It's been a long and lonely summer, but we are SO stoked that the 2021 Stanthorpe Apple Season is here!
Our amazing farming partners, Daniel, Toni and Sean from Nicoletti Orchards have just launched their 2021 harvest season with their Royal Galas.
Since it is so early in the season (combined with favourable growing conditions and expert farming!) the fruit quality has been really high. While this is great for the Nicoletti's, it's not super awesome for us as we rely on the blemished 'juicing grade' fruit.
We don't mind a few little sun spots or extra large/extra small fruit, as they are still 100% Queensland grown, nutrient rich and full of sweet juice for cider making.
Our first crush for 2021 was on Monday 22nd February and it was so good to be back at it. Rather than our usual large crush day, we could only process 6 bins of fruit as it's so early in the season and there wasn't enough juicing bins available. (We actually only grabbed three bins from the Nicoletti's and grabbed 3 bins from our Stanthorpe strawberry growers!).
The quality and quantity of the juice was amazing, and the fermentation has been moving along swimmingly, and smells incredible.
For now, our cider has a few more days of fermentation before a rest in the cold room for a few weeks, then filtering, carbonating and bottling!