1st Community Apple Cider Pressing….Success!

How about them apples?!  What a wonderful day it was today with the Balingup community that came out to press apples and make it all happen, and let us not forget the Manjimup crew that made their way up to share in the apple gala!  We successfully pressed 225 kilos of apples in a short 6 hours start to finish.  We had a hiccup midway through the apples and still have 225 kilos left to press, as the mulcher lost a couple teeth on the cog wheel along the way.  Sorry Jeff Pow, and thank you Jeff Pow, for lending it to us.  All said and done we have 1 -200 litre barrel of pomace (aka apple pulp) covered with water for cosmetic and cleaning vinegar, and 1 – 200 litre barrel half filled with all juice and a bit of pomace for our premium cooking vinegar to which we will add a couple litres of concentrated apple juice and age in oak for some spectacular kitchen seasoning.  Waste not!

A big thank you to all who came out to play: Marissa Stern and beautiful Talia, Jesse Humphries and her folks, Judy Allan and her son Christian, Bronia Slava, Geoff Rob from Spring Valley Orchards and his Wwoofer Richard, Dean Wilson and Katie and their beautiful babies, Lucinda Giblett and Simon Dooley of the Stellar Violets in Manji, and my dear Sam McCluskey and boys!

We enjoyed some wonderful local eats:

Sourdough Flatbread (Eden Valley Flour)

Rustic Sourdough Boule (Eden Valley Flour, sneak peak of Slow Rise CSB bread)

Libyan Pumpkin Dip with Local Pumpkin, Garlic, and Olive Oil

Wild Curly Dock Pest0 from the Backyard

Homemade Labneh Balls rolled in Smoked Paprika & Parsley

Homemade Dukkah (thank you Jesse)

Granny Smith Apple Cider

and a phenomenal Pink Lady Cider from Manjimup

Yum!

For those who were around for the late afternoon pick me up, we had spectacular Apple Fritters, and I mean SPECTACULAR!  They were made with apple slices dipped in a batter of 1 heaping cup Eden Valley Flour, 1 cup Apple Cider (lacto-fermented with beneficial bacteria), two egg whites, and a splash of lemon zest for good luck.  The batter is left at room temperature for a day to culture the mixture and break down the gluten and starch in the flour.  It was soooo delicious, definitely a keeper (sorry no picture…yet)!  Fried in real lard with some icing sugar on top.  Sometimes you just have to…you know.  Enough said.

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Community Supported Bakery Launch!

Slow Rise, Balingup’s Community Supported Bakery, will “open it’s doors” on the 30th of July!  We will be baking 24 loaves for the first go round, 12 are accounted for and 12 still available.  The trial is on now!  So if you would like to sign up for a trial share, now is the time!  Three share sizes are available; a full share, a half share, and a mini.  Bread is baked on Monday and picked up in the late afternoon at the Bronze Cafe in your own bread basket.  I will see about finding a second pick up point for Tuesday morning if there are those of you who will be unable to pick up on Monday afternoon around 3pm to 4pm.  See the share sizes below and think about how much you go through weekly to figure our what you need.  You can sign up for a full and a half or a full and a mini if the full does not quite meet your families needs.

 

Full Share  $15 a week/$45 for 3 week share

1 Rustic Sourdough Loaf

1 Soft Slicing Loaf

1 Specialty Bread

Half Share  $10 a week/$30 for 3 week share

2 Loaves, Presently Our Choice

Mini Share  $5 a week/$15 for 3 week share

1 Loaf of Our Choice

 

Currently the breads are our choice, but this will change later on when we get a feedback cycle established.  Breads change week to week, always one rustic, one soft, and one specialty.  Each loaf is $5, and this is for handmade biodynamic sourdough bread infused with love!  We hope to keep our costs low, so it is affordable and attractive to everyone, while also covering costs and creating income to expand the project.

