turning an old demijohn into a cloche

I discovered this method by accident a few years ago while trying to clean an old bottle. I found an old demijohn outside and well past being able to clean it and more wanting to try this out!!

It’s dead simple, get a washing up bowl and add really cold water enough to cover the bottom of the demijohn, about a couple of inches. Leave it in there for a while to make sure the base is nice and cold. Then just boil the kettle and pour in the boiling water. If your lucky it should crack instantly and the bottom just drop out. If not give it a twist.

There you have it instant mini green house, the best part is you recycle something thats otherwise useless and it won’t blow away like plastic bottles.

lemon and ginger wine

Well the lemon and ginger wine finally stopeed bubbling and cleared so yesterday I bottled it. This has been on the go since around january. I finally tatsted it and it’s like a cross between paint stripper and acid. On the upside it’s strong. I mixed it with lemonade which took the edge off, well for a while. I’ll just list it under experiments!!! I’m going to call it ‘you won’t like it’.

freeze distillation (moonshine cider)

The one the left is the normal cider and the one on the right has been freeze distilled.

We had some friends visiting this weekend so what better way to celebrate than with alcohol. I’d been wanting to try this technique of freeze distillation with cider for a while but never got round to it. Basically you put your alcohol in a container then put it in the freezer. All the water freezes and you are left with a higher alcohol content and a stronger flavour.

Freeze distillation is a metaphorical term for a process of enriching a solution by partially freezing it and removing frozen material that is poorer in the dissolved material than is the liquid portion left behind. Such enrichment parallels enrichment by true distillation, where the evaporated and recondensed portion is richer than the liquid portion left behind.

Part of the reason I did this was that I was not convinced that the cider had much alcohol as it does not taste as if it does. However after the freezing process the change was considerable. It had definatly enhanced the flavour, colour and raised the alcohol content. It really works!

Although I did not end up with much compared with the volume that I started with what I ended up with was a much better drink. I am going to try it with the second batch of cider that I made as this was mostly Bramleys and although it’s not as bad as I was led to believe, I think that it could be turned into a far superior drink if distilled.

According to Wikapedia this process is illegal in many countries because a number of by-products of fermentation (fusel alcohols), which are mostly removed by heat distillation, tend to accumulate to an unhealthy level in freeze-distilled beverages.

From what I understand, this process was very popular among the New England colonies.
Barrels of apple wine would be set out in sheds during January and February when the temperatures where blistering cold. And, by first thaw it would be ready to drink. In America this drink is called Apple Jack. Freeze distillation is also refered to as the Mongolian still and is said to have been in use since the 7th century.

best blog of the day award

thankyou whoever nominated me best blog of the day. best blog of the day and in the local paper in the same week, watch this space.

Barter economy

My friends father shoots rabbits locally and will often bring me round a fresh one from time to time. There will be a knock at the door and a guy with a smile on his face holding up a plastic bag, it always makes me laugh, there needs to be no words. However due to the recent cider being bottled I was able to offer payment, one bottle one rabbit. He normally gives it to me for nothing but I wanted to offer something this time.

I just hope that it will work when the game keeper my wife knows brings us some pheasants, I think it will be harder to convince him.

Christmas eve

The house was full, family, friends, was I toasting the festive season no I was upstairs washing bottles in the bath and bottling up the cider, now thats commitment. Merry Christmas to you all.

I ended up with 30 bottles but I’m sure I should have had more, thats why you should never leave a barrel unattended when drunk friends are round.

The Dibnah small small holding in the news

I recieved an E-mail yesterday from a journalist of the local paper saying can we do a story on your scummy scunny scrumpy business. This was quite a shock not to be contacted by the paper but that I did not know that I had a business going. Where do people get this information from? Stonehead a fellow blogger from the wilds of Scotland (see blogroll) was also contacted yesterday by the BBC wanting to do some sort of review, but in true crofter style he told them that he was too busy to discuss it as he was baking prune flapjacks, now there is a man who has his priorities in order.

The institution wants to know what makes us crazy hippies tick.

How to use a ratchet press

The ratchet press I use is very simple but came with no instructions, so here are some, it’s not rocket science.

Start by filling the wooden barrel with your crushed apple press down firmly and fill to the top. Then add the two half moon wooden pieces, and press down. Remember to have the bucket under the press from this point as juice will start to flow immediately. Next build up a stagered tower with the timber blocks, you are only given four pieces but I cut a few more to give extra hight. The trick is to build the tower as high as you can as this saves unwinding the ratchet to add more pieces.

Then srew on the ratchet untill it meets the wooden blocks. Then comes the important part, as you need to slot in two shieves. The ratchet will not work without them. They are always placed in opposite directions.

If you want the ratchet to go down point the shieves in a clockwise direction and visa versa.Think of it like this, if you want it to go down, as you place the shieves in, think of a clockwise motion and have the pointed end of the shieve pointing in that direction. When you want to reverse it just swop them over easy.

When it gets to a point when you feel that you can’t possibly go any further, stop, and then wait a while. I normally give it half an hour to an hour, smoke a fag make a cup of tea. When you return you will find that you are able to crank it with ease again for a while. When it gets stiff again stop wait a few mins and then reverse the shieves, take off the ratchet and wooden blocks open the barrel an you are left with a squashed apple cake as my son calls it. My press is a 15 ltr I -guess this is the volume of the barrel- this gives me on average 5ltr’s of juice from each press. It also will be necessary to build a table or have something to fix it to when pressing as without you are unable to exert enough force.

Best of all it’s great fun, next year I will be able to enjoy some year old cider between presses.

scummy Scunny Scrumpy 2

Today I started on the next batch of scrumpy, and I think that the frost may have helped break down the apples alot more than my first attempt as I got twice as much juice from three pressings than last time. Although washing the apples in freezing cold water was not as exciting.

here is a tip for anybody who is using a crank press for the first time, make sure that none of the blocks of wood are touching the sides, as I found out today after nearly breaking the thing.

Here is the boy lending a helping hand

This makes for a beautiful photo but the reality was very different.

It’s alive

After yesterdays slight explosion I cleaned out the air locks and thought that was it only to find this morning it all up the wall and worktop in the utillity room, again. It better be worth it !!!