How To Use Your Fruit, From Picking To Receipes And Storage
Picking
Water the tree the evening before harvesting. This increases water levels in the fruit. (Fruit picked under good conditions gives a better quality of product and longer shelf life. Try not to pick fruit when it is raining, as the dampness will encourage mould).
Pick as early as possible in the morning, This gives plenty of time to be able to process fruit into something spectacular or get the fermentation process going for cider. Early evening will mean that conditions are cooler but the apples will have to be left over night and this again decreases the goodness available in the fruit.
Pick apples and pears when they leave the spur easily with the stalk intact.
Work systematically around a tree picking by hand or with a fruit picker for the highest fruit. If using a ladder make sure it is stable and do not over reach.
Place the fruit in the palm of your hand, lift, twist and unhook the fruit.
Do not grip or pull the fruit and take care to avoid fingernail marks and bruising.
Take care not to pull out stalks or break off spurs. Carefully place the fruit in your collection bag - do not drop the fruit and try not to bash the bag on the tree or ladder. Do not over fill collection bags especially when working up a ladder.
Storage
Early apples and pears will only keep for a few weeks and are best eaten straight away rather than storing them. Mid season varieties will keep for one or two months and late varieties can be stored from late September onwards for three to eight months.
Place them in baskets, paper bags or hessian sacks, not plastic containers as these do not breathe effectively and can, if there is some damage induce rotting.
Fruit should be stored at a regular cool temperature and during winter a cellar or shed is usually suitable. Air must circulate freely so make sure there is good ventilation but the atmosphere must not get too dry or the fruit will shrivel. If the floor of the store is soil, stone or concrete it can occasionally be damped down.
Never store fruit near to containers of paint or creosote that can taint the fruit.
Only store undamaged fruit laying it in single layers. If stacking trays and boxes make sure air can circulate between them.
Small-Scale Apple Juice Pressing and Cider Making
Fresh apple juice is a source of goodness: a healthy daily intake of Vitamin C is around 66mg. A single apple of the variety Ribston Pippin will provide around 56mg of Vitamin C (as much as six Golden Delicious).
If you consider that about 20 eating apples make a litre of juice, then a daily draught should keep several doctors away. Apples also contain flavanoids which guard against heart disease and the consumption of fruit fibre, some of which will remain in the juice and make it cloudy, helps reduce the risk of bowel cancer.
Selecting Fruit
Choose ripe fruit; avoid unripe early windfalls or apples which may have been shed early owing to drought. Ripeness is important because ripe fruit will contain the highest sugar levels. Avoid using rotten fruit - it may have already started to ferment, tainting the taste of the juice and reducing its shelf life. Bruising promotes the production of the toxin patulin. Don't poison your neighbours or the parish clerk - leave rotten fruit for the birds and other winter visitors such as badgers, foxes and squirrels.
Milling
Apples must be crushed (milled) to release the juice from its flesh. The degree of crushing will determine the yield of juice. Don't expect much juice from a tabletop press if you've merely quartered the apples - operating it will be hard work. The simplest method of reducing the fruit to pulp is to place a layer of apples in a strong tub and pound them with a length of 3" x 3" timber.
There is a variety of purpose-built mills on the market, starting from a long blade which can be attached to an ordinary electric drill and operated inside a bucket. Small hand-cranked mills cost around £150. Because of the acid contained within fruit pulp, it is best to only use stainless steel, wood or food quality plastic containers or an old ceramic sink.
Pressing
For small scale juicing, basket presses are easiest to use. These consist of a wooden or steel cylinder into which the pulp is poured and pressed by means of a piston driven into the cylinder by a screw. The juice escapes through gaps in the cylinder walls and collects in a channel at the base of the press.
A small tabletop press costs around £60. It could be lent or hired to local people or used in me Community Orchard. The Hertfordshire Orchards Initiative have bought a large tabletop second¬hand press and it can be hired for £5 by anyone who needs it, so long as the hirer collects and returns it.
