understood that all CAMRA festival workers are volunteers and that opening sessions can be stressful (not least for the invited ones!).

We then bumped into "The Usual Suspects" pictured with Gail: Rob, Russ and Andrew. They all looked like smart dudes in their shirts and ties. Mind you, we also got a lot of comments about our T-shirts!

Will we be going to Derby Festival again? Yes, but not as VIP's. Nor would I recommend any other cider / perry producer to go! It has left us with a bad taste in our mouths, shame as it is a great Festival. We were planning to go back today (Saturday) for a day-time session, but not this year... Think we'll pass...

Barrow Hill Rale Ale Festival

2008-07-04T09:55:00.000-07:00

Barrow Hill Rale Ale Festival, May 17th 2008.

A highlight of the year if you like the smell of anthracite, oily-steam, soot and coal-smoke with your cider or ale. Barrow Hill is the home of a steam railway

locomotive preservation group, and comprises the workshops and engine shed, including a round table. Sorry to disillusion those with an imagination full of

chivalrous antics and hirsute men in clanky armour, but this round table is the sort that was used to turn around real trains - those that lived on a diet of coal and water, and spoke in a voice rich of huffs, puffs and clanks. Eeh, when I were a lad...

We travelled by train from Hucknall to Nottingham on the Robin Hood Line and then caught the train to Chesterfield; here we were picked up by vintage buses which took you up the hill out of Chesterfield towards the cluster of houses north-east of the town which bear the same name as the roundhouse. Which came first...?

When you enter the shed, the first thing that greets you is the immense bulk and brooding power of "Blue Peter", along side which are arranged the rows of casks of ales. Those of you who remember Peter Purves and Valerie Singleton, will also remember seeing this wonderful loco being celebrated on the BBC TV programme "Blue Peter". However, we had come along for the cider and perry selection, which has always been good - and this year was no different. Young Chris Gascoyne had a big hand in this year's collection of goodies and we enjoyed working our way through them all (apart from the sickly-sweet of course!).

To make the cider last longer - and so slow down the rate at which I was getting through it - a straw was procured which was very useful. That is until a certain Andy tied a knot in it... Must remember to ask Julie to keep him on a shorter rein...

Where did it all begin?

2008-07-03T01:32:00.000-07:00

A brief historical perspective.
We are often asked how come we started making cider? Well, for me it seemed a natural progression... Throughout my life I’ve always been making or brewing something or other. I blame my science teacher back at Friesland County Secondary School (as it was then), in Sandiacre, Derbyshire, who was quite inspirational to me in that he made science seem real and exciting, not hung up on targets and statistics like education is today. As far as possible, he ensured everything we did was practical and fun, so when we started to study Biology – and in particular fermentation – it was natural to my teacher to start a Wine Making Club at lunchtimes and after-school. Naturally enough I joined up and was soon making apple wine; we were only Year 8’s (second years in old money...), about 12 years old; it didn’t matter though – I was bitten and hooked. We couldn’t drink the stuff of course, our parents had to come up to the school to collect our brews and chaperone us home clutching our concoctions tightly.

Within a year, I’d read up on winemaking using the excellent C. J. J. Berry books on Amateur Winemaking, assembled all the kit and was going at it hammer and tongs! My father got involved too and soon we were putting together all sorts of recipes and competing with each other. By the time I reached the age of seventeen, I was being invited to all the best parties – provided I brought along either my Carrot wine or my Apple wine... As I got older, I started brewing ales and lagers, and cider from kits, plus I settled on making red wines based on what I could scrounge or pick free from hedgerows – Elderberry and Damson being particular favourites. However, as I’ve always drank and enjoyed real cider, I had an itching to set myself up so as to be self-sufficient in cider by making it myself.

Cider making comes to Hucknall...
In the early 1990’s and now living in Hucknall, I found myself ignoring the beers at Festivals and instead focussing on the delights of the ciders and perries available. When Gail and I got together, I suddenly had access to loads of apples from her dad’s garden, so a first foray into real cider making became a reality. I searched books and the net for information on presses, and made my own Mark 1 press. The apples were cut up and milled using a small food-processor, then wrapped in net curtain to make the ‘cheese’ for pressing. That first year, we made about 5 gallons of ‘Sore Finger Cider’ – named after our very sore fingers from cutting up the piles of apples so that they’d fit into the small food-processor…

That first cider was ok, but was ‘thin’, lacked tannin and was on the acidic side; we only had access to eating and cooking apples. So a decision was made to plant as many true West Country cider apple varieties in our garden as we could fit – and to purchase a proper ‘scratter’ or apple-mill to save our sore fingers! We were by now also travelling around the country to various Cider and Perry Festivals, visiting real cider makers – and picking their brains.

