DIY Fruit Press

Looking for some DIY plans for a fruit mill, and a fruit press.

I would like to use apples as an example. One machine to chunk them up, and one machine to press the living crap out of them. But not to split the seeds.

Any info will help

Thanks!

Check out Ebay!

You might find this info i posted on an old thread helpful. Although it's for apples if you get the idea you can probably modify it for fruit as well..or you could do like I did when I was gathering this info originally....you could google "Diy Fruit Press" like I originally googles "diy cider press"



Make a cider press and press the sediment....heck for small batches you could even use a french press coffee pot (like Chris Colby has mentioned in BYO for pressing hops)




How to Build a Cider Press

You can also make one out of an old Maytag washer evidently. (this article is awesome, especially if you are going to consistantly be doing large batches...)

THE MAYTAG CIDER PRESS

Here's another design....ReadyMade: CIDER PRESS


I can't show you, you have to be a Craft Subscriber to view the online edition, but they recommend a 30 dollar home depot garbage disposal mounted on a frame and emptying into a bucket to shred the apples prior to juicing and pressing, for those of you who don't have a free juicer...
like this...

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGSHZwwME-c]YouTube - Garbage Disposal Apple Grinder (Crusher)[/ame]

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=csaoeNtAptI&NR=1]YouTube - Seneca Falls Apple Grinders batch 5[/ame]

I think the easiest presses to make use boards and "cheeses" in a frame. This video is a good demonstration of how a cider press works, they are easy to make if you scale everything down

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0anegXcL7g&feature=related]YouTube - How to Press Apples into Cider[/ame]

This page shows one version home made, but you can use timber instead of steel for a much cheaper version. An ordinary car jack can give a few tons of pressure.
Jeff Donaghue's Cider Press
Another homemade press
http://www.ukcider.co.uk/wiki/index.php/Homemade_Cider_Press
Basket presses are ok for apples but often quite expensive.

For grinding I just use a garden mulcher, most people have one lying around for making mulch. I got that idea off the "river cottage" program from UK which had a good segment on cider making.

Great Vid Greg! I think you are right about going cheese style with a press. I do have a small cheese press, and its a very basic and easy machine to use.

Just trying to think of other things that need to be pressed, and seeing how they do it in their industry.... like ... paper?

digdan said:

Great Vid Greg! I think you are right about going cheese style with a press. I do have a small cheese press, and its a very basic and easy machine to use.

Just trying to think of other things that need to be pressed, and seeing how they do it in their industry.... like ... paper?

Click to expand...

Having made artisian paper I can tell you that it is not pressed....

Paper slurry (basically paper, vegetable and cotton fibers soaked in water) sits in a bath, then a frame with a screen is dunked into the bath, and lifted upward. The fibers are trapped on the screen and the water drains out...the paper is left to dry on the screen then pressed afterwards...my understanding is that that part of the process is similar in the commercial paper mills....only on a larger scale....

Just a thought... couldn't the liquid be extracted with extreme centrifugal force? Like how honey is extracted from honey combs?

digdan said:

Just a thought... couldn't the liquid be extracted with extreme centrifugal force? Like how honey is extracted from honey combs?

Click to expand...

Yeah...I THINK that's the reasoning behind the maytag cider press I link to you in my original post....

Wine presses use a bladder and air pressure, with the bladder on the inside of a cylinder.

Right Revvy, but I can't really gather much practical data from that article.

Maybe I can make a contraption that would fit into a log splitter. So I can rent a log splitter to quickly press fruit.

That sounds unwieldy and dangerous, and I can't in good conscience recommend using a log splitter to crush fruit.



I await plans and pics

have a look in winepres.us - their press section... WinePress.US Wine Making and Grape Growing Forum -> Presses

I got some good ideas for a press in there! John Zamorra's press is what I'm planning on building... easy, cheap and readily available materials.

I have a very simple, cheap, small-scale press design for you. Take two hard, synthetic cutting boards and place C-clamps all around them. Then put your chunked fruit in some cheesecloth to fit within the cutting boards. Place the "press" in a large container (we used a rectangular rubbermaid storage bin), and just keep tightening the C-clamps to extract the juice. You will have to change out the chunked fruit once all juice has been extracted, and this is a slow and sticky process, but it totally works! I made really, REALLY good apple cider this way. The most important part is to get the fruit into as small of pieces as possible (less resistance to pressing).
When you're done, throw the plastic cutting boards in the dishwasher and throw away your cheesecloth! Voila!

Cugel, could you tell me which post contains John Zamorras press?

Macabra, perfect Idea! I have all those things. Going to test it out

It's is not the prettiest thing ever, but it gets the job done. One thing though... I think we somehow purrèd (spelling?) the apples as fine as possible, then put the chunky applesauce-like goop in the cheesecloth. We got more juice out of it that way. You could use a cheese grater on the peeled apples.

Instead of cheesecloth in the press I use mosquito netting, the nylon kind used over a bed. You can buy it in lengths and then cut it into squares and it is easy to clean and reuse.