Season2021

Cidrerie Jara logo

Roof of atelier cidricole before reparation

Atelier's roof with wood changed

The worse part of the roof after repair

Atelier cidricole nearly empty

2021 blueberry syrup made (glass jar possibly bought at 30c3)

Distillation station with Benoît Guerrand operating it

Temperature measurement during distillation

Sunrise at traditional orchard, Vergers de Ducy

Measurement of specific density

Cider tasting at hackerspace Ruum 42, Saint Gallen, Cider Tour 2021

One of the presages of 2021 season

Fresh moût transferred into 10 hl (1 000 l containers)

Our orchards are alive!

I would expect many beings feasting on our apples but nutria, Myocastor coypus I honestly did not

In our off time we visited the picturesque "Dunes of Biville"

Confusion, dneska asi k večeři vepřo&knedlo nebude ...

Czech harvesting foreign legion

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This page is dedicated to making the 2021 cider season a financial success. You can help with that by buying some of the Cidrerie Jara high quality natural products for you, your friends, family ... If you like this project, you can donate directly towards it, it is always appreciated! You can also help out with variety of tasks which needs to be done like translation, building up the online presence, inviting and hosting a cider event at your community, helping during the harvest season, for more info read further!

Campaign status

• Total amount desired: 20 000.00€
• Number of sales/donations: 0
• Total amount received/pledged: 000.00€
• Starting 1/4/2022
• Ends 15/9/2022
• Updated 16/4/2022

Summary

First of all, we and us is being used through out the text because more people are being involved in "making it happen" which is highly appreciated and using plural form is the least how to thank. This campaign has several goals, the main being commercialization of the products by making them visible to the outside world. In this year, 2022, we want to cover the rest of the costs of 2021 season and importantly gather funds which will cover most of the upcoming 2022 season, which starts in mid of September 2022. The total costs for all of this should be around 20 000€ which is the goal of the campaign. Compared to the previous years, the main focus is no longer on donations, which are however gladly accepted, but on promotion and sale of the products, especially through professional sellers and exporters, any contacts in these domains are highly appreciated! Decent online commercial presence is the key and it is being build, help is definitely needed there. As you can already see, info is being added to these pages dedicated specifically to this project. The labels, at least the first generation is already done (see pictures), product is already being sold labeled with them. If all goes well by the end of April simple online shop will be ready. The cidrerie will be promoting it's products at several international cider workshops and happenings. The cidre tastings will be happening again, invitations are welcome! If you want to know more about the numbers of 2021 season just check business entity and model. Just shortly, during the 2021 season we have transformed around 30 tonnes of apples resulting in around 210 hl = 21 000 l of cider fermenting. This is in the cider domain considered a smallest size for cidrerie to be run as full time commercial project. The current debt of the business is around 25 000€. The value of stock in cider and distillate at the moment is roughly between 60 000 to 70 000€, the cidrerie stocks over 10 000 of bottles (mostly 75 cl) and 800 l of distillate of over 60% of alcohol. Before the end of this spring over 1 000 l of distillate will be made, increasing the value of the stock to over 100 000€, however few to several years for aging will be needed to reach proper value. All the stock is regularly legally reported to the douane.

Paying&Donating

You can make payment or donate in the following ways:

• Bank transfer (preferred) to Frantisek Apfelbeck's (Algoldor's) bank account:
  • IBAN : CZ68 2010 0000 0020 0083 3482 (have changed the account from French to Czech one)
  • BIC : FIOBCZPPXXX
  • Please add the description "cidre2021" plus "perk name" if you claim one.
• Bitcoin donation receiving address (Algoldor's bitcoin wallet): 1AxX8BMNs4fnZXyCpZURqtMDiP1yGY3YMS
  • Please add the description "cidre2021" plus "perk name" if you claim one. If you are about making bigger order like over 200 or 300€ of value please let me know, the bitcoin value is sometimes oscillating quite a bit and I may have an issue to wait till it is back to the "reasonable" value which would cover at least the costs of production.
• PayPal Send money to: algoldor@yahoo.com
  • Please use the "Send money to a friend" function and include your Name, Nickname and "cidre2021" plus "perk name" if you claim one. Thank you!

