kitchenaid grinder attachment works great for small batches of apples

[clengman]

My wife has a kitchenaid mixer that she got as a wedding present. I've had my grandmother's food grinder attachment for said mixer sitting in the basement for years. It did not occur to me until this week that it might work well for grinding apples. I tried it out today... my first time pressing apple juice, and it worked great. I ground somewhere in the neighborhood of 5 lbs of apples. It took me (without any assistance) about 30 minutes to wash, quarter, and grind them. It made a nice fine pomace. It was hardly any work at all for the motor.

One tip is to put a thin book or a plate under the rear of the mixer to keep the juice running out to the front of the machine and not back into the motor housing. I collected the pomace in a pillow case and squeezed by hand. I got nearly a half gallon of juice. With someone else to help out I'm sure I could get through 50 lbs of apples in a very reasonable amount of time.

Just thought this might be of interest to others just starting out.

 

[RobertRGeorge]

Interesting. I'm not familiar with the Kitchenaid apparatus, but I did run 120 pounds of apples through a Cuisinart, and wished I'd had a proper apple grinder. It does a good job but it is very tedious. One tip is to sprinkle the ground apples with meta and pectic enzyme while dumping it into a large container, and let that sit overnight in a refrigerator before pressing. This increases the juice output.

 

[clengman]

It's the same machine as a meat grinder/sausage stuffer but it doesn't have it's own motor. It attaches to the accessory drive of a kitchenaid stand mixer. It has a screw conveyor and a stout blade that cuts against a plate with about a dozen 0.25" holes. It really pulverizes the apples as opposed to cutting them.

Next time I'm going to be a little more patient and let the pomace stand overnight. If not to increase my yield then to get a little more flavor out of the seeds and skins. I'm also going to grind enough to fill up the fruit press I built. Pressing by hand isn't going to cut with anything more than 5 lbs of apples.

 

[RobertRGeorge]

I ground about 10 pounds of crab apples yesterday that I am going to use for blending. I sprinkled them with meta and pectic as they came out of the Cuisinart. The meta helps keep the tannins from binding to the apple pulp, but it also prevents browning, which to some extent is desirable in cider. I will press them today with a fruit press I borrowed from the local brew store. The basket holds about 1.5 gallons of pomace, so I will likely have to do two presses.