Pear cider - maybe not....

            You know that when you’ve done something and it’s worked in the past but then the voices in your head tell you that there is a better way to do it? You know it’s wrong to listen to those fraudulent voices and that they’re just trying to lead you astray but still you listen. I mean to say they really know how to talk to you, a little whispering first putting doubt in your mind, just a small amount, then more smooth and silky words you cannot resist “go on John you know you want to, after all what harm could trying it this way possibly cause?”. And then the shit hits the bleedin’ fan once more….

            Readers that have stuck with my demented ramblings for some time may well recollect the fun that my friend Chunky Monkey and I had in our first attempt at making cider last year. The method was simplicity in it’s self; collect apples, mash apples with log, press juice from apples, add yeast, add lemon juice, add cold tea (no milk and sugar thank you), roughly filter juice into demy jons, wait for several months and drink cider. This seemingly unpretentious method has worked for folk since Ug first found his fermenting pool of apple juice. But stupid John here decided that he could go one better, oh yes there’s always a smart arse who thinks that they are just that incy wincey little bit smarter and ahead of the game isn’t there? But to be honest I was not entirely to blame for my misdemeanour, I neighbour of mine (who’s name shall remain hidden to protect the guilty) mentioned that using a juicer to extract fruit juice for the purpose of ‘brewing’ would be a far easier method than the pounding of apples with a piece of 4X2. See those voices jumped on this and convinced me that neighbour must be write ‘cause everyone knows more about brewing than I do, ah foolish mortal if only I’d had more confidence in my own abilities. So a day later here’s your friendly idiots new piece of cider making equipment – ta da a juicer.

            Now I’ve just been given some pears and a few apples so me thinks ‘ahaa let’s be taking the grunt from pounding the fruit’, so with much aplomb and gusto I set forth with the juicer attacking the fruit manically. I even roped in Clare to help wash and cut the fruit as the juicer devoured it so fast. “It’s a bit er frothy” says Clare, Mmmm “be fine” says me, with the first inkling of impending doom scratching the deepest depths of my mind. Carrying on regardless, well you cannot say that I’m not a stubborn bugger that’s for sure. Soon the Demy Jon is full to the required level with er… well to be honest something that looks like a bloody Quatermass experiment – bollocks, no I’ll take that back, what I meant to say was “double bollocks”! But, never one to give up, I carefully placed the Demy Jon into the garage (there was no way in hell that Clare was letting this stay in the kitchen) but then I swear to god that as I placed it on the work bench the damn thing chuckled at me, bloody hell! it was alive and had it’s own thoughts of world domination. Ok so perhaps a little exaggeration there but it did have a hell of a lot of movement in it, swirling and all sorts going on!

            The early morning light did show a little improvement but I'm not holding me breath for this one. On a brighter note though I did find a bottle of Sloe gin somehow forgotten from last year and it is to die for, absolutely bloody gorgeous my friends. Not only that there is still a gallon of Elder flower wine to bottle, a gallon of plum wine just started in the Deny Jon, two gallons of apple wine ready to consume (well they will be in a weeks time) and saving the best to the very last I’ve just started a third of a gallon of Damson gin. Now some readers may be under the impression that I may have a drink problem but please let me assure you one and all; I drink, I get drunk and then I fall down – honestly it’s no problem at all!

            Seriously though, contrary to all evidence I do enjoy a drink or sometimes two but that’s the key, I enjoy a drink. I don’t drink for the sake of getting drunk, In fact that is a rare occasion indeed. No I take pleasure in what I drink but I do not allow it to affect my life or interfere with me ‘getting out there’, ok sermon bit over.

            Oh and just one last thing afore I leave you in peace, you remember them chicks that have hatched here lately? Well I’m not one to complain Mr. Gray but what the bloody hell have you landed me with? Just look at the buggers would ya, I mean to say look at the first picture, is that truly a chicken? As for the rest of them, well I know now what happened to the dinosaurs, they’re not extinct no, they are in my back yard – raptors in miniature.

            So that’s about it my friends, another instalment in the trails and tribulations of this rotund Welsh Hobbit, till next time take care.

John

Just checked me e-mails as finishing this off and from me matey Damn, and I quote "On a cider note, don't mess with the old method. Munch up apples, squeeze to get juice, add yeast, wait, drink." don't  you just hate that when it happens?