Hi.
About to have a go at making cider and am looking to buy ( or borrow ) an apple press.
Dont want to spend too much on equipment yet until I see how it works out.
Thanks in advance.
PS . I’m in Kildare.
im of no help to you, but wondering where you got the rest of the equipment? I’m able to access a lot of apples at the moment and thinking of trying cider myself. Just not sure where to start.
Hi. I’m certainly no expert on the subject and I’m sure there are many more qualified people out there.
The equipment you need for cider making is quite simple.
1 . Something to break up the apples into small chunks before pressing. There are many methods of doing this from a garden shredder to a heavy piece of wood with which you bash the apples in a bucket/ tub.
2 . Fruit press. You can buy them they are quite expensive if you’re only experimenting. I was able to make one up using a car jack and some online videos.
3 . A fermentation vessel which can be any larger plastic or glass container which you can seal.
4 . Bottles/ caps.
If you are making wild cider that’s basically all that you need.
There’s lots of stuff available online about the process and it’s possible to get lost in the amount of information to be found.
Just one final point and I’m open to corrections but you should get about a 50% yield from your apples. Ie from 20 KG of apples you should get 10 litres of juice.
A good source of equipment for Homebrew in general is a company called Homebrew West.
Look up Jack Hargreaves’s “old country” series on you tube, he details and shows how it’s done
Thanks. I tried juicing over the weekend. I put apple chunks in a blended and passed through a sieve and muslin cloth. Got about 7 litres in the fridge. That came from a large shopping bag. Have four more large bags to go through tomorrow evening.
Keep an eye out on adverts. I got one last year for a decent price.
Yeah I’ll keep a lookout for that. In the meantime I managed to cobble together something that works. Managed to make about fifty litres so far.
Looks great!
Have to thank the lady of the manor who donated her rolling pin to the cause of creating an apple masher 😆.
i've slight RSI from using a domestic centrifugal juicer for juicing apples the other day; how efficient do you think your homemade press is? whatever was the difference this year, the leftover pulp was wetter than usual from my juicer and i reckon i lost several litres that way.
i was window shopping online for an apple press, but all the domestic ones look a little weedy, i doubt they'd be able to apply the pressure that a bottle jack would.
I find a press time consuming too. I have an 18L one I got from adverts a few years back.
I made another one, using a bottle jack a few years ago, but it was also time consuming. Had to keep releasing the jack and adding spacer block, as the mulch was compressed/juiced.
I tried to find somewhere to rent a commercial juicer a few years back, but couldn't find anyone.
I average about 160kg of apples, so it does take a while, whichever way I do it.
i'd have had less than half that in apples. it's more the waste of juice than the time which is irritating.
though getting blood from apples seemed apt yesterday:
I'd meant to build a new press, since last October, but didn't get around to it again. 🤣
I might try cobble something together.
when you say the press was time consuming, how time consuming
i spent probably four or five hours juicing this lot (and one more bucket). the white buckets are 25l, so probably 15kg of apples in each? i got about 35l of apple juice in the end. i suspect a press would be quicker?
Very happy with the homemade press . Leaves a very dry pulp . Im retired time is not an issue so would expect to spend a full day ( with plenty of coffee breaks ) to produce 25 Ltrs >
How or where do you get rid of the pulp ?.
compost bin, usually. i did a cider making class in sonairte in north county dublin, given by david llewellyn, and IIRC he mentioned he gave his to a farmer as cattle feed - he'd be producing a lot though; and the pulp i get from the juicer is not nearly as suitable as a feed, i'd say.
Problem with a bottle jack is that the " travel " from fully open to fully closed is quite short so you will need packing pieces of timber or alternatively put a very small amount of apples in the container . Scissors jack has much longer travel so is quicker to use .
I'd spend a whole day pretty much.
I bring mine back to the orchard, and spread it out there.
Well that’s the hard part done. Spent yesterday processing 100 KG of apples. Total yield of 60 Litres so very happy with that. Only got a yield of 50% last year but upgraded the “ apple mangler “ this year so much softer pulp.
Well done. 50% is about what I get myself.
into the bottle washing now, the proper drudgery…
Bought a second hand food waste disposal unit ie the one that attaches under a sink. Passed the apples through that and it produced a very runny slurry type pulp which was very easy to press.
Great idea!
my cider is not as strong as i expected this year - if i'm reading the hydrometer right, it's barely above 3.5%. original was 1.036 or so, finished at 1.008.
cold summer i guess, plus i didn't thin the apples out enough on the tree (though i'm not sure how much difference that would make?)
whatever about the low starting gravity, I'd expect it to finish out below 1. Careful you don't end up with bottle bombs.
hmm; it stopped fermenting about five days ago; so i assumed it was complete.
actually, i managed to fumble reading the scale. i misread the top arrowed line as 1.000, but the bottom arrowed line is 1.000. which is clear unless you're not paying attention, like me. so final gravity is closer to 1.004.
i have another hydrometer which puts it at 1.002 - a man with one watch knows the time…
