Here's to making the most of a sweet surplus

It’s been a bumper year for apples, so why not use your extras to make delicious apple juice or cider?

ANYONE WITH even a couple of apple trees to their name will know just what an exceptional harvest this year’s has been – over the past few weeks, it’s seemed as if every branch of every tree has been weighed down with ripening fruit while the grass beneath is thickly carpeted in windfalls. But the problem now, most gardeners will agree, is what exactly to do with them all. For, as many have already bitterly discovered, not every apple is suitable for storing, and some need to be quickly used before they begin to rot.

And so this October has become the month when enthusiastic (and not-so-enthusiastic) gardeners’/cooks’ thoughts have turned to making apple pie, then apple crumble, followed perhaps by apple charlotte or maybe apple cake, until the sweet appeal of nature’s abundance begins to slowly pall. There are, as it turns out, only so many apple puddings that anyone can stomach before the sight of yet another basketful of Bloody Butcher (old apple varieties do have strange names) provokes a groan of dismay.

Previous generations of gardeners never had this problem with the apple harvest – what wasn’t stored, cooked or made into jams and jellies was used to make apple juice, apple cider and even health-giving apple vinegar. In her book Forgotten Skills of Cooking, Darina Allen talks of how “the practice of making cider on farms persisted in some places right up until the late 1940s”. A travelling, horse-and-cart- mounted cider-press would go from farm to farm, pulping and pressing the local apple harvest so that it could be bottled or fermented in old whiskey barrels. Allen’s book also gives two excellent recipes for home-made cider, one of which was passed on to her by the Tipperary-based cheese-maker and cider expert Dick Keating, who suggests that “determination, innovation and a warm environment” are the skills required from any wannabe cider-maker.

But before you learn to make cider or vinegar, you need to be able to make juice. Travelling cider-presses are unfortunately, no longer an option, so how do you go about the business of pressing apples?

A visit to David Llewellyn’s smallholding in north Co Dublin (www.fruitandvine.com), where he makes his own award-winning brand of apple juice, cider and vinegar for sale around the country, seemed a good place to find out. David grows many varieties of apples on his small farm, hand-picking them as they reach ripeness and then storing them in giant wooden boxes in readiness for the pressing process. “I’m experimenting with a mix of heritage and more modern apples,” he explains. “For sweet juice, I use varieties like Jonagold, Tipperary Pippin, and Katy, while Bramley gives a tangy taste. Alternatively, for a taste that’s somewhere between the two, I use a mix of the above along with Elstar, Jupiter, Karmijn or Discovery. For cider, I use any of these mixed with Dabinett.”

Before pressing begins, David’s apples are carefully washed down with a power-hose and any rotten ones are removed (this is particularly important for apple juice, less so for cider). They’re then fed through a hopper (unpeeled and uncored) and into a pulper or crusher, a large and noisy machine with sharp steel blades that reduces the apples to a sweet-smelling mash. The mash is then transferred to a shallow rack, lined with an open-weave cloth mesh, which David carefully wraps and folds around the pulp to make a series of neatly stacked parcels called “cheeses”. Beneath them, a tray collects the free-run (the juice that comes before pressing begins), which then drains off through a small pipe and into a waiting bucket.

The pressing, when it finally begins, is a surprisingly straightforward process. A couple of sturdy wooden blocks are placed on top of the stack of cheeses and the hydraulic press whirrs into action. The result is a golden and fragrant juice brimming with flavour, which pours steadily into the waiting bucket.

“With a good presser, you should expect a yield of somewhere between 55 per cent and 70 per cent – in other words, from a kilo of apples, you could hope to get 550-700ml of apple juice”, explains David. He uses a large and expensive Voran presser, which he imported from Austria, and which, on a good day can produce anything up to 2,000 litres of juice (his apple crusher is a MTD Musermax V). For home-growers , there is a range of cheaper options available.

Hans Walner of Cornucopia in Newport, Co Mayo (tel: 098-41357) both sells and rents a range of manual, spindle-driven, reclining apple presses, with the cheapest, smallest 10L press priced at €300. You can also rent a combined crusher/presser set from Hans, starting at €60 for a weekend for the 10L version and going up to €195 for the semi-commercial, 40L models.

Alternatively, you could have a go at making your own rack-and-cloth apple press, as strongly recommended by David and as detailed on many websites including both www.ukcider.co.uk and that of the hugely respected English cider expert and author, Andrew Lea (www.andrewlea.co.uk), whose classic book on the subject, Craft Cider Making, has just been republished. Racks, cloth and accessories can then be bought from VIGO (www.vigoltd.com). Finally, if your apple harvest is on an intimidatingly huge scale, consider availing of the contract pressing and bottling service offered by Con Traas on his apple farm in Cahir, Co Tipperary. Just keep in mind that his operation is fairly large-scale and that 1,000kg of apples (somewhere between 4,000-10,000 apples, depending on the variety) is his preferred minimum.

Remember also that freshly-pressed apple juice will begin to ferment after a few days, even if it’s kept in the fridge. Either freeze it or consider pasteurising it (a skilful job, that, according to David Llewellyn, requires attention to detail, as otherwise the juice may continue to ferment and the bottles explode). Which is exactly why, as he points out, cider-making is such a great idea. “Cider is a great cleanser, because the fermentation process kills any bacterias that might sometimes be present in poorly stored, unpasteurised apple juice.”

If you like the idea of home-made apple juice or cider but your problem is a lack of apples rather than a glut of them, Con Traas is having an apple-picking open weekend at his farm (www.theapplefarm.com) on October 22nd/23rd.

Alternatively, Irish Seedsavers is also running a cider-making course on October 16th (www.irishseedsavers.ie). And while youre weighing up your options, consider having a taste of David’s Double LL cider, which is available nationwide through the Drink Store (www.drinkstore.ie). Delicious.

• The OPW's Victorian walled kitchen garden is in the grounds of the Phoenix Park Visitor Centre, beside the Phoenix Park Café and Ashtown Castle. The gardens are open daily from 10am to 4.00pm

• Next week Urban Farmer in Property will cover pumpkins

WHAT TO: sow, plant and do now

Sow: (Outdoors) Green manures

(Under cover) komatsuna, land cress, hardy types of lettuce, mibuna, mizuna, mustards, salad rocket, winter purslane

Plant: Autumn onions, shallots, garlic, hardy lettuce, kale, oriental leaves

Do: Continue harvesting, storing, clear and manure beds, lift and store maincrop potatoes, pumpkins, onions, etc; order fruit trees

Fionnuala Fallon is a garden designer and writer