God I love growing our own

[JamezF]

what a waste of good cider

Probably arguable, to be honest. Cider is very rarely made from the kinds of apples you'd normally use for juice because they don't have a particularly good balance of sweetness, acidity, bitterness and tannin. One exception I'm aware of is that Thatchers make a cider from Katy apples, Katy being an early dessert variety. I suspect that's down to modern teenagers expectations of cider being sweet and sickly though, rather than because they make a good "traditional" style cider.

I've mentioned before that we have an orchard. Quite a few of the trees, particularly the ones already mature before we moved here, are traditional cider apple varieties such as Dabinett and Yarlington Mill. I've added a few more as well as dessert and cooking apples. As a general rule the cider apples are completely inedible and the fresh juice undrinkable. Take a bite out of one and it makes your teeth curl. Many of them are exceptionally bitter and very high in tannin. It's my understanding that the tannin is actually responsible for the traditional colour of cider. Cut a dessert apple in two and it will probably start to go orangey-brown in a few hours, perhaps even longer. Cut a cider apple in two and most will go noticeably orange-brown within two or three minutes as the tannins oxidise.

And to get even more off-topic, a few years back I built my own apple press in a kind of traditional style, but using a twelve tonne bottle jack, "hairs" made of net curtain and press boards made from squares of MDPE (the stuff plastic chopping boards are made from) with a set of grooves made using the kerf of a table saw blade in each side:

It actually works very well. Two years ago we produced twenty-five gallons of apple juice which lasted us almost an entire year. The only problem is how to effectively pasteurise that much.

James

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Hate cider....it was the first booze I every got thoroughly drunk on as a teenager

It was whisky with me, but I battled through and got over it. persistence and practice always pays

 

[JamezF]

Hate cider....it was the first booze I every got thoroughly drunk on as a teenager....nasty memories

If you can remember it, you didn't really get that drunk

James

 

[Erichalfbee]

If you can remember it, you didn't really get that drunk

James

I can remember what I was drinking and how I felt for two days after but not much in between

 

[pargyle]

I made a smilar press a good few years ago - not quite as big as yours but the same design with a bottle jack to provide the presssure, net curtains to form the 'cheese' and I used oak flooring (new) that had rills on one side and plain on the other to use as separators. I had access to an orchard of mixed apples (Sadly now grubbed up with a small development of houses on it) it produced a good few gallons of cider for a few years - the mix of apples made a really nice cider. I tried making apple juice but never really mastered the art of pasteurisation - usually ended up with it growing mould and chucking it away. I no longer have access to an orchard but one day perhaps .. I still have the press. Got any tips for domestic pasturisation ?

My first cross beam was plain timber and broke in the middle with a spectacular bang that frightened me to death ... it's surprising how much pressure you can exert with a bottle jack The replacement cross beam is reinforced with a piece of angle iron and no further problems.

 

[JamezF]

Got any tips for domestic pasturisation ?

It's just struck me that the Lidl "honey warmer" might be ideal for small volumes. It's not that far from what I do, in the end. I've brewed my own beer for decades and it's not far off being as messy as processing honey and causes just as much fuss when the kitchen isn't pristine afterwards, so a few years back I built a shed for a dedicated brewery. I bought some stainless cooking pots from Germany -- an insulated 80l pot for a mash tun and two 100l uninsulated pots for the water heater and boiler. The latter two have 2.4kW kettle elements let into the sides (one in the water heater, two in the boiler) for heating. I use the boiler for pasteurising, standing bottles in the boiler in a bath of water and heating it to 70°C for twenty minutes (obviously I use glass bottles), then remove the bottles and cap/close them It's not perfect, but it seems to work reasonably well. Once in a while I get a bit of fermentation and a small plug of yeast on top of the juice, but I don't let that worry me and just filter it out through a sieve. I recently found a few swing top Grolsch bottles with apple juice in that must be three years old and they look absolutely fine.

You can also buy domestic scale pasteurisers. I bet Vigo sell them. My idea of "domestic scale" and manufacturers ideas of "domestic scale" appear to be somewhat at variance though

My first cross beam was plain timber and broke in the middle with a spectacular bang that frightened me to death

Mine is three lengths of 6x2, glued and bolted together, and as you can see from the photo there's a fair bit of reinforcement where the bolts go through. I also use a piece of scrap steel about 10mm thick to spread the load at the top of the jack. It's coped ok so far, though I can't deny that it's hardly lightweight

James

 

[JamezF]

Oh, the handy thing about using MDPE for the press boards is that you can put them in the dishwasher to clean them

James

 

[Goran]

Juice from pure Goldrush apple variety is awesome to me. Combination of carrot/apple is even better to me, beets/apple or all three together..
Here You can bring the fruits to small companies that make juices and from Your own fruits can have juice.
Some people make real good apple schnapps.. but still pear or plum schnapps is better..
Pasteurization - apple juice on 82-83 celsius and usually better holding in the bags than in bottles. No need of extra conserving then. Some observation during the years.. But again, people over here rather buy and drink " phosphoric acid".

