Cider mills

[Tony Smith Gloucestershire]

Round here one sometimes see former cider mills, consisting of a huge stone wheel running in a circular grove.

[steveski]

Post by Tony Smith Gloucestershire
Round here one sometimes see former cider mills, consisting of a huge
stone wheel running in a circular grove.

How very 'Angry Beavers'.

[Jim Easterbrook]

Post by Tony Smith Gloucestershire
Round here one sometimes see former cider mills, consisting of a huge
stone wheel running in a circular grove.

That would crush the apples, and release some juice, but I'd have thought
you'd still need to press the pulp to get all the juice out.

Similarly the Grundys will also be crushing their apples by some means
before pressing. I use an old fence post, with the treated outer layer
planed off, as a "splodger".

[Mike]

Post by Jim Easterbrook

Post by Tony Smith Gloucestershire
Round here one sometimes see former cider mills, consisting of a huge
stone wheel running in a circular grove.

That would crush the apples, and release some juice, but I'd have thought
you'd still need to press the pulp to get all the juice out.
Similarly the Grundys will also be crushing their apples by some means
before pressing. I use an old fence post, with the treated outer layer
planed off, as a "splodger".

ISTRT they ‘chipped’ the apples first.

[J. P. Gilliver (John)]

Post by Mike

Post by Jim Easterbrook

Post by Tony Smith Gloucestershire
Round here one sometimes see former cider mills, consisting of a huge
stone wheel running in a circular grove.

That would crush the apples, and release some juice, but I'd have thought
you'd still need to press the pulp to get all the juice out.
Similarly the Grundys will also be crushing their apples by some means
before pressing. I use an old fence post, with the treated outer layer
planed off, as a "splodger".

ISTRT they ‘chipped’ the apples first.

I think Ed and/or Eddie mentioned "the cheese" when talking to Elizabeth
(and I think at other times), which I take to mean a wide flat cylinder
of apple material.

[BrritSki]

Post by Jim Easterbrook

Post by Tony Smith Gloucestershire
Round here one sometimes see former cider mills, consisting of a huge
stone wheel running in a circular grove.

That would crush the apples, and release some juice, but I'd have thought
you'd still need to press the pulp to get all the juice out.
Similarly the Grundys will also be crushing their apples by some means
before pressing. I use an old fence post, with the treated outer layer
planed off, as a "splodger".

The "fly-wheel" that they've mentioned a couple of times has a handle
and is used I think to drive the mechanism that shreds the apples.

I know this because I was confused as I was pretty sure that the process
was pretty similar to making wine [1] and there was no fly-wheel on our
press - waife trod the grapes and then we transferred the whole mess,
stalks skin and all to the press. The resulting juice had lots of skins
and pips and we did a rough filter of the wine after a few days to
remove this. We never bothered with any special disinfecting of anything
- the press was just hosed down with clean water to remove dust and
cobwebs and there were no sulphites or yeast added, just the natural
yeast on the grapes. The only thing that went into the wine were grapes
and waife's feet, hence the name Cielegiolo [2] Piedivib (waife's name
is Vibeke).

[1] and olive oil for that matter using large stone rollers (a la
Gloucestershire) to crush the drupes and then hydraulic presses and
centrifuges to produce the oil - the whole process takes about an hour
for a batch if everything goes well which it rarely does :/

[2] the ancient variety of grape, also used in Chianti, rather bitter,
so we added about 20% Rossesse which made it delicious. None left now :(