Russell & David are ciderists making award-winning real cider in our orchard in Maplehurst, West Sussex.
Our apple harvest starts late in October. We tend to pick from the ground rather than shake the trees, this way we know our apples are as sweet as they can be.
We do not use any pesticides.
We share our apples with the deer, rabbits and pheasants that roam the orchard.
The apples are stored for a couple of weeks and then washed, milled, pressed and pumped into our fermenters.
The cider will remain in the fermenters until the end of the following summer, where the finished cider is pumped over into maturation storage vessels.
Here they will remain for another year as the flavour develops further.
Typically we press 2500 litres each year. If we collect enough apples we will ferment single varieties, and will either blend after fermentation or keep as single variety.
We use both cultivated yeast and wild yeasts in our batches.
Our cider is flat, dry, crisp, copper coloured and around 7%. It is always 100% apple juice, no water, no added sulphites.
Two years ago we started to bottle our dry and a medium, our medium cider has sweetener added.
