To Be Busy

The apple season has now reached us and the first variety called Discovery is now ready for eating.

This also means the start of the apple harvest for brewing purposes. Here is grandson Ffinlo helping to put the chopped apples through the fruit press. It was a job at which he excelled. This is not a high speed machine but works on the familiar principles of a meat grinder. It produces a great deal of pressure and as you see separates the apples in to juice and pulp.

He is very partial to the fruit juice as it comes out of the machine.

The juice is ultimately destined to become apple champagne. Before that however it is allowed to rest overnight in a jug in the fridge. The foam on the top can then be removed and the relatively clear juice is decanted in to plastic milk containers and frozen.

To make a good apple wine or champagne one needs to incorporate a variety of different types of apple and I also use crab apples.

If there is a glut I have been known to brew some cider.

Cheers!