At the Gaymer Cider Company, we use the finest English cider apples sourced from our own award winning orchards and hand selected partners from around the South West of England. Over many years the orchards have been planted with specially selected varieties of cider apples.
Harvest – selection of the perfect apples
The harvesting process begins during the first weeks of September however it does not reach its peak until October and November.
Our cider mill will receive up to 500 tonnes of ripening apples a day throughout this period. The carefully selected varieties allow us to select the perfect blend of apples to provide balanced juice and flavours unique to The Gaymer Cider Company.
Juice making - the essence of great cider
The freshly harvested, specially selected English apples are delivered to our unparalleled Cider Mill at Shepton Mallet in the heart of Somerset where the fruit is quickly cleaned using a three stage water washing process.
Once clean the fruit is chopped into pulp and pressed. During this process the apple pulp is passed through cloth filters to separate the juice from the solid apple. The subsequent golden coloured, cloudy sweet liquid contains all the flavour and goodness from the apples in its natural state.
Juice Storage – to meet our needs all year round
In order to meet the year round demand for cider this fresh juice is either immediately fermented after pressing or stabilised and stored to ensure a consistent high quality raw material is always available.
Fermentation – when the apples become a cider
At this stage the apple juice is converted into cider, yeast transforms the sugar present into alcohol. This process would naturally occur with raw apple juice, as wild yeast is present on the skins of apples. However the consistency and quality of this type of fermentation is not reliable. We therefore use our own cultured yeast, this is crucial in the final consistency of flavour and results in the definite character of all Gaymer Cider Company ciders.
The fermentation process takes place in temperature controlled vessels to ensure a clean vigorous fermentation to capture the full flavour of the cider apples used.
