Jersey's rich heritage of growing apples and making cider is celebrated each October with a weekend festival at Hamptonne country life museum dedicated entirely to cider.
In the 17th century, cider was made by farmers to give to their staff, making up part of their wages and because it was safer to drink than water which was not purified. Each year, Jersey Heritage celebrates this tradition by organising La Fais’sie d’Cidre.
The highlight of the weekend is always the chance to watch cider being made in the traditional way – with a horse crushing the apples, then the juice extracted on the twin-screw press – and then of course to taste it-not for us though!!! :)
The cider apples are crushed by a horse powered stone wheel to enable the juice to be more easily extracted. The crushed apples are then transferred to a hessian lined box and once this is full the hessian is wrapped to secure the apples and the box surround is moved up to begin another layer. The juice flowed out at a steady rate until the last layer was completed. This is what is known as "the cheese". A wooden frame is secured at the top of the cheese and each side of the cheese is screwed down in turn by two or three people at each side at the same rate. The juice flowed out like a river and it was all hands on deck to transfer the pressed juice into the barrels to ferment into cider. Here are a few photographs of our day out (taken with Mike's phone)!