Contact: algoldor@foodhackingbase.org

Contact: info@cidreriejara.com

Perks

The perks or products are all legally produced so they include taxes. The prices mentioned are for end customers, for prices for professionals please contact (info@cidreriejara.com (not functioning yet, use algoldor@foodhackingbase.org)). The prices do not include delivery, from the cidrerie door to the client it is paid by client including professional ones. The cider is being stocked in Normandie, France, Kout na Šumavě and České Budějovice, Czech Republic and hopefully soon also in Berlin, Germany. Once per month starting by April latest by May, the orders can be send by delivery, within Germany it was last year around 6€ for carton of six 75 cl bottles, so around 1€ per bottle, for Sweden for example it was around 19€ for the same. The cider should be available for pick up also at big hacker events like MCH 2022 in Netherlands and next CCC Congress. Some big European cities will be passed by car during the course of the year but not sure yet which ones and when. Otherwise try to group with other people, that makes the deliveries by car much more easy. Delivery can be done also on request but the related costs needs to be covered, which means at least the fuel and toll. During this year we especially promote the sale of 2019 season and exceptionally also 2020 season, the 2019 needs to go first. Cidrerie Jara ciders should be in general stored if possible below 15°C, older the cider gets, more stable it is (the yeast get inactive). Temperature over 20 or 25°C should be definitely avoided during first year after bottling plus long distance transportation. Few days are OK but when you get it delivered please do respect the temperature requirements! It could start to re-ferment and explode, no kidding, it is life natural product, please do keep that in mind! The 2020 season has been bottled in "method traditionnelle" bottles (basically Champagne bottle), which can take up to 10 bars, so explosion of the bottle is extremely unlikely. The 2019 season was bottled in "cuve closed" bottles which can take up to 6 bars so theoretically there is a risk. However the aging strongly decreased it and already this millesime was very stable to start with. So far there were no explosions and we would like to keep it that way. If you decide to buy choosing your perk, which I hope so, please contact us and give us your preferred contact email, if possible phone number and address would be great too so we can coordinate the delivery!

• Symbolic

Price: a bit to a lot Available: unlimited Claimed: 0

This one is simple. If you would like to support this project well you do, chip in as you please. If it is bit more than fiver than when we meet next time and we have some extra cider or other interesting product with us, you will be not thirsty. You have a year or two to claim it lets say ...

• Vinegar

Price: €5 Available: 50 Claimed:0

This is cider vinegar and it will be not ready before late summer 2022 because the previous year's ones were not strong enough. They are being aged in an oak barrel so it has bit of wooden smell and flavour, some are being fermented in glass. So far missing the proper equipment to measure the exact degree of the acetic acid but it is rather on the light side around 4 max 5°. The volume of the bottle is 500 ml. Let us know which one you would like to have. We need to discuss the pick up as mentioned in the perk section. Do not forget to write the perk's name when making the contribution and your contact details.

• Raspberry Vinegar

Price: €7 Available: 15 Claimed:0

It is the product of the 2019 season. In this particular case the raspberries where added, which were first used to make the raspberry cider. The final product has a lovely raspberry colour, aroma and flavour, it is also bit stronger than the cider vinegar above. The volume of the bottle is 500 ml. Let us know which one you would like to have. We need to discuss the pick up as mentioned in the perk section. Do not forget to write the perk's name when making the contribution and your contact details.

• Syrup

Price: €10 Available: 20 Claimed: 0 We have made some lovely fruit and blossom based syrups using wild or organic ingredients like lemon, plum, elder flower and fruit mix (cherry, blackberry etc.). They are made by cold way so no heating up in any manner, generally one to one ratio with sugar (bio) no dilution by water. The volume of the bottle is 500 ml. Let us know which one you would like to have. We need to discuss the pick up as mentioned in the perk section. Do not forget to write the perk's name when making the contribution and your contact details.

• Apple Juice

Price: €24 Available: 10 Claimed: 0

One carton which equals 6 x 1 l bottles of pasteurized untreated apple juice which was made with pasteurization equipment of Vergers de Ducy from local untreated apples harvested by friend with a small semi-automatic machine. I've personally done the final triage and as a team we did the pasteurization afterwards, it is unfiltered and as usually nothing added. We need to discuss the pick up as mentioned in the perk section. Do not forget to write the perk's name when making the contribution and your contact details.

