September 2008 - I spent a day helping out in a friend's orchard, lugging crates of apples from the field into the store.
His name is Steve and together with his wife, Julia, they run Fruitwise Heritage Apples
More About The Orchard
There's something about this orchard and its owners that rings true with me. Perhaps it's the quietly fierce rebellion against the bland uniformity of mass commerce, perhaps it's the respectful grasp of heritage and culture, or maybe it's more complex than that - a blend of many and subtle attributes, comprising a gestalt that can't really be explained, only appreciated and wondered at.
What's So Special?
For a start, it's a lot about the apples. That might seem a statement of the obvious, it being an orchard, after all, but it's much more than simply an apple factory - it's more like an apple library or an apple sanctuary - the fruit here is cherished in that kind of way.
The Apples
There's quite an astonishing range of heritage varieties here, including names such as Ribston Pippin, Laxton's Epicure, Egremont Russet, Ashmead's Kernel, Pitmaston Pineapple, Saint Edmund's Pippin and quite a few more, including a number of cider varieties.
All of these varieties have their own individual characteristics, such that the experience of eating different apples could perhaps almost be as diverse as the experience of eating apples and oranges if you bought them in a supermarket.
This is not just another global commerce rant - the supermarkets do what they do significantly because we the public create paths of least resistance for them - they haven't got the time and patience to be dealing with this kind of stuff - crops of apples that aren't all the same size, or the exact same colour, or are not quite hard enough to survive machine sorting and transportation halfway around the world.
It's not their fault - an interior decorator wouldn't find it easy to paint the Mona Lisa, Supermarkets don't provide interesting quality unless it's just happens to be very convenient for them to do so.
But it's not a problem either - because there are already vendors out there that do care enough. There's simply no need to expect the big retailers to change.
Pressing Fresh Apple Juice
In addition to producing apples for sale as whole fruit, Steve and Julia also press them for fresh juice - and it was my enormous privilege to take part in this year's very first pressing. Here's what happened:
The first stage in the process is to clean the equipment - here's Steve scrubbing out some of the containers with sterilising solution.
This is important because the fresh, raw juice will be consumed in that state - it can be pasterised or otherwise preserved, but at the expense of some of the flavour and aroma.
Next, the apples are washed to remove dirt and surface nasties, then passed through a mill - this one closely resembles my garden shredder - except that it's obviously built with greater regard for hygiene.
Steve has such close affinity with the apples that he is able to levitate them into the hopper by sheer force of will - as clearly demonstrated in this picture.
The apples are shredded to a uniform pulp - known as pomace, which is collected in large containers, ready for pressing.
Next, the pomace is loaded onto a cloth draped over a square frame called a former - which sits on top of a wooden rack.
After spreading out evenly, the pomace is enclosed by folding in the corners of the cloth, placing another rack on top and repeating the process...
Eventually, a stack of filled cloths is constructed - this is called the cheese - and in this photo, it's ready for pressing.
The cheese is topped with a heavy solid beech block, the top frame of the press is locked in place and the screw is tightened, compressing the stack - and the juice begins to flow.
The pomace has by now browned a bit, so the expressed juice is golden amber in colour - this is completely normal - it can be avoided by adding citric acid at various stages, but as this achieves nothing more than a cosmetic improvement, and nothing less than an unnatural adjustment to the flavour, its perhaps obviously omitted from our agenda.
At the end of pressing, the spent pomace - somewhat resembling a carpet tile - is tipped out and will be composted back into the soil in the orchard.
The End Result
We'll take a closer look at the juice in side column - top right - but here's the fruit (literally) of our labour.
Steve was kind enough to let me drive away with 10 gallons of fresh juice - the very first 10 gallons produced this year.
So... what can be done with 10 gallons of freshly-pressed apple juice? Take a look at the next page for a few ideas.
