The Osprey brewery continues production ......

The day started badly with the rain hammering on the roof as our wake up call.

The bad weather enabled me to do some much needed paper work without feeling frustrated at not being outside. Also T and I decided that it would be a good day to rack off the cider which has been fermenting in demijohns for many weeks. As soon as we started preparations for this, the sky began to clear and we regretted abandoning our planned foraging expedition for wood on the estuary, in favour of cider making.

So we decided to leave the bottles sterilising for a couple of hours while we went to collect wood. No sooner had we started driving towards the estuary than it began to rain again. We filled the car up with lots of beautifully seasoned, but rather damp wood and headed for home, having survived a couple of prolonged downpours. What we have collected fills our third wood store but once chopped there will be plenty of room for more.

We then spent the afternoon syphoning off the cider into bottles and managed to get about 25 litres overall. We put the dregs in another demijohn and hope that it will clear and we might get a bit more in a few weeks time. We took a glassful to Phil and A, where they were busy fitting a new wood floor in A's boat. They quipped that they would only be able to test it properly if we gave them a pint of it. Hmmmm, I think that means they liked it and I must say it does taste pretty good. Here is the product before bottling:

And here are some of the results of our efforts................

All the sloe and damson gin has now been consumed so the cider is our current tipple. T and I have discussed the next project which will be elder flower champagne. There are loads of elder bushes in the vicinity, but we balked at making elderberry wine as we have heard that it doesn't taste very nice. The flowers are a completely different kettle of fish apparently, making a very drinkable fizzy wine, so we will see how we go.

This is our first year of production and we feel it has been quite successful, but we know that there is room for improvement and that next year we will make more and better quality produce- can't wait!

Al :0