Storage of Apple Juice
Apple juice will taste best and have a higher Vitamin C content if drunk straight from the press. Fresh raw juice will keep in the fridge for about a week, after which it will ferment. Out of the fridge it will begin to ferment after a day or two. When bottling, syphon the juice from below the froth which is produced during pressing to reduce the amount of fruit debris in the bottle.
If the juice is not going to be drunk immediately, steps need to be taken to avoid fermentation, such as freezing. Pouring fruit into ordinary freezer bags supported by old juice or milk cartons enables efficient use of space in a household freezer.
Selling the Juice
Selling juice can be lucrative: the apple press stall at StAlbans Apple Day '99 had a busy time selling 200ml cups of juice for 40p each. Juice can be a good source of seasonal income for the Community Orchard management fund. Other outlets could include your local farm shop, WI or Farmers Market or in health food shops. Veg box schemes, whereby regular deliveries of seasonal fruit and vegetables are delivered direct to subscribers, have become widespread in recent years and could offer another outlet for bottled juice.
Health and Trading Standards
If you want to sell your juice, its production must comply with relevant environmental health and trading standards (details from your local authority). Environmental health officers generally require that juice be made and bottled in clean surroundings, with a solid, washable floor, dust-free roof and nearby washing facilities.
Trading standard officers are concerned that what you claim on your label is actually the case. For example, don't describe your juice as organic if you're not registered with the Soil Association or one of the other organic certification groups. Some areas have started, and carry out monitoring, for their own symbol scheme which identifies unsprayed or locally grown produce.
Something to stimulate the taste buds
Try Elizabeth Gentil's Apple Warmer recipe below as a non-alcoholic alternative to mulled wine or wassail bowl. Start this recipe two days before you want to drink it. A litre of juice will make 1.75 litres of drink to serve around eight glasses on a chilly winter evening:
Recipe
To a litre of juice add three-quarters of a litre of water, 2 oz of light brown soft sugar, 1 stick of cinnamon, 4 cloves, 6 allspice berries, a blade of mace, the rind of half a lemon thinly peeled and its strained juice. If the weather is very cold, add a thin slice of ginger.
Prepare the spiced water by simmering the combined ingredients in a large saucepan until the sugar is dissolved. Pour the whole lot into a clean bottle and leave for two days to infuse.
When you are ready to prepare the apple warmer, empty the apple juice into a large pan, add the spiced water, straining out the spices and peel. Gently heat together until just steaming. Pour into a warmed glass jug or bowl and serve with fresh cinnamon sticks and slices of lemon and red apple.
Fermentation for Cider Production
Yeast is the beast that drives the engine of fermentation and creates, first the conversion of apple sugars into alcohol, and secondly, a malo-lactic fermentation which turns malic acid in the apple juice into lactic acids and carbon dioxide gas. The yeasts used in real cider occur naturally on the skins of the apples as strains specific to varieties and the traditional ciderist need do nothing more than let the yeasts get on with the job.
It is essential that all the equipment used in the process of fermentation is clean before you start. Wash bottles, tubes and fermentation vats with sodium metabisulphite or Campden tablets (available from chemists or home-brew shops).
Pour your pressed juice into a suitable vessel, such as a demijohn or a large bucket with a lid. Fermentation will become obvious by the brown yeast scum which is produced on the surface of the liquid from which carbon dioxide will rise. Skim the scum off occasionally with a spoon, or if using a demijohn, by replacing bungs of sterile cotton wool. The juice will ferment vigorously for about 3 days. Try and keep your cider in a warm place (room temperature at least) at this stage. If your cider does not ferment well, perhaps due to cool temperature or a low concentration of natural yeasts in the juice, you could add some dried wine yeast..
Wait for the initial vigorous fermentation to subside, then fit an airlock and leave for 3-6 months. Then rack the cider off into demijohns fitted with an air-lock (to allow subscript C02 out but no air in), taking care not to stir up the dead yeast cells and old fruit pulp at the bottom of the fermentation vessel. The cider should be reasonably clear by now and ready for bottling. At this stage some people like to add a little honey, which will give colour and flavour to the cider. A pinch of sugar is added by others to sweeten the drink. This will also encourage a second fermentation in the bottle, resulting in sparkling cider.
