Provenance, Bristol and Sodium Metabusulphite
We are Happerley Transparent!
Far from making us invisible, we hope it means that people can see us for what we do. In the jargon, we are a transparent supplier, meaning someone else has checked where we get our fruit from and has verified the information. With BUSHEL+PECK being sold in the Mid-Counties Co-op, as part of their “Best of our Counties” range, we were invited to participate in the scheme and are delighted to do so. Ever since we started making cider we’ve been banging on about using unsprayed fruit from gardens and traditional orchards in Gloucestershire, so it’s useful that Happerley, an organisation dedicated to verifying the provenance of products - you can read about their organisation here - is now able to confirm our story.
Unsprayed apples from gardens in Gloucestershire …
there is plenty of wonderful fruit available waiting to be used. It seems that many, if not most, people with apple trees in their gardens cannot or do not use all the fruit, so we’re delighted to use it (in exchange for cider or apple juice). Using what’s available locally is a sustainable way of utilising resources (#SustainableCider in modern parlance);
it’s all hand-picked and hand sorted - when we’re gathering fruit we sometimes feel we should give every apple a name, but that idea lasts as long as the depth of our imagination and the size of our lexicon … so not long at all;
it’s all local; we don’t go haring around the country looking for gardens, we find plenty of fruit in the gardens of Gloucestershire, some within a few hundred metres of home, others a few miles away, but overall, food miles are low.
Until now it has been a straightforward, private, relationship, between us and all the households from whom we get fruit. Now, however, there is the prospect of visibility and publicity, so before Happerley can publish names and addresses we, of course, first have to check with our “suppliers” that they are happy for their details to be broadcast. This will take a while and some homes may want to remain anonymous, or partially so. For example, Happerley will contact JH of Boddington, Gloucestershire, to verify that we did indeed collect over two tonnes of fruit from his orchard and will then publish abbreviated details on their website.
They’ve started the process, starting with the organisations rather than individuals we collect fruit from - click here to see the BUSHEL+PECK page on the Happerley website.
The location of all the gardens and orchards in Gloucestershire from where we have collected fruit over the past few years. In time, we hope that Happerley will be able to verify all of these, with every supplier’s permission.
The Gloucestershire Orchard Trust own a lovely orchard on the banks of the River Severn, from which we used over 4 tonnes of fruit last autumn;
Longridge Farm, Ashleworth, provide us with cider apples from their old traditional orchards - Brown’s apple, Dabinett, Sweet Alford, Yarlington Mill - as well as some perry pears;
The Gloucestershire County Council have a small reference orchard in Uckington, which contains a sample tree of almost all Gloucesershire’s unique apple varieties.
Manor Woods Community Orchard, Bristol. But Bristol isn’t in Gloucestershire, so why are we collecting fruit from there?
Bristol, the original cider city
Even though Bristol isn’t in Gloucestershire, it used to be - at any rate, the bits of Bristol north of the River Avon were once part of Gloucestershire, until 1373. Also, it is still home to Gloucestershire County Cricket Club, newly promoted to the 1st Division of the County Championship and whose HQ is at what must be the most mundane cricket ground in the country, if not the world, Nevil Road.
Anyhow, last autumn, we ran a scheme with the Riverside Garden Centre in Bristol, whereby people brought surplus apples to Riverside, from where we collected it, to turn it into a Bristol blend of apple juice and a Bristol blend of cider. We’ve been very careful to make sure that there was no cross-contamination of Bristol’s apples with Gloucestershire’s apples and the Bristol’s apple juice and cider will be clearly labelled so that there is no confusion.
Sodium Metabisulphite
In an earlier blog we commented on how cider-makers are an opinionated lot and on the subject of Sodium Metabisulphite (SMS) cider-makers have STRONG opinions. SMS is sometimes used in cider as an antioxidant and as a preservative to eliminate unwanted yeasts, moulds and bacteria. Many cider-makers use it, others don’t, and it is the subject of much debate; should real, proper, cider contain such a thing?
We’re ambivalent on the subject. Much of the cider we make is completely natural - nothing added, nothing taken away, with the cider fermented by natural, wild, yeasts only and no SMS. But with some of our cider we do use cultured yeasts and we do add small doses of SMS, in the search for some consistency and assurance. We love the idea of our completely natural cider but also like the regularity and precision that some intervention produces.
The maximum permitted dosage of SMS in the UK is 200 parts per million, meaning that SMS can constitute up to a maximum of 0.02% of the cider. If we do apply SMS the dosage rates are usually half the permitted maximum, so just 0.01% of the cider. At that level the SMS is not discernable itself. The question is whether cider made completely naturally tastes better than cider made with SMS. Given that cider-makers themselves have yet to arrive at a conclusion suggests that there isn’t one answer to the question.
Two further thoughts on this topic. Firstly, Sulphur Dioxide has been used to make cider for centuries.
“Lay brimstone on a rag, and by a wire let it down into the cider vessel, and there fire it; and when the vessel is full of the smoak, the liquor speedily pour’d in, ferments the better.”
Secondly, the best cider we’ve ever tasted, made by Tom Oliver, was made using SMS. He’s widely regarded as one of the finest cider-makers in the world and if he uses it from time to time, from batch to batch, then it’s OK for us to do the same.
So, what’s the connection between provenance, Bristol and Sodium Metabisulphite? Transparency.
Thanks for reading. And apologies for insisting that “sulphur” is spelled “sulphur”, not “sulfur”.