Unlike last year, this season is a bumper one for apples and after three sessions of apple picking we have over a ton of apples to press and pasteurise this coming weekend.
Yesterday we went to a local community orchard and picked this little lot.
I have an admission to make. :oops: I forgot to take the camera with me. :oops: but there will be plenty of other opportunities. We managed to get 15 trugs of fabulous eating apples and even better, none of us got stung by wasps, which was an absolute miracle, because there were millions of the little beggars.
Here are two rather boring pictures of the apples that we picked. I promise to try and do better in the future. it was a great day in a beautiful area overlooking the River Glaslyn.
The flesh of the red apples ( Discovery) is very red indeed and should produce some wonderful apple juice. We got five trugs of them. If the juice we make from them turns out alright, which it should, I may very well consider planting some of my own trees.
Late on this afternoon, I had another phone call to "come and fetch some apples"
The reason why our apples all look so pristine, is because for apple juice, you're not supposed to use windfalls, only apples that have been picked directly off the tree. This is down to a rather nasty agent called Patulin that bruised or moldy apples can contain.
Its for this reason, that any apples which look in the slightest bit dodgy get slung to the pigs. :
The pasteurising process doesn't get rid of Patulin once its in apple juice but fermentation does, so any windfalls go to making cider.
I picked another eight trugs of Discovery today, which gives us around a ton of apples to press this coming Saturday. We now have enough Discovery apples to make a single variety juice.
Later in the season, we should be able to get enough Bramleys to do the same.