A Third Of A Tonne

Last year our apple picking managed to produce 360 bottles and in the blog entry dated 13th October, Juicing, I gave an explanation behind the process, well this year I have photos!
The team picked 16 trays of apples, cookers and eating, as well as 2 trays of pears.

These trays were taken to Waterperry and tipped into a large crate, total weight a third of a tonne. Chris, the apple expert at Waterperry, labels the crate so there is no mix up with any other fruit.

The next step, these aren't our apples by the way, is to feed them into the juicing machine where they are chopped up into a pulp, under Graham's watchful eye.

Once all the fruit has been chopped and the large container at the bottom of the feed if full the pulp is taken to the juice squeezer.

The pulp is placed into several square frames, each wrapped in a cloth making a cheese. Nine cheeses are placed in a cheese stack and then pressed at a pressure of 380 bars.

The intense high pressure then squeezes all the juice out down a tube into a vat until every last drop is captured. The cheese are then unwrapped and the waste placed into a box which is then fed to the pigs and pheasants of Oxfordshire.

The juice is then moved to the pasteurising room where vitamin c is added, allowed to settle , then bottled in to heat sterilised bottles. We are now waiting for the return of our juice for the labelling process to begin.