Cider, Oh Glorious Cider

8 April 2009

Every cloud has a silver lining. Or in my case, a golden one. A few weeks ago, as 4 apples burst forth on our cider tree, I suddenly became very excited about the thought of brewing my own cider. Sadly those 4 small apples weren’t going to yield much juice but I felt it prudent to get myself prepared for the day when a bumper crop would one day appear. I searched the Internet for apples juicers and presses but could find nothing local. And so I headed on down to the brewer’s shop one day after work and made enquiries. I was assured it wouldn’t be a problem to order the equipment but it had to come from overseas and would set me back somewhere in the region of $2,500. Whoa!

Well, I would have choked on my cider there and then if I had had one. Instead I politely thanked the lady behind the counter and asked if there was a slightly cheaper option. To my delight she pointed me in the direction of 2 cider brewing kits. At less than $30 each this was slightly more within my budget. I handed over the money and headed home with my BlackRock Cider kit. The whole process was going to be a mission, with 2 weeks brewing in the barrel and a further 5 weeks brewing in the bottle, it was a long time to wait for that wonderful refreshing taste of cider. However, the end result would be little more than $1 a bottle, so who was I to complain.

In the meantime I mentioned in passing to colleague Chris about my trial with BlackRock cider. She was intrigued. A day later she came back to me and told me she’d mentioned this to another colleague Alan, who in turn had suggested another product – Oztops.

Chris Googled www.oztops.com.au and discovered that for just $30, a packet of Oztops could be sent over from Australia. I spoke to Alan and he raved about the product. What can I say? I was convinced. I went home and ordered a packet online. A few days later it was in my letterbox. Quite frankly the Oztops concept seemed too good to be true. All I had to do was buy a bottle of preservative-free apple juice, add sugar, yeast and put on an Oztops cap and wait 3 days for glorious cider.

I bought a variety of juices and trialed them all. I ended up with 2 clear favourites, Fresh-up Crisp Apple and Te Hana Kuntoro Apple Juice. I spoke to Alan again. Leave the brew for 7 days he said and try different types of fruit juices. I bought more 3-litre bottles of Fresh-up Crisp Apple. I added the required amount of yeast and ½ a cup of icing sugar and then left it to brew for 7 days. Oh my god! How fantastic was this cider?!

Aaron was as delighted as I was. The cider was so fruity and kicked such a punch that I was slurring after only 2 glasses. I went into work and raved about my experience. Several more colleagues became interested and the orders started flying off to Oztops in Aussie. I made more cider and it’s so cheap and easy to make that we have since been offering it to all our guests. Virtually everyone is hooked. I’ve now convinced so many people to buy the product that I briefly considered become New Zealand’s only distributor.

How does it compare to the brands of cider we can buy from the liquor stores here? Never again will I waste $8.00 on a branded bottle of fizzy, tasteless shite. For roughly $1.50 a litre this is just fantastic stuff. As for the BlackRock cider, well I had that 20 litres brewing away for the required 7 weeks and we cracked open a bottle last week. It’s even more shite than the $8.00 Scrumpy, Bulmer or Harvest. It’s tasteless, fizzy alcohol.

Being the alcoholic he is Aaron has bravely offered to drink it. I’m secretly pleased. It would be such a waste otherwise. I cannot rave about Oztops enough. There’s no fancy equipment needed, no mess, no fuss, no cleaning up and fantastic tasting, refreshing alcohol in just a week. Trust the Aussies to come up with such a glorious invention. My only problem now is that I have convinced myself that I need at least 1 or 2 glasses a day to ensure I achieve my ‘5+ a day’ of fruit servings. Now what was Fresh-up’s tagline back when John Walker used to promote it? “Fresh-up, it’s got to be good for you!” Amen to that!

Autumn in Kaiwaka

29 March 2009 Autumn is well and truly here with its crisp mornings and clear blue skies. Feeding out at this time of the year is not so bad. The cool, dewy air at 4 O’clock in the morning wakes me up fairly quickly. I arrive at work in the dark now but it’s the end of daylight savings next week so I should get a bit of morning light again for a few weeks. The days are still warm though and in fact rain has been completely scarce since the storm a few weeks ago. It’s a bit of a bugger as we desperately need grass to grow before the chill really hits but the ground is dry and cracking again. The duck pond is extremely low, the wallows are drying up and the dam has stopped flowing again. Life has almost returned to normal in terms of routine chores and having a bit of time just to sit and breathe. Pig Health Both sets of piglets are doing just fine. Piglets grow so fast it’s actually possible to see the changes from week to week. Joy has actually put on a good amount of weight since we raised her trough a week ago. She can now continue to feed her piglets if she wants, and she does(!), without fear of getting sick. Phyllis is steadily losing weight but she is still carrying a bit too much fat so we’ll give it another week or two and then we can increase her food intake. Arthur has lost a bit of weight in the last week and has become more active since we opened up the bottom paddock. Unfortunately we’ve had to close it up again for the cattle for a week and then the sheep for a week after that. Piglet Breakout

