The apples are floated out of the bins and travel along a conveyor, where they are sprayed with water and brushed.
We only use apples that have excellent taste. While surface blemishes and irregular shaped apples are acceptable for our juice, fruit with rots (including codling moth stings) are rejected and sent to compost.
Callen watches for reject apples.
The apples are shredded and the pulp falls onto a woven cloth. The cloth is folded over the pulp to form a pacel or "cheese". This process is repeated seven times.
Michelle smooths out the pulp in order to make a flat "cheese".
The seven cheeses are then pressed with a traditional style "rack and cloth" press.
Alice presses the cheeses and the juice flows out through the cloths.
The juice is then pastuerized and bottled in glass.
Max bottling the 2 litre flagons
What is the difference between cloudy and clear juice?
When the juice comes out of the press it is cloudy. So all we need to do is add a little Vitamin C to reduce oxidation (browning). We then pasteurized and bottle into glass within a few hours of pressing. This results in a product that largely retains the flavour of fresh apples.
To make a clear juice, we allow it to settle overnight and then decant, filter, pasteurize and bottle the next morning. The settling and filtering process removes some of the apple flavour.
Why is our cloudy juice only available seasonally?
Our cloudy apple juice is available only from March to September. Unlike most apple juice producers, we only make juice during the apple picking season. There is a good reason for this. We believe it is impossible to make good quality juice from poor quality apples that have been stored for many months.
So we finish making juice in June or July. By bottling into glass we can sell the clear juice for up to 12 months. However the cloudy apple juice tends to darken and settle out after a few months.
We believe it is only possible to maintain such a premium quality cloudy juice as a seasonal product.
