Sarah's
Cider
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How
it Started
We farm many orchards of both traditional and bush orchards.The bush orchards
are farmed intensively and are grown on contract to Bulmers. The Traditional
orchards are farming extensively with no sprays or fertilisers with Hereford
Cattle grazing underneath during the summer. |
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It
all started mid November 2004 when I happened to walk
through the traditional old orchard to see beautiful
red and green apples lying on the grass going to waste.
All the harvesting had finished for the season with
contracts being full filled
to Bulmers.
Rather than wasting the apples I decided to have a go at making cider. My aim
is
make a crisp light refreshing cider which can be drank at all occasions. Cider
is in my blood as I can remember as a child going to my grandfathers cider factory
were we sampled all the different ciders, climbed the great oak vats and left
feeling quite tipsy! |
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Cider
Making
The
cider is made from the final windfalls, the apples
having had longer time to mature sometimes staying
on the trees until December.
The Traditional Orchard does not get sprayed and
is grazed by Hereford Cattle all summer giving them
shade and lush grass. |
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| Cider
making starts with selecting the varieties which will
give a
good balance juice. The varieties used are Dabinett,
Yarlington Mill, Browns, Bulmer Norman, a little Bramley.
The apples are picked cleanly by hand and by using a
tithill push machine. At present I use a mobile press
which comes to the farm. The apples are milled and pressed
to extract the pure juice which is then stored in large
barrels in the old dairies at Temple Court. The juice
starts to ferment turning the natural sugar to alcohol.
Once fermentation has finished the juice is then separated
from the spent yeast residue and held in storage barrels
for months to mature. Once matured the cider is then
taken to the bottling plant to be filtered, pasteurised
and some is carbonated and finally bottled and labelled
ready for customers to drink. |
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more information, please email Sarah at blandford@cmail.co.uk |
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