Gum tree apple press

This is the press I made this year.





The uprights are a handily placed, multi-stemmed Blakely's Red Gum.
The cross beam I made with my chainsaw from yellow box hardwood.
The racks are sealed plywood.
The cloths are nylon mossie net.
The jack is 6 ton.
The collecting tray is made from concrete.
I measured a load, 24kg apples gave 15.5kg juice so a yield about 65% by weight.
It takes 30min for a load including milling fruit, so I can do about 30L/hr.
I could take bigger loads but it does quite well for me the way it is.

The idea was to make a press with a minimum expenditure. The total spent was a bit over $100. I have pressed about 250L so far with another 400L to come.

Greg

That's pretty cool

i'll be right over, is it far?

That has got to be one of the strangest, coolest things I have ever seen.
So what kind of apples are in Australia/your press?

Very cool. What are you doing with all of the juice? Apfelwein, cider, cysers, etc?

sashurlow said:

That has got to be one of the strangest, coolest things I have ever seen.
So what kind of apples are in Australia/your press?

Click to expand...

In Australia the usual apples are grannysmith, pink lady (both those originate in Australia) jonathon, bonza, golden delicious, red delicious, royal gala and others.

I prefer to grow heritage varieties. At the moment I am pressing an American cultivar called twenty ounce, I also have a cider variety called sweet alford, egremont russet, kidd's orange red, cornish aromatic. I will press any apples I can get, wildings and crabs also.

All my juice makes dry, carbonated cider.

Greg