snuesen

Recipes 

If you're expecting to press 5 gallons of Apples at a time I think you will fall quite short. Unless you take a more commercial approach to the press design, the surface area to volume ratio of your press will limit its ability. I.e. if you press a quart at a time, you will get more juice in the end than doing a gallon(or more) at a time.
You may be able to crank out a lot of force, but eventually something will break and it won't be the apples lol.

CodyA

Recipes 

Ah, I see. So I'll get more juice if I use a one gallon bucket 5 times than using a 5 gallon bucket once? What is the most efficient surface area to volume ratio?

snuesen

Recipes 

Whatever you wish it to be. You could squeeze the heck out of 3 apples but that would take forever. My press basket is roughly 2 gallon and I think I ended up doing about a half gallon per squeeze. If you wanna get anal about it, freezing the pulp after you press it and pressing it again after it thaws will get a little more juice. It's all about the time you're willing to put into it, really.