Juicing

Once the apples have been washed they are feed into the “scratter” which is basically a monster food processor. Our Speidel mill can handle 1000kg an hour and that is more than fast enough for us at the moment.

The next step is to pack the pulp in cloth to form cheeses which are separated by wooden frames. Our press takes nine of these cheeses at a time and squashes it with 300 bar pressure. Each pressing produces 40 litres of juice.

This glorious brown liquid is collected into stainless steel tanks where it will ferment over the Winter. Cider is made using a cold fermentation that proceeds slowly at the ambient temperature. In practice this means it gets off to a good start then more or less stops in December and only picks up again in March.