A Week With Emma

I arrived in Grantham on Bonfire Night. Im not entirely sure if we were celebrating or commiserating the death of Guy Fawkes, but either way it was a fun!

 It was also really nice to meet Emma's(right) Friend Joni(Left)

It was too bad the entire night was ruined by a dinosaur attack 

During the next week we visited some great places:

An old Pub (the oldest in England)

An old tree (The Great Oak in Sherwood Forrest)

An old church (Lincoln Cathedral)

and an old friend (Elliot)

It was so good to see Emma and meet her friends and family!

And what a great surprise to see the only remaining Sheffielder, Elliot!

Ariane, My Favorite East Anglian

I arrived to Ariane's after a 9 hour train ride across the entire island of Great Britain, longer than my flight from Chicago to London. 

It was so nice to see Ariane after more than two years . It was also great to see some of her friends again, and meet some new ones, especially Sebastian Ari's boyfriend.  

I would Like to thank s Mr. and Mrs. Nicholls for letting me stay in their cosy house! 

I stayed upstairs 

I also have to thanks Marcus, Ariane's brother, for letting me stay in his room while he was away in the North Sea on business. 

 Ariane's room was always a mess! I dont think she

 Ariane and Mrs Nicholls both cooked wonderful meals. Eating lovingly prepared food really made me feel at home.

 Between trips to Norwich for a night out, Great Yarmouth for mini gulf, a castle in south Suflok and and stately house in north Norfolk I always had enough to read.

The best part of the entire week was spending time with my very good friend Ari! Oh and beating her and Sebastian at mini gulf! I guess we Americans are just much better at most things. 

Wales

Pressing

Pressing the apples and collecting the juice, needless to say an important step in making cider.

Starts by "Scratting" the Apples. Breaking up the apples to release the juice.
The scratter is a mean looking machine!

What is left is called scrat or Pomase

This is taken to the press and put into "cheese cloths".
Each cloth holds about 150lbs of Pomase. A big press can hold up to 14 "cheeses"

Then we press, and the juice flows. 

It is then ready to be fermented. Depending on the style it could take a few weeks, but this cider will be in its oak barrels for at least a year.

Hiked Moelfre (thats the name of a hill)

Theres not much to say really so here are some nice picture.

 I brought a few bees along with me to collect nectar

Apple Collecting

Here are just a few of the apple varieties that we have collected. In total I think we got about 4,000 lb. of apples 

 Viv's Red: (Most years a bit more red from what I hear) medium tanin, medium acid, but pretty sweet a nice eating apple.

 After Bill gave the Viv's Red tree a good shake.

 Egremont Russet: Very Aromatic! Great for eating and will blend well for cider!

Viv's Black. High Tanins and Acid. Not much in the way of eating but should make good cider.

Welsh Folk Music

Saturday night I went to a Welsh folk music concert and saw a band I really liked. The CD cover does not look folky at all. But I still enjoyed the music. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xA9ourumUl4

Collecting Apples, and Getting to know Wales.

News From Wales 

I arrived at Prospect Orchards home of Welsh Mountain Cider http://www.welshmountaincider.com/ last Sunday. The traditional english farm house cider that is made here is dark and tannic with lots of apple aroma. It is still and generally served at cellar temperatures. Between lunch, dinner, and a few glassed whole working I probably average about 2 to 3 pints a day and at 8.5% it keeps me pretty cheerful even in the rain!  

This past week I spend most of my time collecting apples from local orchards, hiking the hills around the orchard and setting my sleep schedule to the English time zone. I have finished 3 apple orchard books and one more cider making book I also have read Kurt Vonnegut's Cats Cradle just for fun! With No internet or TV on the farm I have seemed to turned into a book warm. 

Tomorrow will be out first pressing day (If all goes well!) 

Here are a few pictures from the past week.

 Hiking down into town.

 Atypical evening mist.

 A cool looking tap in a barrel of delicious farm house style cider.

 The apple press we will be using.

A used french oak barrel that held over 100 gallons of cider, before we bottled it all last week. 

Best 

Paul 

My Cider Making and Friend Visiting Trip

Hi All 

I thought I would make a little blog to keep people up to date about my travels. 

So heres the Itinerary:
October 5th - 26th. Ill be in Wales staying with young couple who started their own small cider business. They make delicious traditional English style farm house cider. 
October 27th - November 2nd I will be visiting my good friend Ariane in her wonderful town of Lowestoft!
November 3rd - 7th Over to Lincolnshire to visit my favorite Town Planner Emma. 
November 8th -15th I will be In Maastricht Holland with the lovely Monique.
November 15th - 30th My next cider experience will be in Normandy, where some say the best cider in the world comes from. I will stay on a small fram as well as travel to some of the more renowned cider producers. 
December 1st - 15 My last stop will be Paris. Where I will stay with my favorite french speaking cousin Molly. 

My goal, besides having lots of fun and seeing some great people, is to learn as much about growing apples and making cider as I can! (I, of course, am referring to hard cider)

Here is a photo of the view from just outside my front door. Wales is beautiful! When one is able to see anything between the seemingly endless rain. 

Ill be back for Christmas, and I will be excepting all my birthday presents that haven't been sent to me then. 

Best 

Paul