Honey Crisp

We picked the Honey Crisp today (17th November) They are beautiful apples to look at, large and colorful, but they are slightly lacking in taste though they have plenty of juice.  They have held onto the tree well and are only just ready to pick. 

We also picked the last few Rubinett, I had picked over the tree taking the smallest for cider a couple of weeks ago.  I didn't take any pictures but take it from me they don't look good, nothing like the honey crisp but they taste fantastic so who cares about the looks.  We also picked the sweet society, they look good but are on the smaller side I haven't tasted them yet. We only have one sweet society tree and as yet I will make no judgement.  I picked the last of the Pinova yesterday and have just eaten one, most of this variety showed bitter pit so the worst were used in the cider.  The last few have ripened well and the one I have just eaten was good, sweet and crisp, on the bad side the skin is a bit on the thick side.  We only have our Breaburn  to pick, they are still well attached and I would like to give them as much time as possible.  We are a bit too far North for Breaburn but the tree bears well and the apples are a good size and color, they should keep well into the new year.  I will take some pictures before I pick them.  I have also pressed what I expect to by my last cider today.  The apples were all Bramley and were from a neighbors tree.  I say cider but actually they were pressed for Cyser which is a cross between cider and mead so the tartness of the Bramley should complement the honey well.  I took added enough honey to take the specific gravity to 1.102  and added dap and tronozymol to the must along with a measured amount of sodium metabisulphate. I will wait twenty four hours or more before pitching the yeast which will be Gervin GV11.  I am aiming for around 13% alcohol when fully fermented I am hoping the yeast will still have just enough vigor to convert the priming sugar to give it a good fizz.  I tried something similar last year and the results were okay but not great with a bit of luck and better management I hope to do better this time.

22/01/19

I couldn't resist taking a photo of this cat, as is normal with cats it had found a comfortable safe spot in as much warmth as could be found on a January day.  

17/01/19

I'm sitting in a queue waiting to load dog food. I expect to be here another hour at least before loading. But I've been told to wait so wait I will. I'm paid by the hour so I shouldn't be impatient but telling myself that doesn't help much. At least the sun is shining.
See you tomorrow

15/01/19

So the vote has been made and Mrs May has got a big NO. Our British politicians are once again proving what a bunch of self serving scum they are. That is with the possible exception of Mrs May who hasn't so much been given the dirty end of the stick but has been handed a turf with no stick in view. I have sympathy for Mrs May, she is trying to do the job she has been given despite getting little support from any quarter. A majority of the voting public, adimtedly a very small majority,  voted to leave the EU the scum in our parliament are duty bound to enact this. The vote did not give or imply duty or encouragement to try to score pathetic political points, but that is all most of them have done. The vote was out they should take us out ASAP. In case you are wondering I voted to stay in. But I believe in democracy.
See you tomorrow.

14/01/19

It's been a relatively easy day  at work with nothing particular to report, two customer drops, one store drop and a collection from Navenby. Navenby is south of Lincoln on the A15, I usually go through the edge of Lincoln since it's reasonably straight forward.  On the good side I bottled seventy five liters of cider at the weekend, the first batch of last years production.  As usual with the early cider it is lacking in depth of flavor when compared to the later pressings.  I have racked off half my later batches and tasted a little of each while running it into a clean container and every batch shows the promise of a more complex flavor.  Hopefully this will develop over the next few months before bottling.  Last year a large proportion of my cider was too acid for my taste though my wife found it okay, This year I have used a yeast strain that claims to metabolise a proportion of the acid, this seems to have worked but time will tell.
See you tomorrow.

09/01/19

Today, well today wasn't bad but not exciting either.  Though come to think of it when my job gets exciting it means something has gone badly wrong so exciting isn't good.  I haven't really anything to report about my days work so I'll write about something else.  Last weekend I racked off five hundred and twenty five liters of cider.  That is I siphoned it off its primary lees.  Lees are dead yeast cells and particles of apple that escaped the through the press filter.  That is about half my production for last year.  I'm not sure what I'm going to do with eleven hundred liters of cider, but I'll think of something.  I'm calling it Cadgers Chance as most of the apples that I used are cadged from anyone and everyone who has spare apples.

There are six to seven hundred kilos of apples in this stack I pressed the whole stack in the day on my own and that was after building a stand for two two hundred and ten litre fermentation tanks.  All in all I was happy with my days work.  I just hope the cider tastes OK when I'm finished.  I don't expect to bottle the bulk until April or May and even then it will take a few months to mature in the bottle.  I may have mentioned that I have a small orchard, about a hundred trees, but it isn't mature enough to produce more than a few apples yet.  But time should cure that.

see you tomorrow.

08/01/19

I stopped for lunch at the service station on the junction of the M180 and the M18.  On the way back to my truck I was stopped by the sound of a Mistle Thrush singing.  I located the bird perched in the top most branches of an ash tree.  These thrushes are always the first birds to start singing, and always well before spring.  Once they have started they continue even, disregarding whatever our weather our climate is throwing at them.  Its always a joy to hear them, their song holds the promise of spring and give hope to the year.  They are also ferocious in protection of their nests and often manage to fight off magpies that would otherwise destroy their eggs and young. Sorry I forgot to take a picture.
See you tomorrow