CARRYING on a family tradition, cider pressing has been taking place at Cowslip Workshops, near Launceston.

Steve Colwill’s grandfather came to Newhouse Farm in 1908, and they have hardly missed a year making cider on the old press ever since. The press, the one still used today, was there before Steve’s grandfather.

Steve said: “We have worked hard to carry on the old tradition. I still do it the same way as my grandfather did and my father did. In the old days nearly every farmer had a cider press as he would get good workers then for harvest time!

“In Somerset they use hessian to build the cheese — what we call apple pulp. We have got to make do with straw. We usually fill two and a half barrels from a cheese. The main difference between us making cider and the factory boys, they would do a ton of apples in four minutes. It takes us four days to do three quarters of a ton.

“This year the apples haven’t been so plentiful, we had a late frost. The apple varieties are quite important, we don’t like too sweet an apple, we like bitter sweet and bitter sharps. If it’s a nice sunny summer that increases the sugar content in the apples and makes it a more alcoholic drink.”

The wooden barrels are chosen carefully to leave a certain amount of flavour. The cask and vat dry out each year when they are empty and have to be soaked before each cider making time. Staunching takes about a week. The juice goes into the barrels and starts fermenting quite quickly.

Steve added: “We have got to be very careful not to bung down the barrels too quickly. Forty-five gallons of juice exploding is quite a waste! When we put the bungs on, to make sure no air gets in we put a lime mortar cover over the bung — it doesn’t taint the cider.

“Before electricity, my father wouldn’t let anybody come into the cider house with an oil lamp — even fumes from the oil lamp would taint the cider!”

Steve goes by the old saying, if you make the cider in October/November, it can be drunk when the first cuckoo calls. Steve added that they are very ‘lucky’ in the Launceston area, as there is a cuckoo that calls in January.

They don’t sell the cider, but people were able to go along to an open day to see it being pressed. This was as part of Cowslip Workshop’s recent apple harvest weekend, which also included a quilt exhibition and supper.