Nice to be of help. Got an email from Owestry

HI Ed Cyder Time !!!!!!!!!!

I have bottled One Drum, It seemed to finish before the others Which I find strange because I blended them all the same back in October when I had four different sorts of different apple juice.

Its cloudy and has a slight pinkish/ orangey tint. Its taste ok . Dry first taste but then there's something else going on a more neutral taste not sweet.

I don't think it will win any prizes ,but its not unpleasant . If you are up any time I would valve your professional opinion It may help me improve this years brew

Thanks for all your help

my reply

Glad the cider has turned out drinkable! I find all my cyders finish at different times although they are pressed at the same time and contain different fruit! Must be due to how vigourous the yeast is I suppose. There is nothing wrong with cloudy cyder - some clear some do not. some of my cyder was bright orange last year. Cyder comes in all shades of many colours from green to red! If you are getting other taste after the dry it should mean the cyder has matured properly which is good news. I will let you know if I am around Owestry at all. I would love to try your cyder!

Coming soon.. Breton cider of should I say cidre reviews from my recent holiday in Brittany.

Herefordshire Cider at Checkley Brook

One one my favourite Cambridge Bars has recently had a complete make over with the inside being completely redone. The owner Matt Knight's idea was to create a multi purpose venue. The cambridge pub now caters for anything for art exhibitions to wedding receptions. Being on three floors of a large central Cambridge building there is plenty of room for the various functionality offered.

During the week you can go there for a quiet pint of real ale or cider, or even a coffee (yeah right!) . The front of the pub now opens onto the street so with spring here it makes a great al fresco drinking pub where you can watch the world go by. Matt always make sure he a some local Cambridge ales in too.

At weekends it is open late and is a good nightspot supporting many local DJs and musicians. I am getting a bit old for that sort of stuff but my younger friends seem to like it.

But in these days of epidemic pubs closures it is pubs like these that can offer something extra that seem to stay open and in fact do well. Successful pubs need to offer good ale/cider, good food or entertainment and the fountain seems to do all three very well.

Of course I have a vested interest in 'ale' pubs doing well as I sell my cider in them. Perhaps if more landlords had Matt's imagination has stocked his range of drinks there would not be so many closures.

Herefordshire Cider at Checkley Brook

Questions about the malo-lactic cider fermentation stage

Further questions from a cider maker in Owestry - the malo-lactic or secondary fermentation of cider.

Happy New Year.
Hi Ed .
More questions I am afraid.
My Cider was racked off 5 weeks ago and screwed down . I am I no hurry to drink it. I will probably be end April when I will want to bottle it ,but it still produces gas which on your advice I let out twice a week or so.
Will this diminish ? My worry is if it does not will it be safe to bottle, am going to use old beer bottles with a crown top my worry is that they may blow up. Am I worrying about nothing .
Best wishes

The reason your cider is still producing gas (CO2) is that it is going through malo-lactic or secondary fermentation (the primary stage of fermentation for your cider has finished, as we discussed in November). The malo-lactic fermentation stage still produces CO2 but a lot less than the first fermentation stage. This secondary stage effects the very complex flavours with in cyder balancing the acid and tannins. This is the maturation stage of the cider.

The CO2 production certainly will diminish with time. It should well have finished by the end of April. It will probably ease off in a month or so if you racked of 5 weeks ago. Mine usually takes two to three months (but my cider is kept in out buildings and does not finish the first fermentation until March).

You are right not to bottle it at this stage in old beer bottles as the pressure may build up to explosive levels. So wait until April until you bottle or wait until the CO2 production has diminished.

If you wanted to try making a champagne style cider this is the perfect time. You need proper champagne bottles (which were invented in England for cider years before champagne was ever produced) and cork and cages.

http://www.brewuk.co.uk/store/bottling/corks-caps-labels/champagne-cages-25-s.html

http://www.brewuk.co.uk/store/bottling/corks-caps-labels/champagne-stoppers-25-s.html

Add one spoon of sugar to each bottle, siphon in the cider into the bottle and cork it up. This will produce a lovely fizzy chanpagne style cider. However I usually leave them in bottle like this for a full year before drinking. It is worth the wait.

Hope this helps.

Cheers Ed




Herefordshire Cider at Checkley Brook

Further converstations about homebrew cider:

"Oswestry again
I racked that Cider off the other day I lost about 1 litre pre drum in the process, I could not get it all out without sturing it all up so I chucked that bit could I have done anything to save it ?
I took the SG and it was 1006 is that ok, I took a little taste and was pleasantly surprised is was a little fresh/ tart but not bad.
I also had a brain wave ,not sure about result, at work we have a retractometer which we us to measure glycol strength so I thought I would play about with it
Its not calibrated for alcohol, but 40% scotch gave w , 13% wine x, 8.5%beer y and 4.7% beer z. my cider gave a reading between y and z nearer to the 8.5% beer I would guess between 6.5% and 7.5% not so sure about the accuracy all a bit of guess work but would this be a normal strength?
Thanks again in anticipation have a good X-mas one and all.
Leigh"

Hi Leigh,

Unfortunately you will always lose some cider when racking off. But you must get rid of the 'lees' (sediment) at the bottom. The sediment will spoil the taste of the cider otherwise. They will also make your cider more cloudy which some people do not like. There is nothing wrong with naturally cloudy cider but it should not be cloudy because the the lees. So it is always better to lose a bit cider in the process. I will lose up to a fifth of the pressed juice by the time I have racked it off once and then syphoned it again into barrels to sell. Many cider makers rack off twice during the fermentation process to let the cider clear as much as possible.



