Apple season is coming!!! Q's about presses

[AzOr]

So I've discovered one major drawback with my hydropress....friends and neighbors think it's so easy to use that they bring by buckets of their apples to press. I feel like they guy with a pickup that everyone wants to borrow.

It is a million times easier to use than a basket press but it is still work. Clean up is still a huge pita.

 

[Blacksmith1]

Shouldn't have bragged about it.

 

[AzOr]

Lesson learned.

But it’s hard getting a new beer/cider toy and not bragging.

 

[gregbathurst]

At least you can build up a store of favours owed- things like child/pet minding, loans of equipment etc. In Europe it is standard for people in a village to share equipment like crushers, presses and stills. It makes a lot more sense than everyone having to buy their own equipment.

 

[blasterooni]

It's like a completely different world. Instead of using your muscle power to turn a big ratchet screw, you simply turn on the tap water to inflate the bladder and the Juice just stats flowing.


Looking at that grinder gives me ideas. It definitely looks like it would benefit from some sort of stand. It also looks like it may be possible to hook a cheap electric motor to it.

This guy attached a drill to it

 

[AzOr]

That's pretty cool. I saw something similar on CL. He hooked up a electric motor/pulley. It was an 8hr roundtrip to pickup, and I didn't have the time.

I've been using a garbage disposal grinder mounted to folding plastic fish cleaning table. It's ok, however it is still the choke point in the process. Especially if using larger apples that have to be quartered before. You basically have to feed the apples one or two at a time and cram them into processor with a wooden dowel. I do like the efficiency of the disposal though. It almost grinds to an applesauce consistency.

 

[gregbathurst]

Chopping all those apples up by hand, that's a lot of work. To get decent speed you need to be able to process whole apples. Using my garden shredder and hydropress I can press 250kg of apples in a day or more. I am planning to get a proper apple mill sometime but my orchard got frosted this year so it isn't urgent.

 

[blasterooni]

That's pretty cool. I saw something similar on CL. He hooked up a electric motor/pulley. It was an 8hr roundtrip to pickup, and I didn't have the time.

I've been using a garbage disposal grinder mounted to folding plastic fish cleaning table. It's ok, however it is still the choke point in the process. Especially if using larger apples that have to be quartered before. You basically have to feed the apples one or two at a time and cram them into processor with a wooden dowel. I do like the efficiency of the disposal though. It almost grinds to an applesauce consistency.

Bet you get a great juice yield nevertheless! I found some crabs, and a half grocery bag of apples today Firing up that damn juicer soon as i have a little over a bushel now. I hope to pick another bushel by the weeks end