 

[rossbyjove]

I've sown loads of broad beans over the last few days, mostly as a ground cover crop for the winter as I mentioned a short while ago. We may get some actual beans if they get through the winter ok as I'll remove the plants when I need the space for next year's crops to go in. I've covered them with fleece for the time being to try to keep the soil a little warmer and in an attempt to keep the mice out.

As it turns out however, I have plenty more space that's going to be empty. Probably the equivalent of two 15m long beds worth. A friend has suggested sowing field beans as I can probably get some from one of the local farmers for next to nothing. I thought field beans were grown for animal feed (that seems to be the common practice here), but I gather much of the UK crop is actually shipped to the US for humans to eat. Has anyone tried growing/eating them?

Speaking of space reminds me that in my permanent bed (black & red currant, green and red gooseberry, asparagus and perennial kale) I have a space of about 3m x 1.2m. I am half-tempted to get a couple of blueberries to put in that space if I can talk myself into dealing with the requirements for an acidic soil. I'm wondering if planting them in a hole filled with ericaceous compost and then adding another layer on top of the soil each year as I do for the rest of the plot would be sufficient.

James

Tried a couple of times but never had any luck growing blueberries.

 

[rossbyjove]

So this is something you're familiar with then? I was initially surprised because I've just never even heard of such a thing. Does it have a name?

James

You can buy it in health food shops, they do a pear version as well.

 

[JamezF]

Yesterday I removed all the plants from the polytunnel with the exception of the peppers that still have ripening fruit. It all looked a bit sad afterwards

It's all no dig though, so a couple of hours shovelling just over a tonne of compost and it was ready to go again. Pretty much all of the plants remaining from my first sowing of winter salads are now in the ground, perhaps a little later than desirable, but they seem fine.

I'll probably put plants from my second sowing into the bed on the right.

Down the front of each of the side beds I've planted garlic. Last year I planted it at the back of the bed and by harvest time it was a pain to get at so I'll see how it works out at the front instead.

Someone mentioned Kings Seeds as a source for garlic so I thought I'd give them a try. Normally I reckon on about a dozen cloves per bulb for "seed" garlic. Two years ago I used four bulbs and ended up harvesting just over fifty bulbs. After giving a few away and keeping four back to plant last year we only just made it through the year. We were literally down to the last bulb by the time I harvested this year's crop. Ordering six bulbs therefore seemed sensible. I thought they were quite hefty when they arrived. I have one bulb left and have planted eighty-nine cloves so far! No point not planting the last one now, I guess

If anyone's interested in the actual varieties I've sown for winter salads, from memory they are (lettuces) Cos, Red and Green Little Gem, Webb's Wonderful, Reine Des Glaces, Lollo Rossa, Rouge Grenoblois, Multigreen 3; (mustards) Pizzo, Red Frills, Green Streaks; Chervil; Dill; Coriander; Leaf Radish; Land Cress; Red Chard; Corn Salad; whatever radish I had left over and Salad Rocket (which is a milder form of Wild Rocket). I only have the Webb's Wonderful because I had some seed left over that I thought I might as well use up. It doesn't actually seem to do that well over winter. I would have had some spinach but clearly the seed is past it as none germinated. Once we get into next year I'll sow some saved peas for shoots as well. We generally take a few leaves at a time from each of the "leaf" plants rather than cutting them and that way they last through Winter and early Spring until there's something ready outdoors. Sometimes an entire lettuce is useful, hence the Cos and Little Gems, but nothing makes a salad more appealing than a riot of colours, shapes, textures and tastes to my mind (though a nice rare steak can certainly also make a lot of salads more appealing

James

 

[Erichalfbee]

Down the front of each of the side beds I've planted garlic. Last year I planted it at the back of the bed and by harvest time it was a pain to get at so I'll see how it works out at the front instead.

When do you harvest garlic planted in the tunnel? We put ours in outside two weeks ago and it’s all through

 

[JamezF]

When do you harvest garlic planted in the tunnel? We put ours in outside two weeks ago and it’s all through

Pretty much the same time as outdoor garlic. My experience is just that the polytunnel bulbs perhaps seem to get a little fatter. This year all my outdoor garlic (I had two bulbs worth in the polytunnel and two outdoors) suffered really badly from rust, which is why we're short of it and why it will all be under cover this time around unless I just can't find space in which case I might plant a few cloves outdoors to see how they do. I have no idea why the plants got rust this year. Nothing else was affected -- my onions and shallots were fantastic and the previous year's crop (in a different place in the plot) had been absolutely fine.

James

 

[Erichalfbee]

Funny that. Most of our garlic got rust too and onions and leeks unaffected.

