February Catch Up...

The headlines:

- Pruning the 146 micro orchard and adding to its small number

- Fermentations – slow and slower

- 7 year old makes ginger wine (with a hint of chilli)

- And finally, don't forget the Gosport Winterfest!

Okay – I should have warned you not to get too excited by it! Well, it is winter after all!

Pruning the 146 micro orchard and adding to its small number

Winter is the time for tree management. This is essential for tons of reasons, for which I am probably not the best reference. Take a look at Stephen Hayes Youtube site to see what I mean. As the trees in the micro orchard are only 3 years old, pruning helps form a decent tree shape – a good form will optimise the amount of fruit a tree bears as well as making future maintenance easier.

At the moment, there are 6 trees in the orchard. These include a high quality desert apple (Ashmeads Kernel) and a very mildly acid cooking apple (James Grieve). These will ultimately form a base for a special ‘limited’ cider that I want to make in a few years. To build on this, there are currently four lesser known cider apple trees; a full bittersharp, two full bittersweets, and a medium and mild bittersweet. My hope is that these rare varieties will bring something extra to the cider that cannot be found elsewhere.

To this, I have a couple of Dabinetts that I want to plant shortly. Many cider makers are happy to make Dabinett single variety cider; and its not bad. However, for my purpose it is a good variety to provide a quality bulk to the blend.

It is also another variety to play around with.

Fermentations – Slow and slower

February is turning out to be warmer than last year, so although the cider got off to a slow start, the fermentation tanks are keeping busy. A friend from the Cider Workshop has a live webcam linked to his tanks, so you can witness in real time the wonders of fermentation! To be honest, cider fermentation is really not that much of an event in itself.

The Hampshire Heritage is just about finished (I am cleaning the storage tanks as I write) and the 146 Eastern is just nudging below 1010 (that will take about 14 days to finish). Only the 146 Western seems to be stubbornly stuck in the 1020’s. This is the batch that concerned me the most when planning the blend of sharp/sweet and bitter – there is less than 10% sharps (as per a traditional west country cider) so it was always going to be the most unpredictable fermentation this year.

7 year old makes ginger wine (with a hint of chilli)

So, its not all cider here! Following a successful batch of ginger wine (which was given mostly as Christmas presents for my daughters nurses and friends) we decided to give it another go. The recipe is simple and (loosely) based on a 1968 recipe in “Home Wine and Beer Making” – although we took some liberties with the recipe to produce something a little more special. I will post separately (although, lets face it, this is a cider website/blog!)

And finally - dont forget the Gosport Winterfest

Order is in and the cider is... well... still sat in storage for the moment. However, the Gosport Winterfest starts on Friday 25th February at the Thorngate Halls in Gosport. See the South East Hampshire CAMRA website for details.

Say cheese...

Whilst January slowly ticks away and the cider slowly bubbles away we have launched an 'annual' photography competition on the Cider Workshop for all the budding cider photographers on the group. The theme for this years competition is 'the Cider/Perry Season 2010' and entries are invited from all Cider Workshop members.

All details of the competition are found on www.ciderworkshop.com, as is the link to the Cider Workshop group (should you have the best cider photo's but have yet to find your way to the Workshop!

I must admit to being rather too 'technical' in my photographs during last season. I don't believe that images of hydrometers floating in apple juice, individial varieties of apples sliced in two and used pomace sat around the base of trees is going to win over anyone but the most hardened of cider loons. And my best shots are from 2009 and probably already online somewhere... so I don't think I can cheat and get away with it (not that I would!!! ahem!)

The winner(s), as judged by professional photographer and Cider Workshop member Neil Phillips of Orchard Eye, will have a place on the home page of the group website for 12 months and we may even create a gallery on the website for the top 10 or so.

Happy snapping:-)

Southampton man gets visit from EHO... And lives!

I had anticipated the latest visit by Southampton’s finest to be a bit of a challenge – the proper thing this time. I had previously written up a HACCP plan to identify parts of the business that we a ‘risk’, and also made sure that I had a copy of the NACM guidelines – to which I adhere to (as far as it is applicable).

So, the Environmental Health man came to see me and was really very human indeed. None of the anticipated “you need to do this, this and this”, no pound symbols came rushing past my eyes and not even a glimmer of the vast amounts of paperwork I had expected!

OK. In reality I have to write up a bit more ‘meat’ on the HACCP, and need to think about adopting a tracking document for the cleaning process... but this is more common sense than red-tape, and I had been doing something kind of a bit like it before. And, of course, I will need to wait for the letter that is bound to turn up sooner or later. But I don’t have that sense of foreboding that I have seen from others around the country!

As the winter progresses and the cider simply ‘does its stuff’, 146 Cider has been improving things to make 2011 easier to manage. A new ‘super’ hydrometer has been purchased – a foot long (thanks for the recommendation Mark Shirley of Rockingham Forest Cider)... OK, I did have a really useful (but slightly smaller) hydrometer but managed to smash it. I wish they were a bit more robust:-( A new scale is on order for the bag in boxes – no, its not that things have been any less accurate in 2010... its just that this one is designed for the boxes so should make things a lot quicker (once I have got Trading Standards to stamp it!!) Finally, I am waiting to get the 2011 labels test sheet. All very exciting.

So, how is the cider coming along? Very nicely, thank you very much for asking!