A visit to Rose

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In October 2006, we travelled down from Somerset to the wilds of Dorset, in order to visit Rose Grant, better known as Cider by Rosie. It was a fine sunny day and as Rose was in the middle of pressing some two tonnes of Yarlington Mill's, we helped her out. These are the photographs we took of that visit, including the famous "St. Em".


Apple Washing
Gail went with Rose to finish milling a batch of Yarlingtons, while I was given the task of shovelling and washing the apples still in the trailer


The Lawn Rake
The apples were shovelled into the cut down IBC and then thoroughly washed using the plastic lawn-rake to roll and swirl them in the water. The tines of the rake made a good job of fishing out leaves and bits of grass, and collected the apples without any fear of damaging them.



Into the Cider Barn
After Gail had taken three or four barrow-fulls of apples to be milled, I followed her into Rose's cider room, but Rose was nowhere to be seen.


The ubiquitous yellow Marigolds
The sight of bright-yellow Marigolds appearing over the top of the stack of cheeses on St. Em soon revealed where Rose was hiding...


The lady herself!
When making the last cheese, Rose had to resort to her trusty old milking stool in order to get high enough to spread the pomace.



The last cheese
Wrapping up the last cheese is always satisfying - and we couldn't wait to see the famous St. Em in action. Note the bottom of Rose's bespoke stainless steel hopper and the opening / closing mechanism controlled by the black handle. We had a long discussion over this and the merits of a sliding closure over a rotating closure, and whether it would do what was to be asked of it. Time will tell.

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Loading time
The stack of cheeses were rolled into the gaping maw of St. Em using Rose's "railroad" and the pressing began. St. Em looked clean and shiny in her blue livery and began her work with a gentle "poccata-poccata" sound, not like the harsh electric buzz found with most electro-hydraulic presses. She actually reminded me of "Ivor the Engine" with the noises she made (for those old enough to remember such Oliver Postgate classics...).


Pressing begins
Rose stands proudly by as St. Em takes up the strain. Here you can clearly see the rollers and tracks to roll the cheeses in and out of St. Em, along with the single huge piston that rises majestically from the floor. The image of this also lifting a manic Wurlitzer player from under the floor kept creeping into my imagination...


The juice is flowing
The lovely brown Yarlington Mill juice was soon pouring out of the cheeses and filling the tray. St. Em had to be given chance for a breather to allow the juice to run away and prevent an overflow.



Heavy engineering
As St. Em's ram rose even higher out of the floor, the full engineering splendour of the gusseted cast press base support was revealed. I can even hear a Wurlitzer now!

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Tasty juice
A glass was found and we had a moment of sheer pleasure smelling and tasting the fresh pressed juice. By this time, St. Em was reaching full pressure and her note had become decidedly "chugga chugga" as she strained to squeeze out the last drops of juice.



Pressure mounts
Rose kept a careful eye on the pressure gauge so as not to overstrain St. Em. The foam produced from pressing the Yarlington Mills was quite substantial.




A room with a view
After helping Rose unload the press and empty the spent pomace into plastic sacks ready for a local farmer to collect for cattle feed, I thought I'd take a few shots of Rose's Cider Barn to try and give a panorama. Looking from the back of the room towards the door, over the top of the bed of St. Em, you can see Rose's cut-down Vigo mill and the sinks, now no longer used for washing piles of apples. In the blue tub are the cheese cloths, soaking in SO2 solution.


Washing equipment
The large plastic container here is a cut-down IBC that is used to soak the racks in SO2 solution. A piece of timber keeps them pressed below the surface.




Work station
Looking back diagonally across the room from behind the Vigo mill, Rose's work bench and smaller 5 gallon fermenters can be seen and in the corner one of three stainless steel fermenting tanks. The plastic container with pipes entering and leaving it, is Rose's patent Bag-in-Box filler (design copyright...).


Storage
Rose has built a low platform across the back of her cider room on which stand the three stainless steel fermenters, the final two visible here. Between these two sits the pump used to transfer juice from press to tank. St. Em's now empty press bed stands before them.


Sputniks
In the room next door, sit more fermenters: stainless steel and plastic, and two fantastic "sputniks" - or wine fermenters. They reminded me of the tanks used to help divers avoid the 'bends'; but if they'd taken off on a jet of flame, we wouldn't have been surprised! On the floor were some bags of Kingston Black apples, destined for a very restricted destination.




8289401_8cd6453906_s.jpg end of A visit to Rose, 2006

return to The Cidermaking Year by Rose Grant

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