March 2009 The cider has also taken much longer than normal to get going. This is mainly due to the cold spell we had after Christmas. It is a good thing that yeast is so resilient. There are not many living things that could cope with temperatures ranging from -20˚C to + 50˚C. Even if you put yeast in the freezer it will work when defrosted! What actually tends to happen in our system where we rely on “natural” yeasts for our fermentation, is that as the fermentation progresses different yeasts tend to predominate. It’s a bit like a relay race. As the alcohol levels increase different strains of yeast take over. When in the bottle (during the secondary fermentation… champagne method) and under considerable pressure the “wild” yeasts would probably not survive as their thin cell walls would rupture. The pressure builds up to about 75psi, much more than you would put in your car tyres! The special champagne yeast we get from France is able to withstand the pressure and is also a very aggressive yeast using up all the available sugars with glee. |
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Pruning |
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October 2008 Ready for harvest Some apples have been picked already, but the vast majority are still on the trees or are hiding in the grass. It comes as a surprise to some people that you always pick cider apples off the orchard floor. It doesn’t look as though we have a very good crop this year. Lots of rather small apples. I guess this could well be a reflection of the rather bad weather we had all through the main part of the summer. We are always after the highest level of sugar in the apples, and this increases as the apples ripen. Apples only fall when they are ripe or nearly ripe. We will often store the apples for 2 weeks or so to ripen the fruit still further. We hand pick all our apples to get a really good sample. A small amount of brown flesh is fine, as this indicates full ripeness. We might take 3 passes of the orchards to pick apples as they fall. Larger enterprises use a mechanical tree shaker to get all the apples down in one go. This makes even unripe apples fall off the tree. The sugar levels in these hard apples tend to be quite low, so extra sugar is often added to make up the difference. We never add any sugar to our ciders at this stage. The press and mill have all been assembled and given a trial run. All seems to be working perfectly….. not bad for machinery made in 1927.
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New Cider Book A new book on cider has just been published called “Ciderland”. Written by James Crowden, and it is a handsome looking book. click here to visit James' website for more information
Weddings We must have supplied our sparkling ciders to about 30 weddings this year. Most of them in the Westcountry, but some further afield. It always seems to go down very well. This year the Devon Blush has been pushing the Vintage off it’s perch in terms of sales, particularly at the weddings. More prizes In August we were pleased to be awarded yet another Gold from the Great Taste Awards. Although we could not repeat last years triumph of winning the top three star category, we came away with a very creditable two star gold award. Only 220 2 star Gold awards were won out of 4800 entries. In addition, we won both first and second prizes at the Devon County Show, third prize at The Bath and West Show and third prize at The Three Counties Show in Malvern. So a good haul after all. |
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Events We will be at the Dartmouth Food Festival on Saturday October 11th and in London for the BBC Good Food Show at Olympia on November 14-16th .
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April 2008 Spring is here? We have just come back from the first big show of the year for us. This is the Exeter Festival of South West Food and Drink. Last year people were wandering around in tee shirts and lounging on the lawns. The weather was certainly very different this year, with a keen easterly wind and sharp showers that kept you on your toes. Notwithstanding the inclement weather, we managed to top our takings from last year by a small margin, and picked up some very good trade contacts. Taste of the West, who organise the event have been busy over the last few months. Over the last few years it has become clear that the South West of England contains an abundance of high quality producers of food and drink. They are in the process of setting up an interesting new initiative which is to attempt to link up the South West of England with Tuscany in Italy. Things are at a fairly early stage, but the possibilities are exiting. It is interesting to note that some of the Italians I met at the Exeter event were saying that although they feel their region is “ahead” of the South West in terms of promoting their regional produce, it would not be long before we caught up, and there was much we could learn from each other.
All the pruning has been completed now, and we now have a fantastic flush of celandines and late primroses. The sheep will soon see to that when they turn up with lambs at foot.
Cider still working Cold weather has kept the fermentation rate down, but soon, the cider will have reached “dryness” and at this point the first part of the job of cider making is complete. All available sugar has been converted by the yeasts which will have mainly all fallen to the bottom of the fermenting vessels as a bright orange sludge. The next job will be to blend all the different barrels together and bottle the still cider with some sugar, champagne yeast and a fining agent. The fining agent helps clear the cider right at the end of the process. We then put the bottles in special racks to start the process of getting rid of the sediment caused by the secondary in-bottle fermentation. This is called riddling or rémuage.
Shows Here is list of the Shows we will be attending this year: Real Food Festival, Earls Court, London. April 24-27 Stand 64 Devon County Show, Exeter. May 15-17 Bristol Wine and Food Fair. July 11-13 Dartmouth Regatta, Dartmouth, Devon. August 28-30 Dartmouth Food Festival. October 18,19
Tastings We are doing many more tastings this year. We find it a really useful way of meeting the general public and getting feedback, but probably more important is the business of having some time with the staff that work in the various shops. We can explain in detail what makes our ciders’ special. We talk about the products and the process. This “knowledge transfer” is a win-win situation due to the fact that the shop staff enjoy understanding about the products they are selling, and hopefully, when we have gone, they do a bit of selling for us! We are taking on more suppliers in an ever increasing area, so if you want to know where your nearest outlet is, e-mail us with your postcode and we will let you know where to go. Cheers, Jason
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January 2008
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June 2007 Since writing last, much has happened, so a brief summary to get us up to date. |
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Prizes-Prizes Then just recently we got another 1st prize at the Three Counties Show held near Malvern. The Three Counties (Herefordshire, Worcestershire and Gloucestershire) is a platform for the area containing more cider and perry makers than any other in the UK…. Maybe even the world! So, a good one to win. At the Hereford International Cider and Perry Competition we won 2nd Prize for Best Presented Bottle. At the Devon County Show held back in May, we won 2nd and 3rd prizes. There are some more competitions to go, most notably the Fine Food and Drink Awards, and Taste of the West’s annual awards, so watch this space! |
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Shows/Festivals coming soon Taste of Bath June 28 - July1 Port Eliot Lit Fest July 20 – July 22 Underground Publicity |
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BBC Countryfile Programme |
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“New” Press and Mill installed It was owned by my mentor, Cyril Trenchard who sadly died last year after a long and fascinating life. I had used the equipment at his place for the last 8 years or so. When it came up for auction it was a case of “this must be mine”! We had to build a substantial timber mezzanine floor above the press to house the mill, motors and gearing. Below, we constructed a large tank to receive the milled fruit. Most cider makers press their fruit immediately after the milling process. I copied Cyril’s method, whereby you mill the fruit into this large tank, and then leave it to macerate for 24 hrs or so. This brings out a lovely golden colour to the cider, helps clear the juice later on, and produces a richer more complex flavoured cider. The science behind it is very interesting if you are into that sort of thing, but I will not bore you with it now! The French cider makers in Normandy and Brittany use this method. Time was tight because after the warm/hot autumn, the fruit were dropping at least 2 weeks earlier than normal. Just got it done in time, and the old beast did us proud. Came right up to pressure first time. We raised a glass of the cool golden juice in Cyril’s memory and said “Happy Days”, just as he would have done. |
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New Product “Devon Blush” |
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Organic Status |
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Website changes I am determined to keep the news page much more up to date. The new system we have will make this much easier too. More photos, more frequent changes etc. Any comments, please feel to free to contact us on the response form. Cheers for now, and happy and safe drinking, Jason |
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