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We founded Wirral Pomona Juice and

Cider Making Network in 2014 to

make the most of the apples and

pears in our gardens, orchards and

parks - each autumn, an abundance

of fruit falls from the trees,

neglected.

The network is a not-for-profit

organisation, with a strong

commitment to our community and to

enjoyable activities: Barn Dances,

Harvests, Pressings & Wassails.

HOW DOES IT WORK? -To start with,

we are at community events where

people can use our machinery to

press their own fruit and take away

their juice (home cider making?) or

leave apples with us to turn into fruit

juice or cider, a proportion of which

we keep.

WE ARE -a pleasant but slightly

eccentric group (with interests as

varied as tree preservation, social

enterprise, growing food, reducing

waste and making wooden clockwork

machinery.)

In the process we’ve acquired a back

-street cider house, hand-made new

designs in traditional hand-powered

devices to scrat and press fruit,

mostly using recycled materials.

We’ve also been picking fruit and

putting stuff in barrels and bottles,

with events to celebrate and cider to

taste …

An Invitation or two...

You can join us making

cider from local apples

You can bring your sur-

plus apples to us and

crush and squeeze the

goodness into liquid gold

You can get your friends,

neighbours and family

together, collect all the

apples you can and have a

go with our presses and

scratters to make juice

together

What does our cider and apple juice taste like?

A year of planning and now we’re getting

ready for this year’s harvest

Inside this issue:

Our Aims 2

Events and activities 2

A member’s story 3

Apple days and other

events

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The scratter 5

The invitation to you 6

Contact details 6

tastes like you thought it should and

you realise that the stuff you’re used

to, well, just didn’t have that taste!

Our ciders have the same effect—

mostly a lot drier than people expect,

but overwhelmingly appley. This

should not be a surprise, either, but

When people taste freshly-pressed

apple juice, it’s a revelation.

It tastes fresh and of apples.

Surprisingly, that’s a surprise.

After years of shop-bought, made

from concentrate juices, fresh juice

commercially-made ciders rarely are

made purely with apples and have

blends of sugar, glucose and fruits.

Our ciders have a range of tastes

depending on the type of apple used.

We want to keep that distinctiveness

& not blend into something uniform.

Wirral Pomona Apple Juice and Cider Collective

Hot off the Press Autumn 2015

The giant cider press, at a barn

dance, producing fresh juice

from Wirral apples for everyone

taking part.

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Wirral Pomona Apple Juice and Cider Collective: Tommy’s Tale

When my friend Dave Ellwand asked me if I would like to become a

founder member of a group of like-minded people with the intention

of constructing a ‘scratter’ and ‘apple press for making cider,’ I

jumped at the invitation although I had never even heard of a

‘scratter’, During the course of last summer, the scratter and press

were designed and constructed and these pieces of equipment were

then put to good use. I enjoyed making the scratter from the first day

I started (Geoff and Dave constructed the press) and it makes me very happy to see it giving

pleasure to a lot of people.

In my opinion it’s important what individual skills different members can bring to the group,

recognising also that many of us have health restrictions: we should feel happy in what we are

doing: the basis of the group is to be able to enjoy what Pomona is about. Support is on hand to

members who think, “Am I getting out of my depth?” and all members are encouraged to find

their best level of involvement within

the Pomona group.

I am looking forward to the harvest

and pressings for 2015

Tom

Tom

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Wirral Pomona Apple Juice and Cider Collective:

dates and events:

Wirral Pomona will be present with the scratters and presses at Wirral Earth Fest in St

Bridget’s Fields, Church Road, West Kirby on 12th September from 11 am to 4:00 pm.

We’ll be with the Wirral Tree Wardens at their demonstration orchard in Brimstage on

Sunday 20th September, 11:00 am to 4:00 pm.

Our harvest barn dance and cider tasting is at

the Wirral Arts Centre (old church, Brookfield

Gardens) Saturday 26th September from 6:30

pm. We’re also available from now to early

December at other apple days, pressings,

pruning & harvesting events, so if you and your

neighbours or local community group can gather

all your spare apples, we can show you how to

press them and turn them into cider or juice for

yourselves. We can lend you the equipment, so

long as you look after it, follow carefully all the

safety advice and clean it all thoroughly and

arrange the transport. We’ll just make a small charge for showing you about juice and

cider making and safe use of the press, etc. We want more communities to join in –we

encourage community participation and so we minimise our costs to cover just

replacement and up-keep of our equipment and storage, etc.

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Wirral Pomona Apple Juice and Cider Collective: our aims

1 To use surplus fruit from local orchards, gardens and green spaces,

reducing waste and making best use of available resources

2 To make good quality apple juice, cider and apple cider vinegar for

personal use and trade; to provide equipment, facilities and training which

will enable members of the public to make their own apple juice products

3 To celebrate the rich cultural heritage associated with cider and

juice making; to exchange traditional skills and promote convivial and

communal activities while making apple juice and cider.

4 To collaborate with other organisations in raising awareness of local

issues around food, trees and waste, preserving and reviving

traditional skills and heritage varieties of fruit trees.

Pomona events including apple-harvest

barn dances, winter pruning apple trees in

Dibbinsdale and a Burns Supper with cider

We’ve had to organise ourselves , as having

and sharing fun can be a serious business.

We started by putting together ideas about

what we did and why we did it, so others

can see if they want to join us. So first our

aims:

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Wirral Pomona Apple Juice and Cider Collective: the scratter

secret life of the scratter

The scratter minces the apples into small pieces about the size of a grape. These are

put onto cloth bags on wooden racks for pressing. Any parts of the scratter which are

in contact with the apples are made of oak. Any metal bits, such as the scratters’

teeth, have to be made of stainless steel. Even the glues which we use are special

food-grade adhesives and the wooden frame is joined with oak pegs—11th century

technology!

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Wirral Pomona Apple Juice and Cider Collective

So this is an invitation to individuals and groups to join in.

Making cider and apple juice is a communal activity, so

our invitation is to you to get your friends and neighbours

to collect the apples growing in your area and make good

use of them. Borrow our presses and scratters to make

juice and cider (but look after them!!) We can show you

how to do it. We also welcome volunteers in supporting

local community orchards, doing the 101 jobs needed in keeping the kit and cider house in good

order, bottle washing and more!

We tend to make a good time of all the hard work: most of our meetings are cider-tastings with

cheese and our pressing events will have live music ( quite a bit of cake, too, I seem to remember)

We do some work in local orchards, often followed with something tasty cooked on a wood-fire and

a chance to try out some traditional crafts, such as whittling

Contact us at wirralpomona@gmail.com

and look out for the Wirral Pomona facebook and blog.

The ages-old* tradition of Wassailing,

bringing health and happiness to the

orchard and the volunteers.

* We started it in January 2013