• 3xSyrups

Price: €30 Available: 15 Claimed: 0

Same as above, we have made lovely fruit and blossom based syrups using wild or organic ingredients like lemon, plum, elder flower and fruit mix (cherry, blackberry etc. all bio or wild). They are made by cold way so no heating up in any manner, generally one to one ratio with sugar (bio) no dilution by water. This comprises of three 500 ml bottles. Let us know which one you would like to have. We need to discuss the pick up as mentioned in the perk section. Do not forget to write the perk's name when making the contribution and your contact details.

• Cider Supporter

Price: €36 Available: 100 Claimed: 0

One carton of cider from season 2019, which equals 6 x 75 cl bottles. Check the lots/batches description and decide which one you want and let me know, especially for brut or extra-brut. We need to discuss the pick up as mentioned in the perk section. Do not forget to write the perk's name when making the contribution and your contact details.

• Cider Fan

Price: €72 Available: 50 Claimed: 0

Two cartons of cider from season 2019 or possibly one of them season 2020 which equals 12 x 75 cl bottles. There may be a bottle of micro-cuvé (small batches) like ginger, honey, raspberry etc if you like. We need to discuss the pick up as mentioned in the perk section. Do not forget to write the perk's name when making the contribution and your contact details.

• Cider Lover

Price: €108 Available: 30 Claimed: 0

Three cartons of cider from season 2019 or possibly one of them season 2020 which equals 18 x 75 cl bottles. There may be a bottle or two of micro-cuvé (small batches) like ginger, honey, raspberry etc if you like. We need to discuss the pick up as mentioned in the perk section. Do not forget to write the perk's name when making the contribution and your contact details.

• Cidre Gourmet

Price: €48 Available: 20 Claimed: 0

One carton which equals 6 x 75 cl bottles of selection of the micro-cuvés, which may include based on your preference fallowing ciders - ginger, elder-flower, raspberry, traditional (apples crashed and pressed on traditional oak click-clack press), mielé/honey, calvados (cider aged in oak barrels after calvados), buckwheat and more. Most of those are either bruts, extra-bruts or total-bruts. There may be a small bottle of syrup to flavour the cider like raspberry or elder-flower so you can sweeten your cider a bit if that is your preference. We need to discuss the pick up as mentioned in the perk section. Do not forget to write the perk's name when making the contribution and your contact details.

• Cider Tasting EU Donation Based

Price: €250 Available: 5 Claimed: 0

We come to your place (around Western and Central Europe) and do professional cider slide presentation, around one hour with discussion and afterwards guided tasting. It is a great way how to bring a local community together in a very relaxed and enjoyable manner. There will be around twelve samples of well selected ciders originating in different countries, produced by different styles and some related products. Between 10 to 15 participants is best, up to twenty cool, not more than twenty five. The event is donation based so people are encouraged to donate to cover the expenses for samples and especially the travel, the costs are likely going to be over the perk value (around €150 just for samples). We do this event regularly and it is a "class" by now. Please get in touch with us before confirming this perk, so we agree on time and place checking on the costs! Do not forget to write the perk's name when making the contribution and your contact details.

• Cider Tasting EU Covered

Price: €400 Available: 5 Claimed: 0

The difference with Cider Tasting EU, Donation based is, that the expenses of the event are covered completely, no donations needed but could be collected for the hosting place if you like. Again we come to your place (around Western and Central Europe) and will do professional cider slide presentation, around one hour with discussion and afterwards guided tasting. It is a great way how to bring a local community together in a very relaxed and enjoyable manner. There will be around twelve samples of well selected ciders originating in different countries, produced by different styles and some related products. Between 10 to 15 participants is best, up to twenty cool, not more than twenty five. We do this event regularly and it is a "class" by now. Please get in touch with me before confirming this perk, so we agree on time and place checking on the costs! Do not forget to write the perk's name when making the contribution and your contact details.

• Cider Tasting International

Price: €600 and plus Available: 3 Claimed: 0

Now, in order to come to your place and do this professional cider slide presentation, around one hour with discussion and afterwards guided tasting, we need to cover the cost of the samples (around €150) and of the travel. There will be over ten samples of well selected ciders originating in different countries, produced by different styles, plus related products. Between 10 to 15 participants is best, up to twenty cool, not more than twenty five. I do this event regularly and it is a class by now. Please get in touch with me before confirming this perk because with this one we really need to figure out the traveling costs, my availability, donation based or covered etc. The idea is to be able to come to places where we can sell in the future or which we would like to visit. If well done, the donations can bring quite some funds in, I would say over half of the budget is doable from one event. Do not forget to write the perk's name when making the contribution and your contact details.