On the 30th we will be baking a Rustic White Sourdough Loaf, a Soft Wholemeal Sandwich Loaf, and most likely a German Rye Loaf for the specialty.  We are very keen to receive suggestions on breads you would like to see baked, one you haven’t had in a long time or one you really love.  In addition, please let us know if you would be interested in an additional Sweets Share and a Breakfast Breads Share.  A sweets share might include a dessert made with local fruit (like a baked custard, pie, or crisp), a cake or loaf cake, and some biscuits.  A breakfast bread share would include things like english muffins, scones, rolls, croissant and danish, perhaps muesli or even bagels.  It is for the community, run by the community, so please don’t be afraid to have your say!

Slow Rise is dedicated to better health and happiness for all members of our community and as such all of our bread is cultured or naturally leavened for improved digestibility, flavour, and nutrition.  We live in a time where our food is so sterile and void of nutrients that our bodies are as well, and this has not been to our benefit.  In fact it is making us sick, with multiple allergies, sensitivities, auto immune disorders, diabetes, and obesity becoming the normal state of our children.  If you don’t know much about sourdough, there is much to learn.

Sourdough:

• pre-digests starches, making the bread more easily digestible
• lowers insulin response/improves glucose tolerance due to the breakdown of starches and carbohydrates by the beneficial lactic acid bacteria
• protects Vitamin B1 from the damage of the heat of baking
• breaks down gluten, which may result in a bread that gluten-sensitive people can eat
• activates the enzyme phytase to breakdown phytates, which inhibit absorption of  various minerals, thus freeing up:
  • zinc
  • iron
  • magnesium
  • copper
  • phosphorus
• naturally preserves the bread for a week or longer due to the production of acetic acid during the fermenting process
• improves the flavour of bread like a good wine, curry, or saurkraut, it improves with age during the process of the slow rise

None of this can be said for commercial yeast breads.

We use the best ingredients we can find.  Our flour is coming from Eden Valley Farms in Dumbleyung, our salt from Lake Victoria, our water from the rain on our roofs, and our leaven straight out of the air in Balingup.  We will always be dedicated to buying local and buying fair, and are definitely out to prove that the baker doesn’t have to be just another modern day drug dealer, but in fact can bring it on home as a fireside healer of the hearth…of sorts.  After all, there is nothing like home baked handmade bread to soothe the soul and yes, even our bodies!

Other small community supported cooperatives are in the works.  We are well aware of the down time we will have while the bread takes it’s time to slow rise.  We plan to fill in these gaps with other cultured foods and traditional ferments.  For those of you who love fresh raw bath milk with all of those beautiful enzymes, vitamins, and fats that plump up the complexion, we will be picking some up weekly straight from the grass fed cows.  We will be making cultured bath milk products including yogurt, cream cheese, and various cheeses for slathering in.  We have sourced cream from Harvey Fresh to be used in making our soft bread and to add richness to our yogurt, but we will mainly be making our own sweet cream and cultured butter, buttermilk, and creme fraiche in addition to enjoying the cream.  Lastly, we will likely be mixing up some vats of sauerkraut, pickled beets, pickled carrot, and lacto-fermented soda for our gastronomic enjoyment soon.  So if you are interested in any of these cultured ventures please let us know by emailing slowrisebalingup@gmail.com and we’ll let you know what the prices and times will be.  Next on the list is eggs!  And, don’t forget, sign up now for your 3 week trial share before they are all gone!  Just email with your share choice and we’ll sort out details.

Stay Warm & Eat Well,

Joanna McCluskey

Apple Pressing on Sunday the 22nd of July!

The gathering this last Sunday went well with five ladies harvesting 1 crate full (about 350kg) in a couple of leisurely hours with time for afternoon tea!  Thank you for all who came out to play.  We have rearranged the scheduling a bit after receiving some feedback.  As this weekend is the Telling Tales event we have moved the big pressing to Sunday the 22nd of July from 10 am onwards (stop by when you like and children are very welcome).  There will be local food, fun apple videos, and a warm fire inside.  So come out and learn something about apple pressing, cider, and vinegar!

This Sunday, the 15th, from 2pm til dusk we are going to do a small run through pressing with our washer press (fingers crossed), one more apple harvest gathering, and perhaps some apple washing.  Bring bags, boxes, or baskets and perhaps a bottle for some fresh juice.  And don’t forget the gumboots!  Meet at my house, 42 Blackwood River Drive, right across the street from the lone weatherboard house before the curve to the Old Cheese Factory.

