Each week, our entertainments reporter tries out a new activity. See the latest How to.. This page last updated: Thursday, March 23, 2006 .
How to.. Make cider
Duncan Hall tries a glass of home-made cider with Renato Antonelli and Gerry Warren. (5PF1008097) Picture: Paul Franks
CAN anything symbolise the taste of autumn more than a cool glass of cider sipped out of doors in the garden?
Allotment-holders Renato Antonelli and Gerry Warren certainly don’t think so, and are already becoming known among their circle of friends for their home-made brew.
I returned to their plot at Dogsthorpe allotments to help start to make the 2005 batch, while supping on the previous year’s vintage.
After several years of experimenting, Rene has boiled down his recipe for his home-made cider to simply apples – and lots of them.
He gets most of his apples from the orchard at Sue Ryder Care, Thorpe Hall and from a Werrington-based friend, Judy Bunton.
He uses lots of different varieties of apples too, mixing traditional types such as Coxs with Egremont Russett, crab apples, and rare varieties like the beautifully sweet Beauty of Bath.
The first stage of the process, which I assisted him with, was mashing up the apples into a pulp, to allow the fermentation process to begin.
The methods Rene employs are crude, but effective. The apples are gradually placed into a wooden barrel with a removable base, which, in turn, is placed into a plastic barrel.
From there, he simply uses a piece of wood to mash the apples down, skins, pips, cores and all, into a pulp, releasing all the juice into the barrel.
The pulpy mush is then transferred into a bin to ferment for a couple of weeks.
The actual mashing process was extremely physical work, requiring a lot of brute strength and stamina to break down the apples into a pulp.
With boxes and crates of apples ready and waiting to go, it was a long job to transform the fruit into the pulp.
The pulp sits in the bins slowly fermenting away, pushing a large crust of apple pieces to the top of the fermented liquid in the bin, which Rene brakes down each night with his trusty piece of wood.
After the two weeks are up, he usually adds another batch of fruit to keep the fermentation reaction going for another week or two.
The fermenting bins are kept in the shed, where it is nice and warm, before the pressing stage.
The fruit press is raised off the ground, with a collecting jar, similar to a baby bath, underneath to gather the liquid.
The press itself resembles a barrel with every other stave knocked out to let the juices run free, and a screw thread on the top which puts pressure on the fruit.
Rene said: “I use a heavy-duty sack which I put the fruit pulp into with a measuring jug.
I twist the top of the sack and push it down with a wooden bung before I put it into the top of the press.
“I turn the screw-thread to squeeze the juice out of the pulp, which I turn every couple of minutes.
“The juice all runs into the bath and then is transferred into big five gallon containers. Once it has all settled, I transfer it into a big barrel.”
The barrel is filled to about two-thirds full, leaving air at the top to give carbon dioxide produced during the last stage of fermentation somewhere to go. It is important oxygen doesn’t get into the barrel, otherwise it turns the cider into vinegar.
Rene said: “I leave it there from September or October until June. In June I siphon it all out of the barrel and into the five gallon containers.
“It lasts for months afterwards.”
Over the years, Rene has experimented with adding yeast and sugar, and even Marmite to feed the yeast, which creates a more violent fermentation.
But now he just lets the apples do the fermenting naturally.
He said: “I thought you might as well taste the real thing.”
Les Rands, from Burghley Homebrew, in Newborough, near Peterborough, said he normally encouraged first-time cider-makers to use a champagne yeast rather than wild yeast for their first brew, but added most of cider-making and home-brewing was about trial and error and finding what worked best for you.
Rene’s cider itself was impressive to see and taste.
Last year’s brew was certainly potent, but very refreshing, and a lovely colour with a slight cloudiness to it.
And it was certainly needed after a long morning pottering around the allotment and mashing apples.
Rene and Gerry are now working with city schools and Thorpe Hall to try to increase the number of orchards and different apple strains in the area – and make more of this glorious amber nectar.