Your estimate of the strength sounds accurate. My cider seems to always be between 6% and 7.5%. Did you measure the original SG? If so there is a calculation to determine the strength using the first and last reading.

http://www.homebrewmart.com/alcohol.html

Technically your cider is ready to drink but it is 'young' i.e. it needs to mature. Store the cider, keeping it air tight for a month or two for to to mature. This rounds the cider off and helps bring out the full flavours.

Seasons greeting!

Ed


Herefordshire Cider at Checkley Brook

Fermenting cider questions

I met a fellow cider maker in Owestry who emailed me with a couple of questions about fermenting. So I thought it may be useful to turn it into a blog post in case others had similar questions. His email and my answer are below.

"Its Leigh from Oswestry
Hope you are well. Just a couple of silly questions
My 80litres of fermenting juice are in 4 , 25litre plastic containers, they were popping the airlocks about every 20secs in the start .now its down to about once every 2mins

When do I rack it off ?

How do I know when its stopped fermenting? I no the obvious answer is when the bubbles stop but can you over do fermenting it?

How do I know how strong it is?

And is better to leave the airlocks in or seal the container complete after racking . I would not want in to be still fermenting and blow the bung

Many thanks In anticipation
Leigh "



Hi Leigh,

It sounds like it is time to rack off that cider. The fermentation is coming to an end by the time of the popping. One way of checking it has stopped fermenting is to take a hydrometer reading a reading of around 1000 would indicate that all the sugar has turned into alcohol.



You cannot over ferment really. Although some people try to stop the fermentation to retain some of the natural sugars to produce a sweet cider (this is called 'keeving'). I would not attempt this yet. You can only tell how strong it is if you took a hydrometer reading when you pressed the juice. Then take a reading once fermentation has finished from this you can work out the alcoholic strength. Here is is simple formula to use:

Alcohol by Volume = (Initial Gravity - Final Gravity) / 0.75


The cider is now going through a secondary fermentation which will produce a small amount of CO2. It is best to seal the container. BUT CHECK REGULARY. Unscrew the lid to let off pressure. It is OK to do this as CO2 is heavier than air and will form a protective layer over the cider. Your cider should be ready in a month or so.



Herefordshire Cider at Checkley Brook

Visit to Brogdale home of the National Fruit Collection

Yesterday was a beautiful autumn day, and we were enjoying a heat wave most unusual for early October. It was a prefect day to go down to the beautiful county of Kent to Brogdale Farm the home of the National Fruit Collection near Faversham. Brogdale has been the home of the national fruit collection since the early fifties. Its purpose it to serve as a research facility for scientist and farmers alike, and to serve as place where all the thousands of varieties of fruit are preserved. I do mean all fruit: apples, cider apples, pears, perry pears, quinces, plums, cherries the list goes on and that is just the top fruit. There is also a huge collection of soft fruit.

We were given a guided tour around the facility. There are 150 acres of fruit trees to wonder round. If you were to try one different variety of apples along each day it would take you 6 years to try them all! As our group was mostly from Cambridge we hunted down some old Cambridgeshire varieties to sample such as Huntingdon Codlin and Histon Favourite developed of course by John Chivers. We did also get the chance to look round the extensive cider and perry tree collection there and it was good to spot some old favourites.



One apple I was very pleased to come across was Ashmeads Kernel show below. This is a lovely little apple good both as an eating apple and for use in cider. A real find - I might buy a couple for the orchard.



Of course no visit to such a place would be complete without sampling the wares made with all that lovely cider and perry fruit. They had a draft cider and a draft perry on offer both were splendid. I opted to bring back 4 pints of the perry as I have more cider that I could possibly (or wisely!) drink.



So the next Kent destination must be East Malling the place where many famous root stocks were developed.

Herefordshire Cider at Checkley Brook

Ross on Wye Cider festival 2011

This year was our first visit to the Ross Cider festival put on by these lovely people Ross Cider. It was a great event. Very well organised. We camped in an old orchard full of heritage varieties of cider apples and perry pears.



The event is limited to 400 people due to fire regulations. This keeps it feeling a small, friendly and cosy festival. On the friday night there was a ceilidh with lots of people dancing intoxicated on Ross Cider delicious cider and perry. On Saturday there was a demonstration of cider making.



Ross cider has invested in a new type of press which uses water pressure to do the pressing. The pressure only goes up to two and a half bar which is quite amazing as my hydraulic press goes up to 380 bar! The juice is extracted slowly so should be of good quality.



Ross cider invites other cider producers to come and sell their wares at the festival which is nice of them! The Marchers Cyder Circle's Palmer's Upland Cyder was there. Other present were Tom Oliver, Greggs Pitt, Gwatkins, Swallowfields, Seidr Dai and Carey Organic. Needless to say we tried them all over the day and bought a few to take home with us too.

Throughout Saturday there were various folk musicians playing for our entertainment



There was also fantastic food available all weekend so we didn't really have to take any food with us. We'll certainly be going next year.

Herefordshire Cider at Checkley Brook