Cider!

Last year I aquired a huge batch of apples and made cider. Below are the photos I took of the process

This is the original batch of apples collected while walking on common 

apples a bit of a clean in cold water

Me grating up 25kg of apples in a food processor, a sticky job!

The grated apple put into the press and starting to squeeze out the juice



Pulp

Juice!

All setup

The first dry apple cake. These were returned to my friend to feed to his pigs

4 Gallons of juice

The dried cake after pressing

More pig food

No yeast, water or sugar added, just let the natural yeast do their thing!

Monitoring the gravity to see when ready

Fermenting nicely!

After it had fermented away it was all bottled and is now in storage while it ages. I have drank a few bottles of it and although Steph isn't a fan I am quite enjoying it. Credit to Steph though as she did help me a lot with the process.

Beekeeping Update and Other Bits

It seems like an age since I did my last post, last September to be precise! I have been fairly busy since then with various Beekeeping shenanigans and some home brewing. The main point I'm mentioning, which is partly why there has been so few posts by myself, is that at my local Beekeeping associations annual general meeting last year I was, reluctantly, voted in as secretary: this entails me answering quite a few emails and forwarding on various publications I get emailed. I said reluctantly as the post of secretary is not the most glamorous of positions but I wanted to be more involved and we needed a secretary! At the same meeting I also somehow became the librarian for the association, I must learn to keep my hand down in future! I now am in possession of WPBKA's collection of Beekeeping books throughout the ages and some of them are rather old. I haven't checked them all yet but some are easily as old as my dad.

My Bees have survived the Winter this year and they seem to be thriving. I went into Winter with 3 hives but one was very light on Bees and I never confirmed there was a new Queen mated in there, that colony didn't survive but the other 2 have. I have seen the Queen in one of the hives and the other has brood at all levels. I have already added supers as the oil seed rape is in full flower and honey has started to be stored in the brood area. I'm hoping for an ok return this year and when the swarm cells appear I'm looking to take a nucleus or 2 from the hives. With any luck I'll have at least 4 colonies going into Winter 2014.

I have recently finished (almost) building a top bar hive from some wooden boards I have. With any luck I'll get this occupied soon and report back on my findings. I have spoken to people at my association and the general consensus is that people don't like them in my area but in other areas people swear by them. In my humble opinion the best way to find out is to try it myself. The only bit I have left to complete is the actual top bars, they have been cut and just need some wax foundation to be placed into the grooves. I have looked at other options but I will try wax strips to start with and if succesful will experiment with other methods as well. One other option is string soaked in molten wax which would be easier to implement but not look as nice! The below picture is prior to the legs being attached and has also since been painted more so looks nicer. I may dedicate a fulll post to it when it is fully complete.

Almost finished topbar hive

From my last post I have pressed all my apples using a friends cider press and it has femermented into an almost drinkable brew. It is now bottled and maturing. The last bottle I tried was better than the first so in time I could have a decent cider. The recipe was an easy one to follow: loads of apples, pressed then left to ferment, I kept it as simple as that. No yeast, sugar or water added, just apple juice. Again, I have lots more photos so will probably do a longer post for the cider making.

Lastly I will add details of my upcoming fund raising event with the hope I can get a few more sponsors. This August will mark the 3 year anniversary of my mother passing away and also approx 10 years from when I last had a full hair cut. In 2004 I had my head shaved for cancer research and raised an impressive £400. This time I'm aiming much higher and am attempting to raise £1000, however I will need a lot of help to do it. I am raising money for the Stroke Association this time, as that is what my Mum died of. Hopefully with your help we can reduce the number of people and families that have to suffer because of this condition. Any little helps, seriously, if you can just manage a pound or a dollar then that is fine. If you are in a position to donate then I ask that you share my donation link via your social media sites and hopefully I will raise a bit more. Here is the link to donate and if you live in the UK then you can donate via text, put this into the body of your text changing the amount to how much you want to donate "IMHS69 £5" and then send to 70070. Thanks greatly in advance for your kindness.

Apples, Plums and Wine Tasting

The last few weeks have been a bit hectic for me and Steph. For one reason or another we have had a lot of time together and have kept ourselves busy. One thing we've been making will have to wait a while (until after Christmas) before I do a post about it, sounds intriguing! I will write about what I've been doing this week in reverse order.

Earlier today I dropped Steph off at work, we are down to one car at the moment due to a faulty clutch, and then headed over to one of my good friends house with the intention of going for a walk. I took my foraging bag with me just in case I saw any elderberries or sloes for making wine. We did see plenty of elderberries but they were generally a little too high to reach or through some brambles so we didn't collect any. I was keeping an eye out for the sloes but 3 1/2 miles into the walk and we hadn't seen any. I was starting to feel hungry at this point and as I was walking I saw some windfall apples on the floor. At the side of the path was an apple tree with small red shiny apples. Me and my friend tried one and they were nice and sweet so we started to fill our bags. When I worked my way to the back of the tree I saw that there was another apple tree... And another, and another! In fact there were around seven trees altogether, not all had apples on them but most did. Within about 15 minutes I'd picked enough to fill my bag and eaten about 4 different varieties! My intention is to have a go at making some cider with this 5kg of apples. My friend who supplied me with the Bees earlier  in the year is going to lend me a cider press, if you're reading this I thank you again in advance!

Last night I had a different friend around my house and we did some wine tasting. We started on some elderberry wine that was bottled a long while ago. The last time I tasted this wine it was a little rough but now it seems to have matured nicely and in a few more months I think it will be lovely, if it lasts that long! It's a shame I haven't had time to pick any elderberries this year. Next we moved onto some rhubarb wine that I made this year. It hasn't had ages to mature but was still lovely and also rocket fuel! I only had a few glasses and I could really feel the effects, especially the following morning!

The last section is all about plums! Again I have to thank my friend for this; my dad's plum tree didn't survive moving allotments so we didn't have any this year but Mark let me take as many as I wanted. Within half an hour picking them I'd filled a carrier bag to the point of breaking! I had enough to make a batch of wine and several jars of jam. The best thing about the plums was that there wasn't even a single grub in any of them, when we have made plum jam before we usually see a grub in at least every 10. One thing I noticed when picking the fruit was that there were a lot of Bees on the fruit. At first I thought they were wasps but looking at them they were defiantly Bees. I've not come across Bees on fruit before.