Ray Blockley

A little project is now coming to completion ready for the 2025 East Markham Apple Day on 5th October: "Hempsall's Heritage Orchard Cider" Pressed & fermented Oct 2024, matured 10 months, bottled 9th Aug 2025. Made from apples hand-picked in the Hempsall Heritage Orchard in East Markham, Notts.

Sorry not sorry. Made me chuckle.

Apple cut open showing white unripe pips.

White apple pips.

Nope. Not ripe yet. A couple more months at least? 🍏
Phone calls, messages, emails wanting me to fetch their apples *now* as "They're all on the floor!" ... then annoyed when I try to explain they must be near ripe for us to use & how to check.
Ho hum. 🙂

Bottle label - front.

Bottle label - rear left.

Bottle label - rear right.

Tonight's treat: AXPE Euskal Sagardoa naturala. 😋 Really good - typical refreshing & moreish hit. Well balanced, tannin & spice on the palate, good level of acidity without overpowering anything. 👌
#sagardoa #paísvasco

Busy times. 🍎🍏
There's something satisfying about sterilising a few hundred 500ml bottles ready for filling with racked & matured cider. Bung some choons on, bung an apron on, & get stuck in. Next: filling, capping, & a few weeks bottle conditioning. 🙂
#cider #bottling

Sweep has just found out they're not on @bsky.app 😱

@rfcider.bsky.social is sooty & co on here...? I miss the updates & only catch the odd bit when I reluctanctly & with great trepidation put a toe in the hatefilled cesspit of bots that was once called "Twatter"...

European Garden Spider from above

European Garden Spider head on. "Smile for the camera".

European Garden Spider showing 'cross' pattern on abdomen which gives it its other name of "Cross Orb Weaver" spider.

Made a new friend yesterday while shifting some boxes of bottles: a European Garden Spider or Cross Orb Weaver. It was very chilled & relaxed, so easy to pick up & move to a safer & more spider-convenient place. It was quite skinny so may be a male or simply need feeding up. 💚😊
#spider

A tub of freshly picked Damsons.

Just been in the garden squeezing my Damsons...
Though we lost a lot in the recent dry spell, it now looks like we're in for a good crop this year. Filled a couple of takeaway containers with those with "give" & good colour. Now to chuck them in the pan...😋
#damsons #merryweather

Got figs (currently green), raisins in the cupboard, wine too - but fish...? 🤔 I think this is a "refine to suit circumstances" recipe...? 😉

Seaside Special - a dry cider.

Running Light - a medium-ish cider.

Local Stopping - a medium cider.

A good afternoon working through the Collab ciders made with Luke @mnkybridgecider.bsky.social We went up & down the list a number of times 🙂 Cider Saunter stickers collected. 👌

It's usually "Slack ma girdle" that gets everyone thinking their legs are being pulled... 🤔

True. We've opted for the 2023 Pink Label blend this time to get a balance & range of sweetness. It's quite an impressive range of varieties too...

Map showing the cider maker's names & rough location within the county of Devon.

That's the cider sorted for the next Nottingham Cider Club event, focusing on 3 Devon makers of the good stuff. 1 is a straw-pressed blend; 1 a keeved blend; & 1 a single variety. All from fruit grown within the county. Should be fun working our way through the 750ml bottles.
#cider

Labels & tasting guide to 3 styles of cider.

After our EHO inspection, we celebrated by delivering our little "Collab" with @mnkybridgecider.bsky.social to The Beer Shack, Hucknall.
All 3 x 10L BiBs with tasting guide notes (as below) were dropped off, ready for the 2025 Cider Saunter (run by Nottingham CAMRA) starting Friday 1st August. 👍😋

I was refused a stall at this year's Hucknall Food & Drink Festival as apparently we didn't exist! 😱 That was the first we knew about it. We were "deleted" from the database in 2018...

While understanding that getting such a rating as a cider maker is seen as passé to some ... after 11 yrs without a full inspection ("administrative error" deleted us from the national database, apparently), we're quite chuffed - & very relieved to get this. 👌😊

Magpie beer up front with the Robinson's beer behind.

Pump clip: Magpie Brewery, Nottingham. LocAle. No Half Measures Collective is a female brewing group who run a bar at Nottingham Robin Hood Beer & Cider Festival each year. 👌

Robinson's Brewery Sunshine. Nerd note: Font very reminiscent of Star wars but particularly Blade Runner.

Beer O'clock. Popped down to Station Hotel in Hucknall to exercise the Wooffits, slake our thirsts & stuff our faces with pizza... I opted for the very nice & tasty "Read Through This" from local brewer Magpie 😋; the Goode Wyffe chose Robinson's "Sunshine".
#beer

Bottle label for our "Burro" cider.

Glass of sparkling "Burro" in front of bottle & label.

Need anaesthetic when watching footy with The Goode Wyffe 🙄 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿v🇮🇹
Found a couple of bottles of "Burro" from 2021 in the back of the shed, which will hit the back of the net. ⚽🥅 Clear, crisp, refreshing.😋 A 2:1 co-ferment of mixed dessert & Dabinett bittersweet apples. 👌

3 different labels to be used for 3 different ciders.

It's that time of year when Luke of @mnkybridgecider.bsky.social & I get together, & become "collaborators" 🙂 After a blending & tasting session to decide upon the 3 mixes, many hours were spent deciding on names & label designs...😂 We decided to continue with the theme from 2024.
#cider #natural

Currently spending a lot of time looking at & researching "Non Lucrative Visas" for 🇪🇺 & particularly 🇪🇦 ... 🤔

Bottle of our cider showing clarity.

A group of bottles of cider ready for labelling, showing off clarity & natural colour.

The label for the cider.

Finally finished labelling all of the cider we made in 2023 & bottled in 2024 after maturing in bulk. The clarity is again very good - just time, nature & gravity: no finings or filtering. Off out delivering tomorrow.

#cider #natural #justapples

Stokey the dog bringing me another windfall apple...

My Little Helper is helping by collecting the windfall apples & bringing them into the house for me. Squeaky plastic dog toys are *so* yesterday! 🐾

They scan spin on it & stick it where the sun doesn't shine.🙂 I did offer to work *with them* to develop it but wasn't prepared to "hand it over" carte blanche. Their loss - the RNLI's gain. All I ask to use the artwork is a donation. 😊👌

Banner to help discover & explain the journey from apple through to cider.

North Cotswold CAMRA asked for permission to use our "Cider Process" artwork so they could put up a banner to help further education & knowledge on their Cider & Perry Bar. Working directly with their chosen banner printing company to sort the technical aspects, this job has now been completed. 😊

That's a possibility - need to do the experiment.

They'd need an awful lot of soaking... Hard as bullets & nowhere near ripe (nor ever will be...)

After such a great show of blossom earlier this year, I was hoping for a good crop of Damsons to restock the freezer. Sadly this drought is taking a heavy toll. Many of the fruits are drying up & withering on the tree. The soil underneath the tree currently looks purple... 🫤

Bottle label - front

Bottle label - rear

Plate of Chicken Orzo.

Chilled nicely, perfect accompaniment for freshly cooked Chicken Orzo. 😋 Gurutzeta 🍏🍎
#sagardoa #sidra #natural #astigarraga

First case for next Nottingham #Cider Club bash is here 😊 750ml bottles + corks tied down with string - forerunner of now common wire muselet. History & development of securing the "stopper" for sparkling drinks is interesting, from string by mid-1700's to adoption of wire muselet in late 1800's.