The big 6000 litre tank is nearly in position behind the ciderhouse.
Chris and Ness who live a few doors away have a fencing business. They
kindly offered to take the tank from the garden and transport it to
the back of our place using their large tractor. It was quite an
amusing little scene, but one that needed a lot of skill. The first
part of the journey was along the village road to reach the gate to
the field behind our house. The tank was carried on the tractor’s
front loader whose forks had been fitted with special extension tubes.
The tank, being 2 m wide by 2.3 m high, completely masked any view of
the road ahead, which meant that Chris was driving the tractor blind.
Ness walked on one side of the tractor and I walked on the other, each
of us making reassuring, though possibly confusing, hand signals to
Chris as the big black beasty nosed its way along the road. Luckily
there was no other traffic at the time. Crossing the field was much
less demanding but another display of skill was needed on reaching the
fence. We have a 6 ft wooden panel fence along the back. Chris found
that the tractor could not lift the tank quite high enough to clear
it. What happened next was a treat to behold! He slid the tank off the
forks on to the grass. It was now time for Ness to demonstrate her
tractor driving skills. Chris sat on one of the forks and she lifted
him up with it and drove the tractor forward until the fork was
alongside but just above the tank. Chris then climbed along the fork
and lashed the lifting eye on the top of the tank to the end of the
fork. He climbed down and Ness then lifted the tank off the ground as
high as it would go. It still did not clear the fence. I began to
think it was a lost cause but Chris climbed up on the tractor and
tilted the forks, effectively lifting the tank just a little higher.
On the the next attempt the tank just cleared the fence and was then
easily lowered to the ground on the other side
Over the last two weeks a concrete base has been made for the tank to
sit on. The tank will have a built in advantage, due to the ground
behind the cider house being about 3 ft above the floor level inside
the tank room. This height difference plus the the height of the
concrete base for the big new tank means that it will be possible to
gravity feed from it to the 6 IBC tanks in the tank room, after the
first stage of fermentation and blending.
On seeing the big tank nearly in its place behind the ciderhouse I’ve
had several onslaughts of my favourite daydream – to jump the 7000
barrier and grow the business. Several times now I’ve paced out the
area available, and could easily imagine another 4 or even 5 of the
6000 litre monsters sitting there. Now that would look a proper job,
an impressive sight indeed, like a mini Westons! Well I can tell you
emphatically, that dream faded away for ever this week. Circumstances
have forced me to work at the rate that would be required by an annual
output of 18,000 litres. It has been very tiring and time consuming.
I’ve shipped 38 x 20 litre boxes over the last week, delivering by
day and often packaging well into the night. I could never keep that
up on my own, especially not with all the book keeping needed by the
liability for excise duty.
Reality has dawned! But how did this happen? Warm weather created a
surge in demand from the pubs. I did some extra marketing and gained
four more outlets. Silly really, but I can’t help myself doing it.
Then in parallel with this there have been several good orders for
festivals. It seems to have all come at once, but it has had the good
effect of bringing me down to earth. No more daydreams, I will stick
to my 7000 litres, it is a job enough for an old un !
There is only 2000 litres of draught left for this year, so I could
even have a rest period before pressing starts, or at least find some
to make improvements to the equipment.
It was good here today! This morning I acted as collection point for
ciders destined for the Gillingham ( Dorset) Football Club Cider
Festival, to be held on 27 th June ( see wiki ). Last week Barry left
3 of his B-in-Bs for it here. Today I had the pleasure of meeting
Martin Inwood, a craft cidermaker from Bere Regis who had also brought his cider
for the festival. Patrick, the Festival organiser, had arranged to
collect these ciders, together with my own, and was already here when
Martin arrived. It was a sunny morning so it was only natural to have
a little cider tasting in the garden! Martin had anticipated this I
think, as he arrived, bottle in hand. Our first toast to fine weather
was with his latest ‘Lulworth Skipper’, a fine clear golden cider that
had been matured in an oak wine barrel. It was excellent, crisp and
pleasantly oaked. It confirmed that I do like oaked cider after all,
if like Martin’s, the oak is fairly subtle. I can now put the early
bad experience with whisky barrels behind me and move on. I’m getting
to like wine barrel cider! Just as the Monkton Wyld ‘Wider’ delighted
me at Powerstock, Hecks Port Wine has become a firm personal favourite.
I must get one or two ex wine barrels from somewhere before the
autumn. Anybody know where?
Rose
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