My prize-winning star-letter was published in Countryfile magazine, February 2013 issue. Text as follows:

Cider making made simple

For centuries, apple juice has been obtained by a pulp and press method. Apples pass through a shredder and the resulting pomace is put through a press. Homemade or mass manufactured, the required kit is large, heavy and expensive.

In the autumn of 2011, the Scillonian Road cider co-operative, suffering from an abundance of apples but a lack of funds, developed a method using inexpensive (£15-£25) second -hand domestic juicers, which we call “juice and strain”. The method is low cost, clean, efficient and suited to use in a domestic kitchen. On up to 100kg (220lb) of apples scale, the juice yield is comparable to that of a small press, and the apples are processed in a shorter time. We call our cider Onslow’s Dry in recognition of Lord Onslow’s 1920s restrictive covenant, which prohibits the sale of alcohol in Onslow village, while essentially all the juice sugars convert to alcohol making the finished cider very dry. See how the method works at the Onslowsdry channel:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qvc0cCh5r0c
Dr Nevin Stewart, Guildford, Surrey

I now know from repeated trials that the juice yield is higher than that of a small press.

One month later our full article, written with Jon Rawlinson of Times House Publishing, Auckland, appeared on the Garden-NZ website with over 50,000 subscribers across the country and wider afield. See: http://www.garden-nz.co.nz/latest-news/ … imple.html

More recently, in March, I was interviewed with a neighbour and friend Nick by Joe Talbot, BBC Radio Surrey and Sussex. The interview was “captured” as a YouTube video.