There will be quincequonces…

Posted on January 16, 2026 by james

… if I don’t use these soon. But for what, hmmm?

Posted in Orchard, Smallholding | Tagged | Leave a comment

Testing apple juice settling tank

Posted on January 16, 2026 by james

To reduce the amount of sediment in bottles of apple juice I have been testing an extra step in the process — leaving the juice in a barrel or tank for twenty-four hours prior to syphoning off the juice and bottling/pasteurising.

This is what was left in the bottom of a 45l barrel of Ashmead’s Kernel juice after it had been syphoned off. Doesn’t look like much but it seems to improve the quality of the bottled juice in that there are far fewer “lumpy” bits in the sediment (despite straining the juice through a fine cloth before putting it into the barrel).

And here’s the juice itself

Posted in Orchard, Smallholding | Tagged , | Leave a comment

I hope this breaks down before Spring

Posted on January 15, 2026 by james

I’ve pressed so many apples this season that I was running out of space to compost the pulp. I estimate that I’ve done seven tonnes of apples and I’m not finished yet, so I just had to start spreading it directly on the vegetable beds. It’s got at least six months before I’ll be wanting to plant anything there. Hopefully that will be sufficient. And it will help to keep down the weeds 😀

Posted in Smallholding, Veg plot | Tagged , | Leave a comment

A culinary masterpiece!

Posted on January 15, 2026 by james

I found some left-over bacon in the fridge, so decided to have bacon sandwiches for lunch. Whilst I was frying the bacon in a pan (the grill is too much effort for a few slices of bacon :D), I happened to notice a few pairs that I’d collected the previous day after they’d fallen from the tree.

Well, it can’t do any harm, can it? You have to experiment with these things. So I sliced a couple and added them to the pan with the bacon.

Ladies and gentlemen… The bacon and pear sandwich!

To quote someone I knew many years ago: “It was bloody lovely!”

I shall be making them again.

Posted in Smallholding | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

West Midlands Police

Posted on January 14, 2026 by james

Are loads of them going through their computers (surely they must use PCs?), erasing all instances of “ChatGPT: Write a confession for…” from their history right now?

Posted in Random | Tagged , | Leave a comment

First cider pressing of 2025

Posted on January 14, 2026 by james

After being so dry for so long, I think this (mid-October) was when the weather in 2025 really started to change, so I was pressing apples whilst dodging rain showers and still having to cope with gusting winds.

First up was some Tremlett’s Bitter. Such an amazing colour juice! I pressed around 80kg of these I think.

Followed the same day by about 400kg of Harry Master’s Jersey. Much more orange.

That produced around 200 litres of juice that went into one of my ex olive barrel fermenters.

I’m doing these the traditional way with no extra yeast (and therefore no sulphiting, which possibly isn’t practical for 200 litres of juice anyhow). I did make some additions to the HMJ however. I measured the pH at about 4.4 after pressing which I felt was very high, so I added some malic acid to lower that to about 3.8.

Posted in Cider-making, Smallholding | Tagged , | Leave a comment

There’s a new pencil shop in town…

Posted on January 14, 2026 by james

Well, not in town, exactly

Prior to going all-electronic, in our household Screwfix was always known as “the pencil shop” because whenever I went there to buy something I’d invariably end up bringing home one of their pencils for filling in the order forms. Not intentionally, but when you’re used to having a pencil about your person, putting any pencil in your “usual place” after using it becomes totally subconscious. I used to keep one behind my ear, but wearing glasses makes that impractical now so often they’re in a pocket or tucked behind one of the arms of my glasses in front of my ear.

I can’t deny that these pencils came in very useful and I was quite disappointed when Screwfix stopped using them. However, a few days ago someone gifted me a whole pile of these so I now have my own little stash of pocket-size pencils once again. I can’t honestly say that I even knew IKEA used them as I’m hardly a regular visitor (unless once every twenty years or so counts as regular).

Posted in Workshop | Tagged | Leave a comment

Cider apple picking

Posted on January 14, 2026 by james

Towards the end of last year I had the good fortune to be allowed to pick cider apples at a local orchard where there are many different varieties of tree. As well as collection quite large batches for a single-variety Dabinett cider, I also collected Brown’s Apple, Yarlington Mill, Kingston Black, Porter’s Perfection, Sweet Alford and I think Tremlett’s Bitter.

Posted in Cider-making, Smallholding | Leave a comment

Lord of the fruit flies?

Posted on January 14, 2026 by james

I have no idea what’s going on here, but for a week or more these flies were congregating on this corner of the house in their thousands. Possibly tens of thousands. There were so many that it was possible to hear them flying. I’ve never seen it before.

Posted in Environment | Tagged | Leave a comment

Room for a small one?

Posted on January 14, 2026 by james

I don’t think so. The batch pasteuriser I’ve been using for bottles of apple and pear juice, absolutely rammed full. Capacity does vary however and it’s very dependent on the bottles. We’ve had batches of 750ml bottles from the same supplier that are perhaps 3mm different in external diameter and that’s enough to make room for an extra row (because the rows can be offset)

Posted in Smallholding | Tagged | Leave a comment