Bottled Cider Today

Although we awoke to gorgeous sunshine and fairly warm temperatures, the blackness all around us was indicative of things to come. We quickly took care of the donkeys and high-tailed it down the hill. We only made it as far as the polytunnel when thunder clapped, and the skies burst into a hailstorm. It was very loud in the polytunnel, and Ghostie sheltered under the table. 

The weather today made it the perfect day for indoor tasks. We finally bottled the cider, and it is delicious. The bottle filler worked like a charm. Forty-two bottles later, we were done. We decanted the dregs into a demijohn, and we'll let them settle out. We may get a couple more bottles out of it. 

This year, we used a mix of cooking and eating apples, which we macerated in the apple chopper machine. The cider is sweeter and tastier than last year, but not too sweet. It's a lovely colour, too. The clarity was better from the big jugs, whereas the cider in the demijohns came out slightly cloudy. 

We tasted the red, and it has improved with time. We couldn't measure the alcohol content or brix as it was way too cold in the winery (we have not used the heat this winter, so it was a cold fermentation). Both instruments are calibrated to 20 C.