[Simon O]

That's interesting Bodger. Do you make the cider in wooden barrels. I think it would be great to do an explanation of your cidermaking process, with pictures, on your website. You are right it is fun doing it in a group. Hester with the trees you have planted you will soon be doing a larger amount and appreciate some help!
 
 

[Bodger]

We ferment in the big blue plastic barrels, but as soon as the fermentation process is finished, we pump the  cider into 50 gallon oak barrels to mature. The cider that we've been selling this summer will have been in oak for over 8 months. We've deliberately held four barrels of cider back this time around, so that it can be sold as 'vintage' next year.
The barrels that we're using at present are from the French red wine industry but in a few weeks time, we're going to be getting some rum and whisky barrels.
 
We aim to build our website up over the year as the season progresses and hope to be able to take some really good photos as we go on. I'm not a techie when it comes to computers but I'm quite looking forward to building the website and an interesting blog.

[HesterF]

Bodger I'll be following every word of your blog! Personally I don't like cider but husband would love to make some. I'm more keen on the juicing since we currently spend a fortune on other peoples' apple juice.

H

[Bodger]

Juicing apples for home consumption is really easy and you get such wonderful variation in both colour and taste from the many different apple varieties.

[HesterF]

I got a whole range from Brogdale last year - they sell about eight different juices by variety. We rapidly added James Grieve to our planting plan as the juice was just gorgeous. The Bramley was good as well - I thought it would be really tart but it was good.

H

[Bodger]

We put quite a few Bramley apples through the press and as you say, it makes a surprisingly good apple juice.
We split the apple trees in our orchard up roughly into two categories. In the main, its the eating apple varieties that we make into apple juice. At the moment, we have Red Windsor and Discovery with just a few Bardsey. This winter we'll be adding Katy, Red Falstaff and possibly some Fiesta.
 
There aren't a lot of cider apples in our area to be had, so we've tended to concentrate on growing our own and because of that, we have quite a lot more cider trees and quite a few more varieties.
We grow Kingston Black, Dabinett, Michelin, Browns Apple, Major, Somerset Red Streak, Brown Snout and Tom Putt. Again its our intention to add a few more varieties this winter. Planting apple trees can become quite addictive.

[HesterF]

Husband has relented. We've gone for a really big press (90l) having calculated what we'll eventually need for 2 acres of vines. Just hope it lasts that long!

So, yay, (very expensive) apple juice this year! I've picked the odd apple already for other stuff and have noticed that some have insect damage or something inside that you can't tell from the outside. So my next question is, do I need to open up all the apples and cut out the bad bits before crushing? Any other top tips beyond all the lovely stuff above?

H