Feel free to pass this on.

Hope to see you there!

Granny Smith and Her Good Ol’ Apples

Did you know, Granny Smith Apples are an Australian original?  See the Story of The Granny Smith Apple here or listen to the BBC Radio Granny Smith’s Apple and Whose Granny Smith.  You will need real player to listen as they are ram files.  And how about our story here in Balingup?  There are 7 rows of lonely Granny Smith Apples, starting to rot where they lay, having never found a home.  Some have sustained the worms, some the birds, and yet still there are hundreds more waiting to be gathered, bitten, and crushed.  So let us be thy humble servant to the fading star of this orchard and make it worth their while.  Cider and vinegar and butter too, peelings for tea and pulp for chooks, pretty ones for eating and wormy ones for pigs…there is plenty to go round!

The first project of our Bumper Bounty hunters is shaping up.  I spoke with Colette of Birdwood Park Winery up at the packing shed today and she has got 200 litre barrels galore for us at $5 a piece!  She also has a cider press that we should be able to borrow!  I have to double check on the press, either way we are going to go ahead and retrofit the free top loading washing machine we are picking up tomorrow, Tuesday morning, into a cider press that can chew through apples at 100 litres of juice an hour.  It should be great fun to compare them side by side.  We are asking the Men’s Shed for assistance in the construction process, but if anyone else has some tools (a drill, a saw, and a jigsaw), some untreated wooden boards, some hinges, or galvanised nails lying around please let us know. DO watch the video below to see this baby in action and listen to a short story from NPR (National Public Radio) featuring the original creators here.

Harvest gatherings to pick the apples are on the schedule, but individuals can also stop by the orchard to pick a bag if they feel like it and drop it at my house ( Joanna & Sam McCluskey, 42 Blackwood River Drive).  We are right before the Old Cheese Factory and have a caravan in the drive.  To go to the orchard, go halfway down Blackwood River Drive and turn in to Carey St.  There is a sign on the road.  You will see the orchard.  Once you go through the gate, the trees are down a bit on the right.  Wormy ones with bad spots can be taken for animal feed if you have some.  We have Lena’s permission to enter the orchard and clear out the apples.  Just drop them on the patio if I am not home.  Our first harvest gathering will be this Sunday, the 8th of July, from Noon to 3 pm at The Orchard.  Cider pressing will be on the weekend of the 14th & 15th, possibly both days.  So get ready to crush some apples!

P.S.  SAVE Your Jars & Bottles with Lids!!!  LEMONS are up next in collaboration with the Origins Center!  Do you have a bumper bounty going to waste?  Let us know!  Everyone gets a share of the harvest and the trees or plants get some TLC, our return on investment.  Lastly, if you know of any master pruners or fruit tree experts, please tell us!

 

Transition Meeting Update: Apples for Thought and Bread to Chew!

We had a great meeting today with 7 people in attendance.  Joanna McCluskey brought a delightful Moroccan Green Apple & Lemon Cake made entirely of thinly sliced Granny Smith apples from Lena’s orchard, lemons from Marissa’s tree, local honey from Diana Delladova in Bridgetown, and butter made from Harvey Fresh Cream.  It was accompanied by a cultured cream.  So entirely simple and incredibly delectable.  It was the centrepiece for discussing delicious and nutritious local abundance going to waste under our noses.  A short presentation on the very successful Growing Abundance project in Castlemaine gave an example of what is possible for Balingup’s Bumper Bounty Hunters, a new harvest group forming to bring riches forth from forgotten bounty.

Our first project involves 7 rows of windfall Granny Smith’s from Lena’s orchard.  Rather than rot, the apples will offer themselves up for barrels of traditionally fermented cider vinegar and apple cider (non-alcoholic and perhaps some hard cider, you know, for the hard-working volunteers).  All of these preserve well in barrels and are a very efficient way to quickly process and preserve the apples, lest they go to waste!  We are making a cider press from a recycled (or shall I say, up-cycled) washing machine turned centrifuge juicer.  This will allow us to produce around 80 to 100 litres of juice per hour!  We are still hunting olive barrels with lids or the like to house our juice.  Let us know if you have extra barrels we could borrow or to donate, or where to find them.  You will receive gifts for your larder in return.  Stay tuned for more information on harvest gatherings and cider pressings in the near future!

