After the pressing season, January is a quieter month but there’s still plenty to do. Barry and Trystan (who has rejoined us until it’s time for daffodil picking) have been making the old Yearling Shed/new Cider Barn rain proof and secure. We now have thirteen 15ft tall stainless steel tanks in there holding 1,800 litres of cider each. Last week we found cider pouring out of one of the tanks – a retaining screw on the round access plate was undone! Luckily we didn’t lose too much but it’s a mystery as to how one bolt out of twelve could unscrew itself. Hence the increased security.
Other members of the team have been busy labelling bottles from the store. Easier said than done at this time of year. As the bottles come from a cold barn into a slightly less cold (no heating) labelling room (a long, low old stone barn), condensation forms with the result that the labels won’t stick. A lot of time goes into tinkering with the labelling machine and its rollers – usually involving quantities of cling film, a fan heater and a bicycle tyre inner tube (I’ll spare you the technicalities). Sometimes much of the day seems to be taken up with problem solving or as Lynn (who runs our farm shop) says ‘We don’t have problems, we have challenges’. By hook or by crook we overcome them. On this occasion, in the form of a new machine currently in transit from Italy.
We have continued with the bottling of our St Cuby's cider. This is another ‘hands on’ process with an ancient corking machine being used (put one cork in the top, put the bottle in place underneath, push the lever down with brute force, release, take the bottle off) and a hand operated wiring system as well. We've done all we can and now have to wait for some warm weather for the bottle fermentation to finish.
January gives us time to plan ahead. One project we would love to do has a lead time of over three years. The first steps have been taken and we will let you know how things go. |
