My Harbor Freight Cider press

[cthomas]

Building my Harbor Freight Cider press and garbage disposal scratter was my big summer weekends project. It all came together yesterday. I made a short video if anyone is interested.

[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfzUKigkmOE&feature=youtu.be[/ame]

Biggest thing I learned is that the capacity of the press is much larger than I anticipated. Thought I had enough apples to press 2 or even 3 times, but i barely had enough for one pressing.

I stole a lot of ideas from other youtube videos of people who built similar presses, hopefully people can steal from my video when they build their press.

 

[chevalcider]

I built my press out of 2x6, deck screws and waterproof wood glue. I have to try to fit my bottle jack between the frame and the cheeses. A press like this should take a lot more pressure than mine and having the jack on top affords you a lot more room to stack up cheeses (well I guess your jack is not really on top but you have more room than I do). It looks nice!

 

[stella_tigre]

Thanks for the video! Looks good! We are in the middle of designing a press to use this year, but we are fortunate to have left over wood from building our home. Some hardwoods for the frame, we already have bottle jacks, but the scratter will be tricky.

 

[MtnGoatJoe]

Yeah, my first thought was the 3/4 horsepower was going to be a bit low.

Also, I would be very concerned about using curtains. Doesn't that stuff have fire retardant on it?

Anyway, I can't wait to see the pneumatic press next year!

 

[cthomas]

I got the material for the press cloths from here
http://www.fabricwholesaledirect.com/products/sheer-voile-fabric?variant=1343590083

It says 100% polyester and no mention of any fire retardant. I washed it twice anyway with an extra rinse on each cycle. The cider tastes fine, I'm not really worried about it.

3/4 hp is probably as low as I think you can go, as long as you manage how much you input at a time the danger of over heating doesn't seem to be to bad. It only happened to me twice in 5 bushels. Acceptable for the amount of Apples I'm processing. If your doing larger quantities that might not work for you.

- C. Thomas

 

[WVMJ]

What are you using for the black spackers? You need to build a better crusher than the disposal, one that does bushel at a time whole, that way you can catch up to that very nice press!!! WVMJ

 

[Beek]

Dang. I guess I know my summer project for next year. Awesome man!

 

[Silentdrinker]

I have a similar set-up that I was inspired to build based off this video: [ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__oel_2GyaA[/ame]

Mine is pretty much the same. It's the orange 20 ton press with an upgraded 20 ton air over hydraulic press. I came out to around $200 for that stuff because I had a coupon for the press and they had a sizable discount on the air over hydraulic press.

 

[cthomas]

Black Spackers? I assume you mean the racks? Those are cut down bread trays which I think I mentioned in the video. I got the idea from Reverend Nat which is that second video that someone else linked to. May not be the most efficient rack but definitely the least expensive.

Anyone else thinking of converting a Harbor Freight press, I highly recommend all the videos produced by Alan Yelvington, I got a lot of my ideas from those.

[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUJ5yiAjwtk&feature=youtu.be[/ame]

- C. Thomas