Another exciting project on the chopping block, while we chewed on Caramelized Lemon & Garlic Flatbread, was the community supported bakery, Slow Rise.  This is a bakery, run by the community for the community, modelled on the structure of community supported agriculture programs.  It is a subscription based box scheme where members receive a weekly bread basket of artisan sourdough, pre-ferment breads and traditional cultured baked goods and pastry in return for their commitment to an 8 week share.   This little seed has just been put in the ground and we are about to add some water to see how it grows.  It will start as a baking cooperative among interested families and bakers at this beginning stage.  Baking will happen at the Bronze Cafe, once a week.  We have sorted out the best in the West for our flour, coming from Eden Valley Farms in Dumbleyung, WA.  The grains are grown bio-dynamically and stone-ground on site fresh to order, and we are getting it directly from the farm, piggy backing on regular orders with Santalia Biodynamic Cackleberries from Noggerup!  If you would like to learn more, bake with us, or register interest in a CSB (community supported bakery) share please visit SLOW RISE.

Talk continues with the community garden proposal having gone before the Townscape Committee.  The committee has showed support and felt the proposal was well done and very detailed.  They requested a formal cover letter be added to the proposal requesting formal permission at their next formal meeting.  So hopefully, at the next committee meeting we will achieve formal status.  There is an open discussion still as to the site for the garden.  First it must be understood that the garden is to be a sustainable living demonstration site showcasing design techniques and appropriate technologies rather than “just somebody’s vegetable garden”.  There are two possible locations.  The Village Green is prime real estate and would be easily visible and accessible to the public, including visitors.  However, it presents drainage issues and compacted clay soil.  The area behind the Old Fire Shed is much more amenable in regard to space, soil, drainage, and rainwater catchment and irrigation.  Yet, it lacks the visibility.  If you have any thoughts, please share them now, so we can be sure about our preferred site at the next committee meeting.  If you want to know more about the project, you can read the proposal here.

Lastly, we covered communication needs and issues.  Mike King, of the Donnybrook-Balingup Shire, had some great pointers and information in this area.  He suggested that when we submit a proposal to a committee, whatever proposal that may be, to request in writing that it be distributed to all councils.  This will create the opportunity to garner more support and find allies among the council members, and to receive their help and guidance in obtaining our goals.  He also mentioned a water reticulation installation that will take place in the Village Green within the next 12 months.  The budget for the project is $7,000.  If we have any ideas or thoughts on the water reticulation, we could put a proposal before the committee, and possibly set up a better system including irrigation to the community garden.  Thank you Mike for coming, offering your advice, and I apologise if there are details I missed.

In addition, we discussed the need for a community board specifically for community groups and events.  It would provide a comprehensive listing of active community groups, their contact information, and a monthly calendar of all of the events and gatherings in Balingup and surrounds.  This would promote much better communication and collaboration between different groups, most likely improve attendance, and offer an easily accessible point of contact for members of the community to find out what is going on and who is doing what.  At the moment there is no online or public space that is effectively providing this service and word of mouth is often too little too late.  Judy Allen is addressing this issue, and we look forward to a solution.  To streamline communications and provide a public face for Transition Balingup we now have a Facebook page and a wordpress blog where we can post events and updates on projects in addition to collecting valuable feedback.  And for those of you who would like to add your words, thoughts, and ideas to the agenda, go to our wikispace and sign up to become a member so you can weave them right in to the fabric whenever you feel like it.  Now go and show your support by liking Transition Balingup on Facebook and share it with your friends!

Welcome!

Transition Balingup is now online!  Now we have a place where we can share, discuss, inform, and stay in tune with one another.  We can change our name.  We can create our own logo and template.  We can survey and poll on any topic.  We can display celebratory pictures of our victories, however small they may be.  We can post events and gatherings, project our dreams and desires to manifest.  This is our space to create!