In this case, make sure you use bottles which are capable of withstanding pressure, such as champagne bottles. Secondary fermentation now takes about 6-8 weeks in a cooler place (50-60°F/10-15°C).
Ageing
Your cider will be more enjoyable about 6 months after bottling as its acidity dimishes. Old ciders are sometimes more mellow. Fruit gathered with friends and neighbours from the Community Orchard in October and November will produce cider in time for May Day or blossom time celebrations. Hold back some cider for Apple Day (21st October) and wassailing on Twelfth Night. It is probably optimum after two years.
Celebrate Apple Day
Apple Day on October 21st, is an annual celebration of this wonderful diversity of apples and other tree fruit, a way of showing that we want to conserve traditional orchards and continue to grow and eat a wide range of varieties many of which are particular to place as their names suggest.
Who Can Celebrate
Anyone can join in. This is a countrywide festival being made by local people in their own place. Apple Day celebrations have been organised by village halls and borough councils, museums and pubs, agricultural colleges and hospitals, county wildlife trusts and arts centres, stately homes, school meals services, and the Houses of Parliament.
And How?
Share an apple pie with friends. Experiment with old or new recipes using apples you have never tried before. Collect local recipes and make your own Apple Day cookery book.
Have an apple tasting morning with people bringing different varieties, make and sell apple jelly, juices, ciders, wines, cakes and other dishes. Ask for more local varieties from your greengrocer and supermarket and suggest that your off-licence sells good local cider.
Encourage special Apple Day menus in restaurants, hospitals, schools or canteens using different varieties, begin a collective survey of apple trees in your back gardens, establish a community, city or school orchard by saving old trees or planting anew, organise apple identification, pruning and grafting classes, orchard walks, sample local ciders, create an exhibition of photographs of orchards, gather in an orchard to tell local stories, read poems and sing songs about apples, encourage local fanners to apply for Countryside Stewardship or County Council grants for traditional orchards to help them renovate the standard trees.
Apple Gifting
It was traditional to give apples as a sign of friendship, decorated apples were often taken from house to house for good luck and good health. Tie a ribbon around a single apple or make a beautiful package of mixed or single varieties and hand deliver them or send them carefully packed through the post. Let us make gifting on Apple Day second nature like eggs at Easter and cards at Christmas.
Please help us to make this a day to look forward to in the seasonal calendar - a celebration for all the community, which feeds back into the landscape around us. Keep Common Ground informed of your activities so that they can continue to share ideas with everyone.
Farmers Market
A farmer's market is where farmers come to sell their produce directly to the customer. To expand the types of produce available the term "farmer" can also include crafts people and small scale food processors, but they can only sell produce which they have made/grown themselves from raw materials grown/ raised locally. "Locally" is usually defined by setting a radius, or clearly defined area, around a market venue within which the producers must be based. This means fruit and vegetables being sold by the farmer who grew them, goats cheese by the owner of the herd, wine by the vintner, and all these people are there to be questioned and provide advice and information (and recipes!) to the customers.
The markets are organised as an entertaining day out for ah1 the family, with buskers and children's entertainers as well as things to see and touch on the stands: the man selling honey might bring a hive of bees in a glass jar, the lady selling eggs might bright a chicken for the children to play with, a variety of food and drink is there to be tasted and sampled....
Why are they beneficial?
From the point of view of the fruit producers:
* its another, different retail outlet
* they retain more of the profits, avoiding the "middleman"
* they meet their customers and get direct feedback on their goods
* leads to more people using existing sales outlets
From the point of view of the customer:
* vegetables and fruit will probably be fresher than those which have gone through regionalnor national markets,
* produce may be cheaper
* varieties of produce may be available which are not available in shops
* the market can be made into an entertaining event for all those involved
From an environmental perspective:
* Reducing the transport of produce and goods reduces the pollution and congestion from lorries
* Ideal marketing outlet for organic farmers
* Possible outlet for surplus fruit and veg will encourage allotment uptake
From an economic point of view.
* a new opportunity will encourage farmers to diversify and other rural crafts to develop, supporting small businesses in the countryside
* could revitalise an existing market or town centre
