Fruit press Vs. Juicer

[Brewing Clamper]

Why should I get a fruit press instead of a juicer to get the yumminess out of fruit for beers, ciders ect.? Is there a real advantage?

 

[tchuklobrau]

Depends on if u want seeds and skins in the batch. a press gives u the juice and leaves the rest behind. never actually used a juicer. i love my press. it is fun to crush stuff

 

[brewingmeister]

Different strokes for different folks. Tchuklobrau is right though a juicer is going to juice everything, seeds, stem, skin and you might not want all that. I have used a juicer a handful of times, it was not mine. Say you want to juice an apple, you have to cut it up to fit in the juicer. You could seed it when you cut it up I guess. Crushing stuff is fun and I do wish I had a press. Correct me if I am wrong but most presses work better if you pulverized the fruit before pressing, unless it is a soft fruit like a grape. Also a juicer has a small capacity and has to go a piece at a time, a press however has a much higher capacity. Happy crushing.

-cheers

 

[mothers_best]

I have a juicer and don't need to cut everything up to juice. It works great for making juice. Mine will not juice the seeds, stem and skin as those a kicked out in the process. I have never thought about using it for fruits to add to beer, cider or wine even. I guess I could but that would take to much time to get the volume needed.
I think I would just do it the true and tried way and use a press.
Go old school and get a press as it has the capacity to handle the volume needed.

 

[Brewing Clamper]

So what is a good size for a press? SWMBO likes the idea of me making ciders from different fruits and eventually going to wine. She's willing to approve the purchase of a press/juicer for the right price. What should I be looking for?

 

[brewingmeister]

I have a juicer and don't need to cut everything up to juice. It works great for making juice. Mine will not juice the seeds, stem and skin as those a kicked out in the process. .

Good to know there's juicers out there that won't juice the unwanted material. The juicer I borrowed from a friend years ago didn't seem to separate anything. It also had a small shaft where you loaded the fruit, so you would have to cut up anything larger than say a carrot.

Size? I guess that depends on the price you've been approved for, and how much juice you want to produce. I've seen counter top models for 60 and bigger ones for 200 or more. I did see a barely used commercial press with chopper from an orchard a while back that was into the thousands.

-cheers

 

[tchuklobrau]

look around like midwest and the others for presses. mine is a small one it will only hold 1.5 qts of currants in the hopper each time. swmbo got ti for me for xmas. she got it from williams. i love it

 

[barnaclebob]

I have a fruit strainer that I use for strawberries, blackberries, and raspberreis, basically eliminates all seeds from the latter two. I made a press for apples using my mash tun and a steamer basket. Its basically the same as the link above except the wood frame is beefier and goes around the mash tun. A juicer will work fine for small batches but unless you have some crazy huge juicer it will be slow for a batch of cider more than a couple gallons.

 

[HappiBrew]

Have you ever used the http://www.shahogenjuicepresses.com machine? I sure love mine. Makes juicing easy.

Interesting. Though I hope you didn't pay the 250$ that site was trying to sell them for. If you were even the slightest bit handy, you could make one for about 20 bucks. You could even make one much stronger than that by just getting some angle stock from the hardware store for the frame for about 5$ more...and with much better craftsmanship. The one on the website looks cobbled together and all gunked up with glue. I would check the build forums to see if someone already has. With all the DIY stir plates and temp controllers I bet there are a few presses.

 

[ChefRex]

Have you ever used the http://www.shahogenjuicepresses.com machine? I sure love mine. Makes juicing easy.

LOL, when I saw $250 it was the only thing I could do.

 

[Homercidal]

Have you ever used the http://www.shahogenjuicepresses.com machine? I sure love mine. Makes juicing easy.

You actually bought that thing after visiting the website??

I hope you know that you could build a better one for probably around $50 easier.

Cheap hydraulic jack = $20 Check

Prefabricated wooden pieces = $10 (benefit of the doubt)

Copious amounts of wood glue = $.50 (Maybe use a bit less...)

Baking pan from Walmart = $4.77

Threaded rod to tie bottom plate to the header = $5 (Nuts included.)

Misc. hardware = $1.95

You might tack on a few dollars for the "Hand-crafted" moniker, although I think most people will recognize that fact easily enough.

Wait, you aren't affiliated with the company, are you? It's ok to say yes, we've already judged you.