Making cider without a press

I had a friend give me 2, 5 gal buckets of Granny Smith apples last weekend and I want to make her some cider. I have never made cider and do not have access to a press. I have been making wine for many years by fermenting on the fruit and then squeezing the fruit in a straining bag to separate the pulp from thr wine. Would this method work for cider also? Should I run the apples through a food processor to grind them first?

 

I'm about to do the same and I'm searching craigslist for cheap juicers rather than spending $300 on a cider press and then having to find somewhere to store it.

One thing I've read repeatedly is that you don't need to remove the cores, but you should remove the stems to avoid any extra bitterness.

Also, I'm not sure how big of a batch you're planning on making but I've read that it takes about 84lbs of apples to produce enough cider for a 5 gallon batch.

 

yeah, makes you wonder when angry orchard advertises "2 apples go into every bottle of angry orchard"

Must be big apples

 

Straight cider from Grannys going to be a little rough, lots of sugar but so much acid, you might be better off making applesauce with them and finding a good source of fresh cider at a local orchard if you have any in your area or just making some from storebought cider, we wouldnt want your first batch of cider to be horrible and turn you away from it WVMJ

 

I will probably buy some juice and add to the apples or just use juice for the cider and make some apple wine from the apples.

 

Have you considered making a press? I used scrap wood for mine and have been using it for years.

Mine is a bit larger and more complicated but this shows how easy it can be - [ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Ufd3i0H37s[/ame]

 

I have plans to build a press. I've had those plans for years. Each summer I don't get around to it and only get the urge to build it when it's too late.

My plans are similar to the one above, but I planned to bolt the 2x4 and 4x4 pieces together to make a frame, and I have a hydraulic bottle jack (like $20 at harbor freight) instead of a scissor jack (which would work fine too!)

Wrap the pulp in a mesh of some sort and squeeze. Some places stack a few bags on top of each other with boards in between to be more efficient.

 

I've seen them stacked as well but wil circles of cutting board material with 1-2 inch holes in them between, so the pressure is equally distributed

 

I asked everybody I know for a juicer. It took a while, but I finally found someone.

I'm sure it will be a slow process, but I'm going to juice 20 pounds tonight. I'm only making a few gallons this year, so getting a press hasn't been a priority. Maybe next year or the year after.

 

I have been thiking about making a screw press, I have most of the materials but am short on time, maybe this winter I will get it done.

 

go easy on the juicer and don't burn out the motor by working it too hard for too long.

 

I didn't burn out the motor.

It took two of us about 2 hours (including cleanup) to juice 24 pounds. That came out to about 1.25 gallons of juice. Cutting out the junk was the most time consuming part.

I've never juiced before, so I didn't know about the foam. I'll have to siphon out the juice tonight after it settles a bit.

The pulp bin was quite full, but the juice is very red. I suspect that's from the peels, but I don't know.

The juice has a nice sweet/tart taste to it. I think we got a few that weren't ripe. For this tree, it's probably best to use drops. The drops seemed to be a lot sweeter than the picked ones.

Anyway, this whole thing has emphasized that I need a press.