making cider
Cider making is a five stage process.
1. First grow your apples! The best apples make the best cider. True cider apples have been selected over tens of generations to provide the depth of flavors associated with good cider. Just as you wouldn't make wine from eating grapes, you don't make the best cider from eating apples.
Our apples are grown organically to ensure purity. Because our apples are grown for juice and not for appearance, most blemishes are inconsequential. Pests are controlled, but not eliminated entirely, by introducing natural predators by planting shrubs and herbs that attract them. This process is called Integrated Pest Management (IPM) and is the basis of organic pest control.
Our biggest pest threat is from birds. A large flock of cockatoos can destroy a crop in hours. For this reason or main orchard is covered by permanent bird netting. The others will be netted as they come into production.
The downside is that a heavy snowfall, which we get every few years, can do serious damage to the nets. But if cider making was simple, everyone would do it, wouldn't they?
Just as we don't use chemical sprays to control pests, neither do we use chemical fertilisers to promote growth. Our soils are naturally fertile volcanic loam to which we add an annual layer of compost made on the farm which includes the apple pommace left over from extracting juice.
2. When you have obtained your cider apples, they are gathered when ripe, washed, and then crushed into a pulp. Traditionally the crushing or “scrattering” was done using a horse to roll a heavy round stone over the apples in a circular stone mill. Today electric grinders are used.
When the apples have been crushed, they are pressed to release the juice. Traditionally, when labor was very cheap, this pressing was done using a wooden screw press. After crushing, the apple pulp was built up into a “cheese” between layers of straw or muslin cloth.
Although we experimented with a more traditional type of press, such presses are extremely slow and very labor intensive. We have therefore chosen to use a state of the art “Voran 650” belt press, imported from Austria which is fast, high yielding and minimizes oxidation of the juice before it is safely delivered to the fermentation vats.
3. After the juice has been obtained and placed in barrels or vats, its qualities are measured including specific gravity, pH, and total acidity.
The fermentation process, that is the conversion of the natural sugars in the juice to alcohol, is at the heart of the cider making process. The selection of yeast is very important as different yeasts give different flavors to the final cider.
Commercial cider makers generally do a fast fermentation at around 20+ degrees C to obtain a higher product turnover. We prefer to slow the process down by keeping the temperature at around 14-16 degrees C.
Traditionalists like my friend Julian Temperley of Burrow Hill Cider, Kingsbury Episcopi, in Somerset, argue that fermentation should only occur in wooden vats or barrels. Julian's oak vats are 150 years old and he claims that they have another good 150 years left in them. Unfortunately neither of us will be around to see if he is right.
Oak vats like Julians have in any event generally been superseeded by stainless steel with no noticable loss of quality or flavor. Moet & Chandon, makers of the famous “Dom Peringion” champagne, switched to temperature controlled stainless steel fermentation vats using selected cultured yeasts to make their excellent champagne, in around 1900.
With all due respect to Julian, at Daylesford Cider we are prepared to follow their lead without apology!
4. After fermentation is complete, the cider is “racked”, by draining off the basically clear cider from the sediment or "lees" into a cleant tank, making sure that no air is allowed to enter the tank, and then left to mature for between six and twelve months. During this maturation period the cider is tasted to determine when it has reached its peak.
5. When the cider is considered ready for bottling the serious business of blending gets underway. Once the correct blends have been established for our range, our cider is filtered, bottled, capped, pasteurised, and labeled in our main shed on the farm. Apart from a minimum amount preservative, no chemicals are added to our cider. They are simply 100% apple juice
Enjoy!