Phyllis’ piglets are proving to be miniature versions of Phyllis. Joy’s piglets were very laid back, just like her but Phyllis’ lot are on the go constantly. They are small enough to go under most of our fencing and would appear to do so quite regularly. A couple of times Aaron or I have gone down the drive to give them dinner only to have them shoot out under the fence and trot down the drive with us. Paul and Nicky arrived for their seasonal weekend away just this Friday past. On Saturday afternoon Nicky joined us as we fed out. The routine is usually to feed Stanley, then Arthur then Phyllis and then to carry on out our drive and up Gary’s driveway in order to walk the dogs. This we did and then as we came back and passed Arthur’s house, piglets suddenly appeared on the drive. They shot past us and under Arthur’s wire, where they all proceeded to run off in different directions. Arthur was a safe distance away in his wallow and hadn’t noticed but then he looked up and saw me and started wandering over. Oh shit! How could I round up all the piglets and then get them out of there before this huge 300kg boar saw them. “Here piggie, piggie, piggie! Here piggie, piggie, piggie!” They ignored me completely of course and Arthur appeared around the side of his house.

I had absolutely no idea how I was going to save these tiny little piggies from giant Arthur. And then to my absolute horror they raced on mass up to Arthur. He lowered his head to sniff them and they all squeaked and grunted excitedly and then Arthur just watched as they raced around his legs and under his body. And then realisation dawned in my brain “Bloody hell. This is not the first time they’ve visited Arthur is it?” This was no “Wow! Who are you?!” Piglet excitement. This was more “Hey dad, how’s it going?” type conversation. I looked up at Phyllis and she was just calmly watching them from her side of the fence. Not for the first time I found myself a little gobsmacked at this turn of events. Of course now that I know what’s going on it’s become quite apparent that these piglets go anywhere and everywhere they feel like. The only thing stopping them disappearing is their frequent need for mother’s milk. I am grateful that by the time they are weaned they will be generally too big for escape. However, I suspect we will have slightly more breakouts with this lot than we have had with Joy’s. Joy’s Piglets Seek Adventure Speaking of breakouts, that’s exactly what Joy’s lot did on Thursday. Their little paddock is almost completely stripped of kikuyu on one side and I suspect they’re getting bored. Judging by the state of the fencing it appears that some time on Thursday, while we were at work, the piglets launched themselves at the fence and pushed and squeezed until they got their fat little pukus through the sheep netting and then took off down to the duck pond. At some point Joy has either heard them or noticed their absence and has literally ripped the wire away from the fencing staples on one of the posts and has gone and joined them. The ducks, both indignant and frightened hid in the grass up the bank and the pigs have proceeded to make a nuisance of themselves digging, pulling out and eating spring-planted seedlings and pugging up the edges of the pond. The sound of Aaron up by the troughs later that afternoon brought them back quick smart. Aaron then hastily erected an electric fence around the perimeter and then fixed the fencing. A New Arrival A couple of Friday’s ago Aaron drove down to KatiKati with an empty stock trailer. He arrived back home on Saturday lunchtime with a 3-year old Wessex Saddleback sow named the “Old Tart”. She was anything but. In fact she is absolutely beautiful. She is so pretty and so gentle that Aaron named her Mabel. It’s the perfect name and it turns out to be Aaron’s great aunt’s name. Great Aunt Mabel was in fact Grandma Phyllis’ sister and according to Lynn, a fan of pigs. I am very happy with the choice of name. An Abundance of Eggs In the last week some of our ducks have started laying eggs and our chickens have been laying virtually daily. Typical. After a couple of weeks with stuff all eggs I bought a dozen free range from the supermarket. Now we’ve got so many I’m thinking omelette might be on the menu a few nights this week. I’m stoked the ducks have started laying. That means we definitely have some females and that they’re aged 6 months or less. We should have at least 7 females, so we anticipate ending up with roughly 6 duck eggs a day in the not too distant future. The ducks are actually very comfortable now in their home and although they spend time as a group, in the last week they have separated into pairs and threesomes. They have also started exploring their entire paddock in search of food and it’s not unusual for them to walk the fenceline along the front of our house. They seem to hunt for food as a group in the mornings and as they do they talk constantly. It’s quite amusing to hear a sudden “Quack, quack, quack” like raucous laughter just outside the kitchen window. The dogs have been great, they just sit on the verandah and watch. They seem to realize these ducks have been granted pet status, and are therefore not for hunting.