WHAT IS A CIDERY?
A Cidery is a place where cider and perry are made. Quite often especially with traditional cyder it is a whole process that sort of works as one where farmers produce cyders from their fields; some still scrat, mill, press their apples outside and also ferment outside!
WHAT IS CYDER/PERRY?
Cyder and perry are an alcoholic drinks resulting from the fermentation of pressed apple and pear juices solely, if anything is added to flavour the cider apart from sugar, caramel and water than it is no longer deemed to be cyder or perry. However this is EU government legislation and in the eyes of the Zymurgorium has taken no account into ancient/historical cyder manufacturing, cider used to be pure fermented fruit juice of any orchard fruit (did you know that the word orchard derives from Persian and translates as paradise?) so this included cherry juice, quince juice, plum, medlar and countless others so the Zymurgorium will be experimenting with this to bring back some of these old flavours starting with our ‘’Open Arse’’ medlar cider.
THE BREWING PROCESS OF CYDER…
please refer to diagram above.
The cyder process is different to beer and mead making because the sugar levels do not need to be manipulated in order to attain the required levels for the desired outcome. The fruits pressed release juices that have the right levels of sugar.
The process for cyder is the same as for other fruit wines such as grape.
Fruits are grown in orchards or vineyards. The word orchard comes from the Persian word for paradise. For each fruit there are different techniques to both farming and harvested, orchard fruit trees can be forced to grow into certain formations for productive and aesthetic reasons, there are; standards, cordons, espaliers, fans and step-overs some of which can be seen in the Park and in the walled garden behind the Zymurgorium.
The earliest account of cyder was at the time of Julius Caesar’s invasion of Britain in 55AD but no doubt was being made long beforehand. The romans took this concept and replicated it throughout the Roman Empire. The UK is now still the largest consumer of cyder even for its small size against countries such as the USA.
Refer to the diagram below; the cyder process is…
- The fruit harvested is first cleaned but not disinfected fully as this would destroy natural yeast that is used in the fermentation. These apples are then milled into a pulp this process is known as scratting. This although it doesn’t look as impressive this is actually the most important part of the juice extraction a cider press cannot press full apples. The finer the milling of apples the more juice that can be extracted. Just the milling alone can extract up to 56%. Traditionally this was done with a horse pulling a circular stone rolling over the apples crushing them.
- This pulp is then placed in the press; today there are many different types of press from; hydropresses that use just the power of mains water to squash the fruit against the sides, to corkscrew presses where a screwed bar is tightened pushing a lid down on the fruit pressing it against the sides and the base (used a lot in home brew), to the traditional rack and cloth pressing. The rack and cloth is the one represented in the diagram as it is the more traditional and because it has a few other steps. Firstly an open top & bottom box is laid on the base, cloth either hessian or muslin is placed over this box, the box is there to give extra height as the pulp which is then placed in has no tendency to stick to a shape and like water will seek to be flat, the cloth is then wrapped over the pulp and the box lifted away this is called a cheese. Something called a rack is then placed on top of this, a rack is usually a lattice made up of hard wood such as oak; this holds the cloth in place containing the pulp inside and already before any force is applied juice is flowing into the collection bucket. On top of this rack another cheese is made then so forth and so forth until you reach the maximum height.
Once the cheeses and the top rack are in place downward force is applied to them squeezing out the juice; traditionally this was done by hand turning a wheel which caused one or both sides of the cross beam to push downwards applying force; today however hydraulics are used instead being much more powerful and therefore much more efficient at extracting juice. At this point a good press should be able to (from apples) get 75-80% juice retention.
Once the pulp is dry to the touch this process is done all over again.
- The juice flows into a collection bucket which has a float valve; the float valve activates a pump when the level of juice rises pumping into another larger vessel.
- The juice is then put into a fermentation vessel; when the Zymurgorium makes fruit juice it is sterilised instead of allowing fermentation to take place and bottled. However if the Zymurgorium wishes to turn the batch into cyder then it will allow the batch to naturally ferment. Sometimes nature can be a bit tricky and the natural fermentation decides to take a day off. In these cases the Zymurgorium uses especially cultured cyder yeast to boost the population. Wood may be added here to mature the flavour.
- The cyder is sometimes then pumped into another tank for racking to let more yeast drop for our champagne style cyder or to add flavours.
- The cyder is then bottled or casked either still or carbonated; the carbonation process for cyder is either pulling the cyder away from full fermentation to allow natural sugars to ferment or is to add a small amount of sugar for the present yeast to cause carbonation.
The time period for cyder is different for different cyders for our ‘’An Open Arse’’ Cyder the medlars have to go through another stage called bletting before the entire process of juicing and fermenting can begin. Some can be ready within 4 weeks some more of the special vintages may be stored for a year to allow flavours to develop and mature in different pre-used barrels such as sherry, rum and whisk[e]y.