The Orchards
At Failand Farm, we make cider from organically grown fruit, from our farm and surrounding traditional orchards.
Discover our two orchards and cider-making ethos below.
Four Acres
Planting system: traditional
Size: 1.8 hectares (87 trees on M25 rootstock)
Perry pears: Winnal’s Longdon, Turners Barn, Thorn, Judge Amphlett
Cider apples: Backwell Red, Frederick, Porter’s Perfection, Court de Wyck, Harry Master’s Jersey, Dabinett
Aspect: south-facing slope
Status: Four Acres is currently converting to organic status with the Soil Association.
Cock Road
Planting system: Bush
Size: 2.5 hectares (655 trees on MM111 rootstock)
Cider apples: Ashton Bittersweet, Ball’s Bittersweet, Burrow Hill Early, Dabinett, Broxwood Foxwhelp, Bulmers Foxwhelp, Harry Master’s Jersey, Pennard Bitter, Porters Perfections, Stoke Red, Somerset Redstreak, White Jersey, White Norman, Court de Wyck, Yarlington Mill and Ashmeads Kernal
Aspect: North-facing slope
Status: In conversion to organic with the Soil Association.
Cider-making approach
Picking
We hand-pick our apples, the old-fashioned way. This involves crawling around under apple trees from September until late November. Only the clean, disease-free fruit gets picked up.
Sweating
We store the harvested apples for a month, sometimes more. This gives them a chance to further ripen and increases the yield.
Mashing
We mill the fruit and then leave it for 24-48 horse before pressing. This increases yields and also deepens and enriches the aromas and flavours of the finished ciders.
Cool-racking
Throughout winter we rack our ciders from tank to tank. This process starves the yeast of nutrients so that the resultant cider retains a bit of sweetness (yet won’t explode in the bottle).
Indigenous yeasts
We rely on yeasts that are already present on the fruit, or those which find their way from the farm into the tank naturally. We don’t add dried yeasts imported from a laboratory far away.