Details

This part is shortly about me, founder of Cidrerie Jara, Frantisek Algoldor Apfelbeck and my background. I started to work with microbes during my studies of biology in 2000 and my active food&beverage fermentation career started around 2007. I've been into it on "every day basis" since. I focused on cider after I came back to Europe in 2016. This is my sixth season and third commercial one. I'm doing my best to produce and sell high quality products done in what we can call natural traditional manner. The products and the way how it is made, the business structure and medium to long term goals are described below. Please have a look on it because if you decide to support this project by investment or donation, which we hope you do, we really prefer that you know quite well what is this about in a "long distance run".

Production

• manual harvest
• "nothing" used to treat the trees or cider, no chemicals added
• all fermented by natural yeast
• défécation and soutirage/racking
• prise de mousse naturelle - fermentation in the bottle by native yeast

The apples come from small non-treated orchards and they are harvested by hand as much as possible (100% for 2017, 2018 and 2019 season, 60% for 2020 season and 70% of 2021). No chemical products are used during the whole process, the cider is fermented only by yeast native to the apples and to the cellar. Part of the 2019 season is unfiltered, 2020 season is completely unfiltered, 2021 is dedicated just for distillation and vinegar. The fizziness of the product is accomplished by prise de mousse naturelle which is slow secondary fermentation of the cider in the closed bottle. For more info about the process see here. Decent harvester can do between 500 to 900 kg per day depending on the orchard, weather, personal condition and also if the apples are harvested directly into a trailer or into the bags. Apples are transported next to the Cidrerie Jara workshop and in general they are allowed to sit for two weeks so they can mature a bit more. After that they are crashed and pressed with help of local prestataire de service M. Benoit Guerrand, who comes with his mobile press. Here a big thanks to all the friends who help us with this! If we do well, we can transform around three to four tonnes during four hours, up to ten tonnes max per day. With around 60-70% efficiency it gives max 700 l of fresh apple juice from 1000 kg of apples give or take. We try to select which apples are pressed when during the pressing, which results in a juice/moût with flavour profile corresponding as much as possible with the final cider flavour which we are after. It is called assemblage and you can do it before pressing or after. The resulting juice is transferred into the fermentation vessels taking the samples for subsequent analysis if possible. If all goes well, there is a process called défécation or "high clearing" based on coagulation of pectins clarifying the juice. The young cider is left to ferment at ambient temperature over the winter. During this period it is transferred (racking/soutirage) from vessel to vessel to slow down the fermentation by decreasing the amount of active yeast cells in the brew. The sediment is being disposed getting therefore rid of impurities and excess life yeast cells including the dead ones. By measuring the specific density of the cider which is going slowly down, we can measure the decrease of the sugar content in the brew. Smelling and tasting of the cider if it doesn't have any off fragrances or off flavours is very important too. If it does we try to work with it or destine it for distillation. If possible we check also the pH. Around February we do the final odeur and flavour tests and check by microscope what is the active yeast cell count. We stopped filtrating the cider by 2019 season so if the yeast cell count is too high we either wait longer or the cider is designated for distillation. When it is decided what cider is ready for bottling the bottles are bought, corks, muselets and capsules, bottling equipment is made ready ready and collective bottling starts. Well synchronized group of four people can bottle around 2 000x of 75 cl bottles depending if they are capsuling (faster) or corking. The resulting bottles are than stored, these days horizontally in wooden palloxes. The cider continues to ferment in the bottle with just natural yeast strains which were already present, it is called prise de mousse naturelle, which takes between four to five months. This process should occur at temperatures below 10°C resulting in pressure of 2-3 bars. If all goes well by the end of the summer or beginning of the autumn the cider is ready to be drunk. However any shipment on long distance and especially at higher temperature just after end of the season is risky so we generally try to sell first cider from previous season or two which is way more stable because the yeast cells are already inactive.

