As well as my Oxxxford Beer beer gently bubbling away, I’ve also started a batch of rough cider. Yesterday I sorted through a big tub trug of lightly washed apples, chopping out and discarding the mankiest bits but not being too fussy and then left them in a sanitised plastic barrel topped up to just below the brim with water. Over the next week or so, those will begin to mush down and the enzymes will extract apple flavours and sugars into the liquid while natural yeasts will begin to work.

Round about next weekend, I’ll siphon off the liquid and mix in some sugar at a ratio of about 100g per litre. This will give the yeast more to work on and I’ll leave it to quietly bubble away somewhere warm until the gravity reading starts to settle down at which point it can be left somewhere cool and dark to condition until early in the New Year.