DE45Cider

Apple Donation - How it works

  • Contact us if you want to get involved

    To donate your apples, contact us by email, text or phone anytime so we know a little bit more about each other.

    We will need to know your name, telephone number or email address, location of trees (postcode) and how many trees or approximate weight of fruit you think you can provide.

  • Bring your apples or we can pick them for you

    We will make a note of the quantity so that you will receive the appropriate number of bottles of juice in return. We will give you 20% of the volume of juice produced back in glass bottles. We estimate that we can extract about 50% of the juice from your donation. As an example, if you donate 10 kg of fruit, we can extract around 5 L of juice from this, and you can keep 20% of that juice or 1 L.

    Please note that we cannot process rotten or mouldy fruit as they will contaminate the juice. Freshly picked is best and ripe fruit is needed to ensure the best flavour and to get the highest possible yield. Some light bruising, stalks and leaves are all fine. We will try to avoid windfall apples if there are pets roaming the garden and we won’t accept apples from trees treated with pesticides.

  • Collect your share

    Wait for us to contact you about collecting your apple juice once it has been processed and bottled.

    ENJOY!

    Any feedbacks on what we can improve are welcomed.

 FAQs

  • There are many factors which can alter the picking date by many weeks. The first and most important is the specific variety. Different varieties of apples will be ready at different times between September and December.

    If you know which variety you have, a quick search on the internet will give you a rough idea of what stage of the season it is likely to be ripe. (Remember it will also vary according to what part of the country you live in – it gets slightly later the further north you are.)

    The weather will also have an impact on the timing – the same tree will not crop at the exact same time every year. It depends on what the weather was like in spring, and how early the trees formed blossom and were pollinated.

    Even on the same tree, not all the fruit will ripen at exactly the same time. Normally the fruit at the top of a tree and on the south facing side will ripen several days or even a week or two before the rest, so expect to have to pick at least twice to get perfectly ripened fruit.

    See next questions.

  • We prefer apples that are ripe. This isn’t necessarily when they are falling from the tree as a tree may shed some apples for many reasons.

    There is the natural thinning occuring by September, this is sometimes known as ‘June Drop’, it’s nature’s way of ensuring that the tree can provide the nutrients the fruit needs to survive and give the remaining fruit room to grow. One other possible cause of June fruit drop is poor or inadequate pollination. Pollination is necessary for fruit to set, and this involves the transfer of pollen from one blossom to another. These apples that ‘drop’ during the thinning process are sour and hard, they are not good for pressing.

    Apples also drop due to pests such as Codling Moth Caterpillar and Sawfly Grub, these are common issues with fruit trees.

  • You know when an apple is ready to pick when you cup it in your hand and give it a slight twist, or tilt it horizontally, and it comes off in your hand. If you need to give the fruit a hard yank, or it comes off with part of the branch and a bunch of leaves, leave it on the tree and try again in a few days. Always use the palm of your hand rather than fingertips, to avoid bruising the fruit. However, when you collect your apples, we recommend that you don’t pick the apples off the trees. Shake the branches and pick the ones which fall. If they haven’t fallen yet, it means they are not ripe.

    You can also look at the pips inside to check if the apple is ready: a ripe apple will have dark brown or black glossy pips. An unripe apple will have pale or light brown pips and will need a bit longer.

    Apples turn red long before they are ripe, so redness isn’t the best indicator. Take a look at the ‘ground’ colour. In most apples this turns from green to a yellow or creamy white near the depression around the stem of the fruit once ripe.

    If you donate the apples to be pressed within a few days of picking it is perfectly acceptable to give the branches a shake to take off the apples. No bruised or damaged fruit can be used to make apple juice. Better to pick the apples we use for juice into baskets to help protect them.

    For cider making the fruit may be bruised slightly but must not be rotten. The apples can be put in string sacks which keeps them in good condition and must be used within a few days, otherwise they will spoil.

    The fresher the apples the better the juice. Don’t throw the apples in, otherwise they will lose their quality much quicker.

  • Any type of apple is suitable, they may be dessert, cooking, crab or cider apples. We blend the apples when we mill and press them, so to try and get a balance of sweet and bitter to give a great cider. If possible, please keep different varieties of apples separate (you don’t need to know a name). We are keen to know which varieties are there.

  • There is no minimum or maximum amount you can donate but if you have a lot of apples we just need to know in good time so we can plan to receive them.

  • Washing, milling, pressing, bottling and pasteurising is the process to turn your fruit harvest into delicious juices.