Wirral Homes Property - West Wirral Edition - 3rd October 2012
Hot off the (cider) press! Wirral Pomona, 2015
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Transcript of Hot off the (cider) press! Wirral Pomona, 2015
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We founded Wirral Pomona Juice and
Cider Making Network in 2014 to
make the most of the apples and
pears in our gardens, orchards and
parks - each autumn, an abundance
of fruit falls from the trees,
neglected.
The network is a not-for-profit
organisation, with a strong
commitment to our community and to
enjoyable activities: Barn Dances,
Harvests, Pressings & Wassails.
HOW DOES IT WORK? -To start with,
we are at community events where
people can use our machinery to
press their own fruit and take away
their juice (home cider making?) or
leave apples with us to turn into fruit
juice or cider, a proportion of which
we keep.
WE ARE -a pleasant but slightly
eccentric group (with interests as
varied as tree preservation, social
enterprise, growing food, reducing
waste and making wooden clockwork
machinery.)
In the process we’ve acquired a back
-street cider house, hand-made new
designs in traditional hand-powered
devices to scrat and press fruit,
mostly using recycled materials.
We’ve also been picking fruit and
putting stuff in barrels and bottles,
with events to celebrate and cider to
taste …
An Invitation or two...
You can join us making
cider from local apples
You can bring your sur-
plus apples to us and
crush and squeeze the
goodness into liquid gold
You can get your friends,
neighbours and family
together, collect all the
apples you can and have a
go with our presses and
scratters to make juice
together
What does our cider and apple juice taste like?
A year of planning and now we’re getting
ready for this year’s harvest
Inside this issue:
Our Aims 2
Events and activities 2
A member’s story 3
Apple days and other
events
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The scratter 5
The invitation to you 6
Contact details 6
tastes like you thought it should and
you realise that the stuff you’re used
to, well, just didn’t have that taste!
Our ciders have the same effect—
mostly a lot drier than people expect,
but overwhelmingly appley. This
should not be a surprise, either, but
When people taste freshly-pressed
apple juice, it’s a revelation.
It tastes fresh and of apples.
Surprisingly, that’s a surprise.
After years of shop-bought, made
from concentrate juices, fresh juice
commercially-made ciders rarely are
made purely with apples and have
blends of sugar, glucose and fruits.
Our ciders have a range of tastes
depending on the type of apple used.
We want to keep that distinctiveness
& not blend into something uniform.
Wirral Pomona Apple Juice and Cider Collective
Hot off the Press Autumn 2015
The giant cider press, at a barn
dance, producing fresh juice
from Wirral apples for everyone
taking part.
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Wirral Pomona Apple Juice and Cider Collective: Tommy’s Tale
When my friend Dave Ellwand asked me if I would like to become a
founder member of a group of like-minded people with the intention
of constructing a ‘scratter’ and ‘apple press for making cider,’ I
jumped at the invitation although I had never even heard of a
‘scratter’, During the course of last summer, the scratter and press
were designed and constructed and these pieces of equipment were
then put to good use. I enjoyed making the scratter from the first day
I started (Geoff and Dave constructed the press) and it makes me very happy to see it giving
pleasure to a lot of people.
In my opinion it’s important what individual skills different members can bring to the group,
recognising also that many of us have health restrictions: we should feel happy in what we are
doing: the basis of the group is to be able to enjoy what Pomona is about. Support is on hand to
members who think, “Am I getting out of my depth?” and all members are encouraged to find
their best level of involvement within
the Pomona group.
I am looking forward to the harvest
and pressings for 2015
Tom
Tom
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Wirral Pomona Apple Juice and Cider Collective:
dates and events:
Wirral Pomona will be present with the scratters and presses at Wirral Earth Fest in St
Bridget’s Fields, Church Road, West Kirby on 12th September from 11 am to 4:00 pm.
We’ll be with the Wirral Tree Wardens at their demonstration orchard in Brimstage on
Sunday 20th September, 11:00 am to 4:00 pm.
Our harvest barn dance and cider tasting is at
the Wirral Arts Centre (old church, Brookfield
Gardens) Saturday 26th September from 6:30
pm. We’re also available from now to early
December at other apple days, pressings,
pruning & harvesting events, so if you and your
neighbours or local community group can gather
all your spare apples, we can show you how to
press them and turn them into cider or juice for
yourselves. We can lend you the equipment, so
long as you look after it, follow carefully all the
safety advice and clean it all thoroughly and
arrange the transport. We’ll just make a small charge for showing you about juice and
cider making and safe use of the press, etc. We want more communities to join in –we
encourage community participation and so we minimise our costs to cover just
replacement and up-keep of our equipment and storage, etc.
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Wirral Pomona Apple Juice and Cider Collective: our aims
1 To use surplus fruit from local orchards, gardens and green spaces,
reducing waste and making best use of available resources
2 To make good quality apple juice, cider and apple cider vinegar for
personal use and trade; to provide equipment, facilities and training which
will enable members of the public to make their own apple juice products
3 To celebrate the rich cultural heritage associated with cider and
juice making; to exchange traditional skills and promote convivial and
communal activities while making apple juice and cider.
4 To collaborate with other organisations in raising awareness of local
issues around food, trees and waste, preserving and reviving
traditional skills and heritage varieties of fruit trees.
Pomona events including apple-harvest
barn dances, winter pruning apple trees in
Dibbinsdale and a Burns Supper with cider
We’ve had to organise ourselves , as having
and sharing fun can be a serious business.
We started by putting together ideas about
what we did and why we did it, so others
can see if they want to join us. So first our
aims:
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Wirral Pomona Apple Juice and Cider Collective: the scratter
secret life of the scratter
The scratter minces the apples into small pieces about the size of a grape. These are
put onto cloth bags on wooden racks for pressing. Any parts of the scratter which are
in contact with the apples are made of oak. Any metal bits, such as the scratters’
teeth, have to be made of stainless steel. Even the glues which we use are special
food-grade adhesives and the wooden frame is joined with oak pegs—11th century
technology!
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Wirral Pomona Apple Juice and Cider Collective
So this is an invitation to individuals and groups to join in.
Making cider and apple juice is a communal activity, so
our invitation is to you to get your friends and neighbours
to collect the apples growing in your area and make good
use of them. Borrow our presses and scratters to make
juice and cider (but look after them!!) We can show you
how to do it. We also welcome volunteers in supporting
local community orchards, doing the 101 jobs needed in keeping the kit and cider house in good
order, bottle washing and more!
We tend to make a good time of all the hard work: most of our meetings are cider-tastings with
cheese and our pressing events will have live music ( quite a bit of cake, too, I seem to remember)
We do some work in local orchards, often followed with something tasty cooked on a wood-fire and
a chance to try out some traditional crafts, such as whittling
Contact us at [email protected]
and look out for the Wirral Pomona facebook and blog.
The ages-old* tradition of Wassailing,
bringing health and happiness to the
orchard and the volunteers.
* We started it in January 2013