First post! Pressing without a press question

[primerib]

Hi all, thanks for having me on your forum.

Had brewed a few batches of beer about a decade ago with a lot of help from lurking on this forum, each batch better than the next but fell out of the hobby for many years and unfortunately most of the knowledge I accrued then seems to have left me.

I was visiting my family last weekend and picked about 10 gallons of apples and a couple quarts of plums from some of the trees growing on the farm, as for the varieties I could not say what they are, but I seem to have a little bit of a selection of tart and sweet.

I’m planning on throwing together a small batch of cider this weekend and am trying to figure out how I’m going to extract juice from the apples without a press. As much work and time as it will be, it seems that the KitchenAid grinder attachment, a cheesecloth and several hours’ labor is going to be my best bet with the resources I have, unless anybody else might have a better suggestion?

My first question to you all is basic but I really don’t know (I had read at least a bit about seeds and cyanide and tannins) do I need to core the apples before I grind them or can I just cut them into smaller chunks, seeds and all, and throw them into the grinder that way?

Thank you so much, I appreciate any help I can get.

 

[madscientist451]

Check you tube for videos of home made cider presses using plastic buckets and a car jack.
For a few bucks you can have a press; a 4x4 post or a sapling trunk with a couple of lag bolts for handles can be used to smash up the apples in another bucket.
I get about 2.5-3 gallons of juice from a bushel of apples, your results will vary depending on what apples you get. Look around your neighborhood for yard trees with apples, or check your local craigslist; if you ask, many homeowners will give you apples for free. Local orchards around here sell seconds for $5-10 a bushel, which is pretty cheap, but I can get them for about $2-3 a bushel if I buy a whole bin. Let the apples "sweat" for a month after picking so they'll get ripe and soften up a little.

 

[Yooper]

10 gallons of apples? Like two five gallon buckets? If that's all, it's not really worth it to make a press, unless you want to.

What I used to do when I made apple/crabapple wine before I had a press was to collect the apples and then freeze them. When I was ready, I thawed them and then used a mortar and pestle, and just used the mortar (is that the "smasher" thing?) to smush them up a bit. Then I put in big nylon laundry bags in sanitized bins and smooshed them some more like I would grapes (sure, sanitize your feet and step on them if you want). Then, pick up the nylon bags and squeeze the juice out as much as you can. You can use several small bags, as it's easier than one or two full bags. You can use a sanitized bat and bucket, or whatever else you can think of to smash them, and once they've been frozen and thawed that's easy. It's separating the pulp from the juice that's a bit more difficult. Paint strainer bags work, but they are very flimsy and lots of pulp comes through, so that's why we decided on those drawstring nylon laundry bags, prewashed so they don't have any color or stuff in the fabric. You could also use a thin pillowcase or something like that.

Or if you're handy, you can build a press.