Any chance of cider without press

[Adam's Apples]

I have got few home brew beers under my belt now, but have never properly attempted cider.

I have 3 large bags worth of apples from my garden and would dearly love to use these to make my cider. However, whenever I consider it I am told I need a fruit press and these don't seem to start belw £100... I there any other way at all of extracting the juice from the apples? Can they be boiled and then seived or kind of sparged?

If the answers is no, fair enough. Just I would love to atttemp a cider with my own apples, but won't be able to afford a press for a long while.


Cheers

 

[OdinOneEye]

One thing you might try, though it would take a long time to do, is to use a blender. Cut the apples up as fine as you can with a knife to begin with, then blend it into a juicy-liquid form.

 

[Adam's Apples]

Good idea, I think the missus has one of those. I will have to ask nicely. Cheers

 

[NurseNan]

A juicer will extract the juice and leave the pulp behind.

A blender will keep juice and pulp together, but you will need to add some water (or preservative free juice) to each batch or it will burn out the motor. If you are going to use a blender, you might want to use a mesh grain bag to sieve out some of the pulp. Just put it into your fermentation bucket, use clothes pegs (or something similar) to hold the bag onto the rim while you pour in the apple slurry. Pitch your yeast. Leave the bag in place for a few days during primary fermentation, then lift up the bag and suspend over the bucket to let all the juices drain out. Squeeze if the pulp looks very wet. Of course, you want to do this in the cleanest of conditions. Allow fermentation to continue until done, then rack to clean carboy. You can add sugar if wanted, at this point. Add airlock, and let it sit for a month or three, until clear.

This is not the most perfect recipe or method, but it will give you cider from your apples.

 

[Adam's Apples]

Nice one. May be painstaking with the blender, but at least it sounds possible. I will have to save some pennies for a fruit press eventually. Cheers

 

[JimC]

I did a 5 gal batch of blue berry wine using a blender and a mesh bag, much as NurseNan described.

 

[Adolphus79]

I'm not sure if you have anywhere like WalMart over on that side of the pond, but they've got small juicers in there for like $20. Depending on how small your batch is, it may be a good choice.

Either way you go, figure on about a gallon of juice per 15 pounds of apples.

 

[CanFarmer]

The tiny juicers are just not worth the trip to Wallymart. I had one and garage saled it, you could make very little juice before it plugged and cleaning it was hellish.

I have a bunch of tart apples ripe on my little tree. I am making a cider from a kit (fresh juice is just NOT AVAILABLE around here at any reasonable price) and was wondering if I could peel and core some of the apples, blend them in my food processor, and just toss the pulpy juice into the primary fermenter? (It's about half fermented already). I figure the pulp would all sink to the bottom then get left behind when racked and the juice would give the cider a nice tart taste. Comments?

 

[psychogenius]

just buy a good quality juicer (much less than the cost of the press) and you'll have no problem juicing the apples. not only that, but you can also make some delicious juices for yourself, its a nice way to start a morning.

 

[gyrfalcon]

If the answers is no, fair enough. Just I would love to atttemp a cider with my own apples, but won't be able to afford a press for a long while...

Check out my post: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=36792

Basically I made a gallon+ of cider from apples with a blender and a clean cotton cloth to wring the juice through. It was a lot of work.

I wanted to fill up the carboy so I bought a gallon or so of apple juice.


I think it came out alright, but is more of an apple wine than a cider

 

[Adam's Apples]

Cheers forr the ideas guys. Where there's a will, there's a way!

 

[gerrg]

I'm pretty sure you can just make your own. I've seen a couple drawing for them. In a hurry or i'd look the link back up. Just do a search for cider presses.. or home made cider presses or something and you should come across two or three at least. Hope this helps.

peace
-gw

 

[Finn]

The tiny juicers are just not worth the trip to Wallymart. I had one and garage saled it, you could make very little juice before it plugged and cleaning it was hellish.

Big difference in juicers; the technology has changed. If you can find a Champion (looks like a pig with a very long snout; huge torquey electric motor) used and reasonable, snap it up as it will make juice all day long and well into the night. Also, Jack LaLanne has lent his name to a centrifugal juicer with a slanted centrifuge that you can make a lot of juice with in a very short time -- the feed throat is so big, you can chuck small apples in there whole. It's a good one and extracts more juice than the Champion on a per-pound-of-fruit basis. (Because the centrifuge is slanted, the excess pulp goes over the top and into a catchment bin, avoiding the "stop after every third carrot and clean the screen" hassle of older designs.)

Either of these juicers will set you back $75 to $125 new, but watch Craigslist and Ebay and I bet you'll find something used for much less than that. They're much more commonly found among the general population than cider presses.

If you're reasonably handy you could also make your own cider press using a hydraulic or mechanical jack as the ram. There's probably a Web site with a blueprint even, although I haven't looked it up. I wouldn't bother with the blender. That's just going to result in a huge mess, or at least it would if I attempted it!

Good luck!

--Finn