A visit to Rose
From Ukcider
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".
 | 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 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. |
 | 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 sight of bright-yellow Marigolds appearing over the top of the stack of cheeses on St. Em soon revealed where Rose was hiding... |
 | 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. |
 | 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. |
 | 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...). |
 | 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 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. |
 | 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! |
 | 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. |
 | 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. |
 | 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. |
 | 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. |
 | 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...). |
 | 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. |
 | 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. |
I'd like to thank Rose very much for her warm welcome and generous hospitality. And of course for allowing me to take these photographs.
--Ray 20:37, 6 November 2006 (GMT)
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