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Stuston Cider Making, Suffolk - 1992

Nosher's landlords at Stuston, Geoff and Brenda Castell, used to make home-made scrumpy every year. It was something of an annual ritual and provided enough cider to last for the following year or more. The press was an old rag press that Geoff picked up in an auction somewehere, which he modified by adding a wheel which Winnie the little grey Fergie tractor could drive. Three tons of apples would be roughly chopped, and then tipped into framed hessian cloths until each frame was full. This constituted a "cheese". A lattice wood sheet was then placed above that and another cheese constructed above it. Once the press was full, the tractor would drive down the press's screw, squeezing juice out through the cheeses (which were wrapped by this point to trap any escape) which would be collected, loosely filtered and pumped into old sherry barrels to ferment, with nothing else added except for a couple of campden tablets to help clearing.

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These are cropped thumbnails. Click on an image to view the full photograph.

Keith and Monique's sprog sits on "Winnie", the TE120 tractor	Patting down chopped apples in a frame	Tipping out a pressed cheese
Fun in a wheelbarrow	Winnie drives the press	Sue Ogilsby and Geoff wrap up a completed cheese, whilst David Cork films the action
	Linda Cork watches apples being chopped whilst contemplating hurling a few more bramleys to their doom	Monique loads up a bucket of apples
	David Cork cleans out the apple chopper
Nosher's Vehicle 1.0	Linda pipes in fresh apple juice into a barrel	A completed stack of cheeses ready for pressing
		The wrapped cheeses being pressed
Geoff straps Winnie on to the pump
John Chapman vigorously tamps down some apples	Sue "Badger" Ogilsby	Lobbing apples in
	Geoff acts as a handy coffee table for Mike Ogilsby's cuppa

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