Business entity and Model

• for more legal information about the business have a look on the company Jara details.
• key words are smaller artisanal production, high quality product, aim on export and higher quality restaurants and wine shops
• current size: around 30 tonnes transformed during 2021 season, resulting in ±,210 hl (21 000 l) of cider, most likely no bottling this year
• future 2-4 years: ± 30 to 40 tonnes of apples transformed, compared to 2021 possibly around 20-30% increase in size if the sales go well and there is enough money to invest
• long term goal concerning transformation is max 100 tonnes
• prices per 75 cl bottle including taxes: usual batch €6-7
• prices per 75 cl bottle including taxes: premium batch/micro-cuvé, €8-10
• prices per 75 cl bottle including taxes: helpers, perks and pre-buy €5-6 for standard batches and €7 for micro-cuvés

The aim is to keep making a high quality product in a manner described above at smaller quantities because we believe there is a limit how big you can go and do it well. Based on the experience we can imagine something up to 100 tonnes transformation per season but that would be max and "long term future" maybe we will see what the future brings, seems rather volatile these days. This season, 2021, we have transformed around 30 tonnes of apples resulting in over 210 hl (21 000 l) of juice. In the next few years, so 2022 and 2023 seasons lets say the plan is to gradually increase it to keep it around thirty tonnes or maybe increase it to 40 tonnes, depending if we manage to sell the product so there is enough money to invest. Possibly some manually harvested apples with "bio" rating could be sold during the season to get some quick money in. The standard price which we plan to ask for most of the batches (lots) during 2022 will be around €6-7 for 75 cl bottle including tax and for €7-9 for 75 cl for special small batches (micro-cuvés). There is an idea of making one batch for bit lower price but lets see about it. For the people who help during the season or are long term supporters I would like to keep it between 5 to 6€ per bottle for standard batches and around €7 for micro-cuves. We believe these prices are reasonable concerning the type and size of production which we do, in comparison to competition making similar product and not too forget the high inflation which we are getting in 2022. For us the prices are simply reflecting economic reality, they give us a chance to compete, get into and stay on the market and make reasonable money for living by running this project. The main aim for sale is export, especially countries in Europe where the clients are willing to pay for this product, like Belgium, Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, Austria etc. and places where we have contacts and decent knowledge of how the function like USA, Japan, Korea and other however with the multiple increments in costs in international shipping and major delays we will see about it. We hope to develop private lets say direct clientele but most of the product will be sold into restaurants, caves/wine shops and bio-shops. We do not plan to focus on sale on local markets in the foreseeable future.

Long Term Vision

The main idea or story have been around for quiet some time, who did not hear it hear it is, the ones who did, well you can check the latest "installment", enjoy! The long term goal is to set up a fermentation community in the countryside, feeling that Czech Republic may be a very nice spot. The community should be quite financially independent, providing for itself. We strongly believe in some commercial activities, read income if you like, to pay for it's independence and to keep it running, plus covering people's needs long term. We do not live in vacuum, we interact with the world so of course compromises has to be taken, independence is not for free. We would like to have strong focus on educational and experimental, that is very important for us so we would like to direct it this direction long term. However we strongly believe in application, so the "facts on the ground" approach is an integral part of the concept. The main owner or owners, would like to keep the right of veto. We say this from beginning so it is clear. The idea is to buy land with either old farm or build up a place. The central commercial activity to make this project happen and to keep it going in the first two decades or so is production of cider and related products. We have spent quite some time thinking about it, trust me, it was not just the "dream castle" leisure. The project by itself had to be defended in front of the professional comity as a professional cidre installation project in order to became certified cidrie (Algoldor). Over twenty five pages in French. Long story short the total estimate of costs is around €450 000. There should be at least seven hectares of land for orchards, mix of dwarf trees (basse-tige) and standard trees (haute-tige). One hectare of agricultural land in Czech Republic starts around €11 000, planting an orchard properly is around €6 000 to €7 000 per hectare, so around €125 000 total just for land and planting. Estimation for building up a decent cider making facility is around €150 000 minimum. Three floors (two mostly sub-terrain), mix of bricks and concrete (see pictures). The machines and tools needed for taking care about the orchard, harvesting (manual harvest), transformation, fermentation, bottling and commercialization can be easily around €160 000. In total we can talk about €450 000 give or take, with current inflation and prices of land and buildings going quickly up rather more. We believe that it can be done for less but on the other hand lets be honest, the project was not megalomanic, it was actually quite pretty minimalistic. It is hard to imagine doing this properly with funds under €250 000. Of course the question is if to really go by this size in the future, which is by the way still a very very small production concerning the standard in France or stick to much smaller scale but bit bigger than it is done now and keep to minimal investments. Well future will show.