so how did the 1st TTC Apple day go? Staggeringly well.
5 of us turned up, Charlie, Janee, Nick, Peter and myself. And such magic was in the air that they lined up in alphabetical order for the picture - without even a hint, suggestion or thought. Many more and it could have been chaos (Only because there was plenty to learn), any less and it would have been much less fun.
We picked two wheel Barrow loads in a couple of hours, then we had to go our separate ways. Nick and I were the only ones who wanted to do something with the apples so we split the load. I got 2 gallons of juice from mine, i trust Nick got similar. With mine i'll be making 5 gallons of quickie wine (crisp, light, clean, white table wine. Ready in 8-10 weeks) and 1 gallon of pure apple wine ready in no less than 6 months. I believe Nick is making cider.
The juice tasted delicious by the way, full of body and as sweet as any apple juice i've ever tasted.
More piccies and more detail
We arrived around 10.00 am, tho Charlie and Peter were a little early and got stuck in to picking delicious blackberries straight away. Peter soon had a cult following of a couple of boys and they joined in the blackberry picking. When they left they gave Peter the berries, which gave him a very pleasant surprise.
The juice tasted delicious by the way, full of body and as sweet as any apple juice i've ever tasted.
More piccies and more detail
We arrived around 10.00 am, tho Charlie and Peter were a little early and got stuck in to picking delicious blackberries straight away. Peter soon had a cult following of a couple of boys and they joined in the blackberry picking. When they left they gave Peter the berries, which gave him a very pleasant surprise.
Then we got stuck into apples. Charlie brought a wheel barrow, tarpaulin , bags, a scythe (how i wish i had a picture of me holding that ... but there's a long story behind that which involves an undead warlock in a place called Quel 'thalas, Azeroth) and she also brought a ladder, all of which was a great help. She couldn't wait to climb trees and was soon shaking handfuls of apples off while we scurried about collecting them, or went looking for low hanging fruit. Being hit by an apple is hardly life threatening, but being hit by a rotten one is somewhat horrible. Some of the fruit was hanging so low that you had to bend down to pick it! Peter had a short roll about in the nettles and brambles after he and the ladder had a disagreement and went their separate ways (from an altitude of about 15 cms). And my inner child also came out and i was soon climbing trees to shake off fruit too.
The Orchard is a beautiful spot, and being school hols it was great to see the whole park being well used.
The resulting haul of fruit meant that there was no time to loose with processing the apples. So straight home i went to get set up in the garden. Janee came too to help me get started (i've never pressed apples). It was great to the benefit of her experience and a delight to troubleshoot problems so easily with her.
The resulting haul of fruit meant that there was no time to loose with processing the apples. So straight home i went to get set up in the garden. Janee came too to help me get started (i've never pressed apples). It was great to the benefit of her experience and a delight to troubleshoot problems so easily with her.
So first of all there was washing, just a simple rinse really to get rid of loose surface dirt, identify the rotten ones etc
Then chopping, to make the whole juice extraction easier. And also removing bruises, insect holes, stems etc. We didn't bother with coring because its very time consuming and besides even split pips won't taint the wine. However if you're using a juicer - rather than a press - then removing the cores will be essential because the seeds will be pulverised and will almost certainly not do the wine any favours.
Then pulping, because pressing chunks of apples ain't easy. I used a T-handled phillips head screwdriver. The sort of thing you get in a flatpack tool kit. I attached it to an electric drill with the "T" protruding acting as the pulping blades. Worked a treat, tho only after i broke my de-gassing whizz stick - it's not upto pulping, mind you i don't like using it for degassing either and reverted to a wholly manual method shortly after buying it.
Next up came pounding/mashing. Even pulping wasn't going far enough to make the pressing easy. So i pounded the pulp with a rolling pin for about a minute. Well until the juice started splashing me anyway. Wasps love apples and i hate wasps, so i really didn't want to be covered in apple pulp AND juice.
Then pressing. Using Janees beautiful press. If you filled a carrier bag to as full as can be with apples then the chopping, pulping and pounding resulted in a full press. As you can imagine a wheel-barrow load took a few iterations! We managed to reduce the volume to something like 1/3 of what we started off with. Tho that sounds like the apples were 2/3 juice, which isn't so, when you load up the press there are a heap of air gaps. The first 1/3 of pressing is probably those gaps.
At first we had no lubricant on the spindle of the press, neither did we pulp the apples well enough, so it made for hard work. But we learned fast and by the time the 3rd load went in the pressing was a breeze and each load delivered almost 3 litres of juice. This passed through a few layers of muslin and 2 layers of tightly woven nylon. The result was a delicious, sweet, full bodied, pure pressed juice with no lumps of apple or pips. Some hours later and there's no scum floating on it either. All of which is very promising for wine making. I've added 2 campden tablets to the 2 gallons of juice. This will stun/inhibit any wild yeasts, deal with any bacteria and bugs and the like. It'll also add a very important something to the juice that will help to make its home very homely. Tomorrow, or Monday i'll start fermenting!
If you want to know more about the brewing, the recipes and methods i'll use, and those strange words like degassing (i also mention keeving!), then i'll be writing it up fully on my brewing blog (i didn't yet tell you anywhere on the forum that i do that did i .... however this little write up has taken longer than i thought, so it won't happen right away. I've also made some video, but don't hold your breath waiting for the movie, i've got video from last years festivals/staycation that haven't been edited yet!!!
clicky http://homebrewedwines.blogspot.com/ for the blog
At first we had no lubricant on the spindle of the press, neither did we pulp the apples well enough, so it made for hard work. But we learned fast and by the time the 3rd load went in the pressing was a breeze and each load delivered almost 3 litres of juice. This passed through a few layers of muslin and 2 layers of tightly woven nylon. The result was a delicious, sweet, full bodied, pure pressed juice with no lumps of apple or pips. Some hours later and there's no scum floating on it either. All of which is very promising for wine making. I've added 2 campden tablets to the 2 gallons of juice. This will stun/inhibit any wild yeasts, deal with any bacteria and bugs and the like. It'll also add a very important something to the juice that will help to make its home very homely. Tomorrow, or Monday i'll start fermenting!
If you want to know more about the brewing, the recipes and methods i'll use, and those strange words like degassing (i also mention keeving!), then i'll be writing it up fully on my brewing blog (i didn't yet tell you anywhere on the forum that i do that did i .... however this little write up has taken longer than i thought, so it won't happen right away. I've also made some video, but don't hold your breath waiting for the movie, i've got video from last years festivals/staycation that haven't been edited yet!!!
clicky http://homebrewedwines.blogspot.com/ for the blog