Thanks guy, really enjoyed learning of your experiences and cider making. I was particularly taken by @Mojomal's mention of a garden shredder in relation to it. I've been thinking of getting something along those lines for shredding all our composting in the garden, as until now I've been chopping and tearing it all by hand which gets increasingly tedious and time consuming. Thanks for mentioning it.
My own experience of cider drinking culminated at the age of sixteen when away at Scout camp for the weekend and got absolutely plastered on it. Think I was sixteen, it affected me so badly that I couldn't bare the thought of having a sip for the next twenty or so years. It wasn't until we went for a weeks holiday in the Seven valley taking in all the sites and canoing on the river before the temptation of being in cider country finally overcame the fear of that past experience and learned I could enjoy a glass or two once more.
I've been making homemade wine for half a century now for which I have to thank Joe Gormley when causing the three day week, back in '74 I believe, so with spare time on hand I took to making a gallon of barley wine, it was winter so not much fruit around. Being retired now I can indulge myself in it's delights and have a couple of gallons of Blackberry on the go with three gallons of Elderflower safely fernented and under lock ready for fining.
Guess I've survived to tell the tale so the methods and recipes followed couldn't have been too far out. I still get a thrill when fermentation begins seeing all the bubbles rising up through the liquor escaping into the atmoshere as CO2.
Ooops, have I been adding the growing abundance of it on the planet.
But hey, at least making it at home saves some of the air or sea miles generated from the purchase otherwise of wines from far off continents.