We planted our first trees in the winter of 1999/2000 and made sure we had some ‘vintage’ bittersweet and bittersharp cider-apple varieties in our plans including Kingston Black, Stoke Red, Yarlington Mill and Dabinett. We decided to grow all our apples as organically as we can, we do not spray the apples and only use our own home-made compost. By training the trees along the boundaries in espalier fashion and carefully selecting rootstocks, we found we were able to squeeze in a good number of varieties; by 2005 we had over a dozen productive trees and had been able to include more cider varieties such as Tom Putt, Harry Masters Jersey and Royal Somerset. A John Downie crab-apple tree was also planted to aid pollination.

I had rebuilt the press to include 6 tonnes of hydraulic power and we had upgraded from a hand-powered scratter to an electric apple mill that I imported direct from Czechoslovakia.

A barrow-full of apples yields around 5 gallons of juice - providing that you can crush or ‘mill’ the apples finely enough. Our Czech stainless-steel ‘Fruit Shark’ does an excellent job of reducing the apples to a fine shredded pulp. As soon as the apple pulp is wrapped in the net-curtain material to make the ’cheese’ the juice begins to flow. Pressure is slowly increased until the pulp or pomace is squeezed dry and no more juice flows; the dry, spent pomace gets placed on the compost heap and is used to put goodness back into the soil and garden - or is given to Ian at work who uses it to feed his chickens.

Torkard Cider is born...
As soon as the cider bar managers at festivals learnt that we were making our own truly Nottinghamshire cider, we were asked if we’d supply some cider for their next festival. We always turned them down, but after joining Mansfield & Ashfield CAMRA in 2005, we thought we’d go the ‘whole hog’ and let our cider loose on an unsuspecting world... The official, legal side of things was quickly sorted and by late 2006 we were ready. We do not have an off-sales or farm-gate licence so can only provide our cider wholesale to licence-holders, so a festival is an ideal outlet for us. We have purchased a number of 10 and 20 litre Bag-in-Box containers to supply festivals and ensure the cider stays fresh and keeps well.

As we only use genuine 100% Hucknall, Nottinghamshire-grown apples in our cider, thinking of a name was not too difficult. Up until 1916, Hucknall was known as Hucknall-Torkard; the name Torkard is used by a number of businesses in the area and is synonymous with Hucknall. So Torkard Cider became the name of our first official blend.

Are we the only cider-makers in Nottinghamshire? We thought we were until some friendly folks from Newstead corrected us! More folks have expressed an interest since the Mansfield Festival - could a Hucknall Cider Co-Operative or Nottinghamshire Cider Makers Association one day exist? We are willing to share our knowledge and experience - and we are also looking for folks who have apples (or pears ) to spare...

Torkard Cider is made from 100% pure un-pasteurised apple juice with no additives, colouring agents, water, sugar or such like. It is a blend of West Country bittersharp and bittersweet cider apple varieties grown in our own garden. The only addition is a small amount of Sulphur Dioxide to kill off unwanted yeasts and spoilage organisms. Primary fermentation is by the natural yeasts found present on the skin of the fruit, followed by a later pitching of wine yeast to get the desirable ABV of 6.5% - 7.0% to ensure it will keep. It is allowed to clear naturally and so is unfiltered and un-fined; it may have a slight natural haze. It is pale gold in colour, with medium body and medium-to-light tannin.

Torkard 57 Cider is made from a blend of apples collected mainly from orchards, gardens and hedgerows around Nottinghamshire, plus a small amount of Somerset cider apples to give more body and tannin to the cider. Torkard 57 is also made from 100% pure un-pasteurised apple juice with no additions, but is fermented wholly using true cider yeasts. The russet apples shown here were collected from a tree found growing wild in a hedge bottom; their crisp and juicy nature were ideal for adding to our cider. We are always on the look-out for 'wildings' such as this which are to be found in the Nottinghamshire countryside.

Torkard 57 Cider is similar in style to Torkard Cider, but is more 'cidery' in taste due to the use of a true cider yeast throughout the fermentation rather than the later pitching of a wine yeast which we employed with Torkard. Kathy and John of The Arkwright Arms at Sutton-cum-Duckmanton, East Midlands Regional CAMRA Cider Pub of the Year 2008 have asked if they can feature our ciders on a more-or-less permanent basis and Torkard 57 has been on sale there since March of this year.

Hello!

2008-07-02T11:16:00.000-07:00

After much wrangling and gnashing of teeth, I've finally gotten round to starting a blog about the everyday cider-exploits of a couple of (idiots?) people who have a desire to make real, full-juice craft cider in Nottinghamshire, predominantly from Nottinghamshire-grown fruit. The picture on the left is a bath-full of Nottinghamshire apples ready to be washed and inspected, taken in October 2007 on our 'estate' (ie. in our back garden).

The inspiration or should I say coercion for doing this, came from our good friend Mark of Rockingham Forest Cider fame. Bless him. Blogging is very new to me, so the start will probably be shaky, but hopefully I'll get the hang of it - eventually! Cheers!