 

[JamezF]

Funny that. Most of our garlic got rust too and onions and leeks unaffected.

Perhaps it's partly weather-related then? My leeks are also unaffected, but they didn't even go into the ground until well after the garlic was harvested. In fact if I recall correctly they're in the same ground as I grew my main onion crop in, because I had no other space free at the time.

James

 

[enrico]

Yesterday I removed all the plants from the polytunnel with the exception of the peppers that still have ripening fruit. It all looked a bit sad afterwards

It's all no dig though, so a couple of hours shovelling just over a tonne of compost and it was ready to go again. Pretty much all of the plants remaining from my first sowing of winter salads are now in the ground, perhaps a little later than desirable, but they seem fine.

I'll probably put plants from my second sowing into the bed on the right.

Down the front of each of the side beds I've planted garlic. Last year I planted it at the back of the bed and by harvest time it was a pain to get at so I'll see how it works out at the front instead.

Someone mentioned Kings Seeds as a source for garlic so I thought I'd give them a try. Normally I reckon on about a dozen cloves per bulb for "seed" garlic. Two years ago I used four bulbs and ended up harvesting just over fifty bulbs. After giving a few away and keeping four back to plant last year we only just made it through the year. We were literally down to the last bulb by the time I harvested this year's crop. Ordering six bulbs therefore seemed sensible. I thought they were quite hefty when they arrived. I have one bulb left and have planted eighty-nine cloves so far! No point not planting the last one now, I guess

If anyone's interested in the actual varieties I've sown for winter salads, from memory they are (lettuces) Cos, Red and Green Little Gem, Webb's Wonderful, Reine Des Glaces, Lollo Rossa, Rouge Grenoblois, Multigreen 3; (mustards) Pizzo, Red Frills, Green Streaks; Chervil; Dill; Coriander; Leaf Radish; Land Cress; Red Chard; Corn Salad; whatever radish I had left over and Salad Rocket (which is a milder form of Wild Rocket). I only have the Webb's Wonderful because I had some seed left over that I thought I might as well use up. It doesn't actually seem to do that well over winter. I would have had some spinach but clearly the seed is past it as none germinated. Once we get into next year I'll sow some saved peas for shoots as well. We generally take a few leaves at a time from each of the "leaf" plants rather than cutting them and that way they last through Winter and early Spring until there's something ready outdoors. Sometimes an entire lettuce is useful, hence the Cos and Little Gems, but nothing makes a salad more appealing than a riot of colours, shapes, textures and tastes to my mind (though a nice rare steak can certainly also make a lot of salads more appealing

James

Yes we had huge bulbs from Kings seed. Much better quality than the Isle Of Wight ones. Glad yours were good too

 

[enrico]

Rust bad on everything this year including early leeks but not a spot on leeks sown in july for some reason!

 

[roche]

Probably arguable, to be honest. Cider is very rarely made from the kinds of apples you'd normally use for juice because they don't have a particularly good balance of sweetness, acidity, bitterness and tannin. One exception I'm aware of is that Thatchers make a cider from Katy apples, Katy being an early dessert variety. I suspect that's down to modern teenagers expectations of cider being sweet and sickly though, rather than because they make a good "traditional" style cider.

I've mentioned before that we have an orchard. Quite a few of the trees, particularly the ones already mature before we moved here, are traditional cider apple varieties such as Dabinett and Yarlington Mill. I've added a few more as well as dessert and cooking apples. As a general rule the cider apples are completely inedible and the fresh juice undrinkable. Take a bite out of one and it makes your teeth curl. Many of them are exceptionally bitter and very high in tannin. It's my understanding that the tannin is actually responsible for the traditional colour of cider. Cut a dessert apple in two and it will probably start to go orangey-brown in a few hours, perhaps even longer. Cut a cider apple in two and most will go noticeably orange-brown within two or three minutes as the tannins oxidise.

And to get even more off-topic, a few years back I built my own apple press in a kind of traditional style, but using a twelve tonne bottle jack, "hairs" made of net curtain and press boards made from squares of MDPE (the stuff plastic chopping boards are made from) with a set of grooves made using the kerf of a table saw blade in each side:

It actually works very well. Two years ago we produced twenty-five gallons of apple juice which lasted us almost an entire year. The only problem is how to effectively pasteurise that much.

James

SNAP!

We haven't used it for a while, too much else going on. Used to make cider, but juice was more useful. Used a burco for pasteurising. It would last up to a year...

 

[JamezF]

My daughter and I had a bit of a messy time this afternoon. Fortunately whilst they make a mess, these should also be good for cleaning

James

 

[pargyle]

My daughter and I had a bit of a messy time this afternoon. Fortunately whilst they make a mess, these should also be good for cleaning

James

So you've grown loofahs !! Very impressed - presumably in the greenhouse or tunnel ?