A visit to a Traditional Cider Producer - JB

Croydon & Sutton Branch recently visited John Batcheldor, a very small producer in Maplehurst, West Sussex.

A mini bus was hired for the occasion and, after picking up Mike Jacomb of Brighton & South Downs Branch in Brighton as our guide and visit organiser we drove back up the A23 and off to westwards to Maplehurst.

John was actually pressing his cider apples when we arrived - he has an ancient Sussex single screw press, at least 100 years old and can only press a small quantity of apples at a time so it takes several weeks to press all his apples from his own orchards around the farm.

He broached 2.5 gallon containers of "JB Dry" and "JB Medium" for us to sample while he explained the process.

JB explained that the apples are first crushed, using the only modern piece of equipment and, after leaving for a while to start the breakdown, they are ready for pressing. The cheese, as it is known, is made up of layers of crushed apples on hessian sacks, the layers separated by wooden boards.

In John's case, about 8 layers are fitted into the press. The juice begins to run out of the press just by the weight of the apples and boards themselves before the press is tightened.

The juice is collected in 2 gallon containers and tipped into the fermenter. Once all the layers are in place, the screw is wound down and progressively tightened using increasingly stronger bars fitted into the wholes in the screw - and a lot of muscle power. A hydraulic press would save JB's arms but would be too expensive for this small a production. It takes several hours for all the juice to be extracted, then the whole thing has to be taken down, the hessian separated from the apple remains which now resemble door mats and the whole process started again! Nothing is wasted - John uses the apple "mats" as mulching for the trees, putting the goodness back for the next season!

Once a fermenter is full, meta bisulphite is added to kill off the wild yeasts - John has tried using the wild yeast to ferment but says it is too open to contamination with the wrong sort of yeasts which can ruin the batch. Even if no infection occurs, it is difficult to maintain consistency. The juice is left overnight to ensure sterile conditions and then a wine yeast is added.

Fermentation can take from 2 weeks to months depending on the temperature and the sugar content. For his "JB Dry" he ferments right out so it is very dry but most of the branch preferred it to the "JB Medium" - it seemed to have more character.

For the Medium, JB uses the old technique of "keeving", that is skimming off the mat of yeast before fermentation is complete, effectively stopping the fermentation and leaving natural sweetness in the cider.

After watching the pressing, John took us for a tour of his orchards - he grows 10 different varieties here -:
Kingston Black
Yarlington Mill
Sweet Alford
Sweet Coppin
Michelin
Harry Masters Jersey
Dabenette
Somerset Red Streak
Improved Red Streak
Porters Perfection

Each of these imparts different characteristics to the cider - some are "sweet", some are "bitter-sweet" and some are "sharps".

He does all his own grafting and showed some examples where he has several varieties on the one tree!

The different varieties ripen at different times and so each batch will have a different mix of varieties - to maintain some consistency, batches are blended after fermentation

This year has been a good year for yield and sugar content and the cider should reach 8% naturally - in bad years it is sometime neccessary to add sugar to achieve a minimum of 6% alcohol.

Last year's yield wasn't so good but we all agreed the cider was excellent - in fact we had difficulty climbing back into the minibus, along with some 5 gallon containers of Dry and Medium for the short trip to the White Horse in maplehurst - which stocks John's cider - he came with us as the guvnor of the pub had phoned to say he was out of cider! See the News page for a report of our visit to the White Horse!

National Cider Collection

After imbibing in the White Horse we drove to Middle Farm in Firle - which houses the National Farm Cider Collection.

Here you can taste about 150 different Ciders and Perries before buying - they give you a small plastic tasting "glass" and tell you to help yourself - this is a must for cider and perry lovers!

After sampling hundreds (well, it fealt like it anyway), we made our choices for the Festival - poor Jon Hart, our driver had to just stand and watch but we managed to do quite well - the bus was loaded with 4 more containers of cider and perry!

Suppliers Details

John Batcheldor
The Orchard, Park Lane, Maplehurst, West Sussex, RH13 6LL
Tel: 01403 891352

The English Farm Cider Centre
Middle Farm Firle
LEWES
East Sussex
BN8 6LJ
Tel: 01323 811324
Web Site

Jon Hallam
Based in Bristol but delivers to pubs and beer festivals all over the UK
Tel: 0117 966 0221

For further details, consult CAMRA's Good Cider Guide (available from CAMRA Books), the Apple Web Site or

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