All posts filed under: Blog

February 2015: A hundred and one thanks

Thank you to everyone who has fanned us. We could not have gotten this far without you all. I appreciate the comments and the encouragement.

I hope in the near future to have you all come and visit us when we finally open up our doors and share a cider with us in our tap room.

We are greatful to each and everyone of you and thanks also for sending word out to your friends about us – keep doing it an the ripples will spread. I hope we can count on you all as we enter the funding phase. Thanks from the bottom of our hearts.

January 2015: Blasting Away the Old

Renovations continue at Mügelner Straße.

Yesterday, Pavol was sandblasting away the old paint from the wooden ceiling and beams in the main hall. There was literally 10 cm of volcanic sand on the floor. When I left him in peace there was only one section left to finish. Once all this old paint is off the ceiling and beams, the old wood shines through and it is really beautiful. Once lacquered it will make a stunning ceiling to the main production facility. It is so nice to see things progressing. My heartfelt thanks go out to Christian Fleischer for overseeing this and to Pavol for all his hard work. It is true that friends are there to help friends in need. Thanks guys!

November 2014: The Founding and Future of Sachsen Cider GmbH

Picture two guys, a beat up transporter, pic-nic baskets of food, lots of coffee, a borrowed Navi, and the gumption to drive across the breath of Germany within 24 hours and you have yourselves a road trip.

The goal to pick and return with a new to us (used Voran P2 Pack press and mill) to finish off the apples and cider for the 2014 Harvest – all this to avoid hand-grinding several thousand of kilos of apples.

We set off on the eve of Day Light Savings and despite, a Navi that kept taking us on all the back roads and phone calls like “Hi Katharina we’re lost”, headlights that kept going out every time we turned on the blinkers, a couple of hours of sleep at a truck stop, we arrived one hour early for our rendezvous and returned successfully with a lovely press just in time for the Guys on Monday morning to start work. At it is a beautiful press and it does everything the Guys at Voran advertise and more.

Thanks goes out to Eoin for his company, his stories and his time and you can find out more about Eoin and his wit and writings when you visit Eoin’s Corner and I think there was even an Eoin’s Cider but that is another story.

October 2014: New Press Road Trip

Picture two guys, a beat up transporter, pic-nic baskets of food, lots of coffee, a borrowed Navi, and the gumption to drive across the breath of Germany within 24 hours and you have yourselves a road trip.

The goal to pick and return with a new to us (used Voran P2 Pack press and mill) to finish off the apples and cider for the 2014 Harvest – all this to avoid hand-grinding several thousand of kilos of apples.

We set off on the eve of Day Light Savings and despite, a Navi that kept taking us on all the back roads and phone calls like “Hi Katharina we’re lost”, headlights that kept going out every time we turned on the blinkers, a couple of hours of sleep at a truck stop, we arrived one hour early for our rendezvous and returned successfully with a lovely press just in time for the Guys on Monday morning to start work. At it is a beautiful press and it does everything the Guys at Voran advertise and more.

Thanks goes out to Eoin for his company, his stories and his time and you can find out more about Eoin and his wit and writings when you visit Eoin’s Corner and I think there was even an Eoin’s Cider but that is another story.

August 2013: The Gärtnerei

Out of the basement and into my Father-in-Laws Gärtnerei.

Now this was a huge step in the right direction. A place I could call my own in some ways. It was my secret lab, my wine cellar, my playground and it was beautiful on the cold clear nights pressing outside with the stars above as it was all still hand-pressed, still hand milled, but I had more space for more shelves, more carboys, and a lab for analysis and testing of the cider and must.

This gave me greater freedom to experiment to run more batches and try new things like malolactic fermentations, and experiment with specific apple varieties and the ability to make larger batches.

But like anything else now I needed more supplies, more apples, more time so I stole those hours late at night and early in the morning sometimes working straight through to the mornings – but the results were worth the effort – other varieties, new creations and even better ciders with more controlled results. I craved even more learning.

August 2012: In the Beginning

In the beginning … there was The Tree and The Tree made the Apples and the Apples made The Cider and the Cider-Maker tasted The Cider and The Cider was Good …

Ok., ok., ok. not so long ago and the short and sweet version – I promise. So picture a hobby brewer, wine maker, hobby Ciderist with home made equipment with lots of free wild apples. Now picture them cutting them up, mashing them up pressing them, in the garage, the cellar, the kitchen into the wee hours of the morning. Then fermenting them and refermenting them and waiting and waiting and using a few other tricks of the trade like racking off & bottle conditioning and then more waiting and waiting and waiting, and then finally tasting … and discovering that he made some very good cider – cider good enough to want to do it again and again. Then success followed success, then sharing these successes with his friends. Then the friends saying: ”Hey this is pretty good stuff”, “Do you have anymore of this stuff”, “Hey, this stuff is pretty potent but smooth” and “Hey you got anything else?

But all this with minimal equipment.

Then the quest was on to find more apples and different varieties and to learn more about Cider making and to seek out slightly larger equipment and more carboys and then do it again and again and again with experiments and other variations – all the while keeping notes.

This is how the addiction began and how I became absorbed by my hobby and quest to make even better ciders.