West Wight People and Place: Cider Makers Katherine and Helen
What gives an area its sense of place? The answer to this question might lie in the landscape or in the distinctive buildings of the place. Community interaction may also be important, as well as a sense of wellbeing and culture or the knowledge that people may hold for their immediate surroundings.
The strength and diversity of the local economy may also feature as well as any attachment that people hold for the area, be they visitors, recent newcomers or born and bred residents who can trace their family ties back generations.
In an attempt to answer this question, Pete Johnstone set himself a challenge and that was to find the sense of place of West Wight through photographing people living and working in the area and asking them about their connection to this largely rural area. This is Pete’s second West Wight People and Place challenge with this time having an emphasis on the Island’s Biosphere Reserve status acquired in 2019.
More than just Apples!
The first ever community Apple Day at Calbourne Water Mill saw a real interest in the ‘pop up’ apple juicing set up with local people bringing in their unwanted apples for juicing.
Apples brought in for juicing
Katherine and Helen who run Grazed Knee, the Ventnor based Apple juice and Cidery weren’t that sure how many people would bring in their apples, but they needn’t have worried as when I turned up there was a queue of people patiently waiting with their bags of apples.
Katherine and Helen picking apples from Calbourne Mill’s orchard
Helen said, “it was a fun day, the public loved the display of different apple varieties we put out, and we were thrilled when some donors brought in examples of varieties we didn’t have, such as English Delicious, Peasgood Nonsuch and an unknown variety that was so pale it was almost white! We think it might be a variety called ‘Ghost.’ The day’s enjoyment was helped by the Water Mill team creating a quiz about apples and having goodies galore to eat and we were especially pleased that the café had our cider for sale!”
The apple varieties on show
On the apple side of things Katherine added, “In all 36 loads of apples were donated by the community, some of which were picked from the Mill’s own apple orchard. From that we pressed about 150 litres on the day of which about 100 litres was given back to the donors.”
Weighing the apples before being juiced
Washed apples being tipped into the grinder
Pressing the juice
Pouring juice fresh from press into vat
Fresh apple juice
In the orchard I noticed that only the unbruised apples were collected for juicing the remainder being left on the trees or on the ground for food for the birds and other wildlife.
“We were delighted with the donated apples and the juice was delicious, Katherine added, it was quite high in acid, typical of culinary apples such as Bramley’s, so we have blended it with other less acidic apples and are sure it’ll make a good cider. With quite a high sugar content we expect it to be high in alcohol when its fermented. Back home we made around 120 litres of ‘must’ from the juice not given back to the donors and from the apples we picked from the orchard. The cider will be ready in 2024.”
I for one thoroughly enjoyed my day at the Mill and judging by the happy faces of people taking home their juice, I think others did too.
Turning West Wight apples into juice and cider may not be a perfect example of a circular economy but I reckon it’s a pretty good one. The Apple Day at Calbourne Mill is only a one-day event, but I believe it captures the spirit of Biosphere Reserves as it looks to find a solution in turning unwanted apples into a useable product for sale and for community use.
The Grazed Knee kiosk
Bottled apple juice
Even the left-over apple pomace was not wasted as it went to nearby Sunningdale Farm to feed their rare breed pigs.
For further details of the apple juice and cider from Grazed Knee: https://grazedkneecider.co.uk/
Further details on Calbourne Water Mill: https://www.calbournewatermill.co.uk/
