September 3rd 2025
320 litres of juice extracted from 2 loads of apples. Mangrove Jack M02 added on completion. The theory being
I picked up a couple of food-grade 200-litre drums from Westcountry Spice at Buckfastleigh. Cleaned and sterilised with hot water & sodium hypochlorite.
All together, about three Mule loads of apples were collected. and produced about 480 litres of juice. Not enough storage capacity so around 50 litres was given to a friends and another 50 still in one of the 200 litre drums and will most likely spoil. - [Sad-Face]
Racking off produced 380 litres of cider:
One 200 litre barrel. and eight 23 litre carboys.
Mashing using a backup wood chipper as the previous ones bearings seized up about 5 minutes in! - Being flooded with apple juice seems to disagree with them.
Mashing complete
Pressing using the tried and tested method.
The juice started at SG 1.050 and came down to 1.015 in a week with a quite vigerous fementation, reaching almost 1 and clearing a little by week 2.