Warming apples before pressing?

[sail681]

Made 10g last season and want to do more this year...

My juice yield per bushel was all over the board and typically lower than it should be (don’t recall my exact numbers). Tell me if this is a bad idea or something that may not affect the results too much:

• chop /smash apples and put them in my electric brew kettle.
• add some token amount of water for steam & hydration effect
• put on the cover and warm the apples so they soften up.

my theory is that the softer apples will squeeze easier in my small screw press.
Didn’t know if a light heat cycle would mess up the chemical balance of the sugars. It’s sort of a partial reverse pasteurization???

 

[AzOr]

Maybe do a test but it doesn't sound like a good idea. First of all, in order to soften them up, you have to cook them. I can't imagine them softening up unless you hit 200F for an extended time (this is just a guess though). At that point you have cooked apples. You could also run into haze problems in the finished product. If that matters to you.

I always had a low yield when renting those hand crank apple grinders/scratters. I now use a garbage disposal to grind apples. It's not ideal but it works for now.

 

[ncguire]

I would avoid cooking them. If you have the freezer space, the apples will soften up after being frozen for a couple days then thawed. This will yield a clear juice. If you want to go a more traditional method and aren't in a rush to press them, you may also have good results storing them for a couple weeks or until they're really ripe and soft. It's called sweating them.