Day One Hundred and Ninety Five - Pressing Apples

Dear all,

At the inn, we have apples galore, they just keep on coming! Despite a very busy season with a hoard of guests constantly passing through to gaze at the phenomenal fall-colours, one of our missions today was to 'make cider'.

I have a great deal of experience with cider, having worked at The Cornish Cyder Farm (http://www.thecornishcyderfarm.co.uk) in my youth, but [as always] we pushed the boundaries a little further at the inn in using a 'medieval' cider press to do the work.

Thor was clearly on edge today as we were experiencing bouts of intense thunder showers, but we battled on. I collected a barrel of apples and Cornelia, Stephan and Lorraine started to press. The apples were initially placed in a smaller 'box' [as pictured below' to chop them in to fine pieces ready for the press.

Here is a mini-video of the initial press:

The chopped fruit was then transferred to the main barrel and the large screw was turned, forcing the block down on the apples and allowing the juice to flow through the funnel at the bottom.

It is hard work but the juice is amazing and Linda dashed off to Meaford to find ingredients for the cider that would then be fermented [for a long time] in a huge carboy ready for drinking.

I will keep everyone posted on the development of the cider but in the meantime, it is apples for breakfast, lunch and dinner!

And in other news:

1. Check out these epic fungi that I found growing adjacent to one of the horse fields (the scale can be seen in the picture below. Fungi growth: bottom right).

Linda is keen to eat the fungi. I am keen to have confirmed classification from a biological institute before ingestion ( I studied biology at University which included a model on 'fungi'. It's a wonder that I ate a mushroom ever again)