Fruit press

[Tony]

Does anyone know anything about fruit presses for making juice (reducing fruit to a pulp etc) There was one on machine mart the other day and i've been thinking about one for ages as we get loads of apples around here as well as other fruit.

This is the one from machine mart - http://www.machinemart.co.uk/shop/pr...s/brand/clarke

Shelly said she thought it looked a bit flimsy and I of course argued that it would be fine etc etc, but it did get me thinking ,If I do get one it's worth asking you knowledgeable souls in case i can get a better one or you know something i don't about that....which is very likely

So, is this good? are there better? and what should i look out for...

[gregorach]

That looks very much like the one that the owner of my local homebrew shop rents out. His is donkey's years old and gets heavily used. I don't imagine that the fundamental design has changed in centuries.

[Tony]

Yeah, there seems to be these spindle types and then the bar (beam) types that have the threaded screw come through then and bear down, like these:



This does about 12 lt of apples which is approx 8 pints of juice

This one is about £285 so way out of my budget....

[Tony]

there's a little vid here http://www.vigopresses.co.uk/store/p...roducts_id=387

[gregorach]

Hang on a minute - that second one looks more like the one that Davie rents out... I would expect either one to do the job just fine, TBH.

[Tadpole]

Yeah, there seems to be these spindle types and then the bar (beam) types that have the threaded screw come through then and bear down, like these:

This does about 12 lt of apples which is approx 8 pints of juice

This one is about £285 so way out of my budget....

this one is press my local Home-brew shop (keynsham) and looks well made (if a tad heavy)
there is a few metal ones on ebay (5.6ltr) for £90 plus postage

[verloc]

Ive got a shot of the mother in laws (and bags of apples and pears) - its this one here. I have not used it yet but if I get the spare room (or rather the nursery) finished painted tonight then I shall have a play tomorrow

I am actually quite excited about squashing fruit - is that odd?

[spamel]

The first one looks lik he one Addo has lent to me for a bit of cider making this year, it is robut as hell. You'll not have any issues with it at all.

[Tony]

the one in my first post?

[durulz]

How much fruit do you need to press?
It all depends on volume, of course, but you can easily make your own with two pieces of wood to act as the press with four G clamps - one in each corner - to squeeze it all together.
I've done it that way before, but not for large volumes - a couple of buckets of apples is about as much as you'd want to do this way.
But it does work. Not the most efficient way, to be honest, but does well enough if all you're doing is experimenting to see how you get on before shelling out loads on a decent press.

[Tony]

well last year we were given about 20 bags full of apples and there's loads more around here that never get eaten, we've just been told that the lady down the road lets hers fall and rot and wants someone to have them so really we can get loads and loads. At the moment we eat them, make crumble, apple sauce, stewed apple, apple turnovers etc etc but i've always fancied a press, the only issue is cost.

[spamel]

the one in my first post?

Yup! Addo said that he had to do quite a few presses though, there are holes at the bottom of the legs to screw the whole thing down onto something (The wives' kitchen table, for instance! ) so you get quite a good press.

[Tony]

quite a few presses as in press down, move the pulp about and press again? or just loads of stuff to press?

[spamel]

Yeah, basically push it all down then put more wood under the press to get a greater depth of press. The screw thread doesn't go to the bottom of the chamber, so you have to put more dods of wood under the pressing plate to push it all down further.

[addo]

Apples are do-able but quite hard work in these.

Chop them up, then pulp them as much as possible before going into the press. For pulping a cheap electric garden shredder is supposed to be a good way, but must take some cleaning up after. Theres a bucket you can get too from home brew places with a blade in the bottom that you connect to a power drill.

[BigShot]

Tony, I've seen one like the Clark one in use before, you crank it down, back it off to add more wood and then down again, repeating until you've pressed the apples as much as you can manage.

Not going to be as quick as the ones with the beam across the top but it'll do the job.

Have you thought about making one? Or getting a wreck from a car boot or an auction or something and putting some nice fresh wood on it?



RE: Pulping, a quick blast in a MagiMix should do the job too. It's be slower than putting it through a shredder but I can't see why it wouldn't work.

[Tony]

yeah, i've thought about trying to get an old one but i've never seen one, I event thought about making one from scratch but it would just be another unfinished project getting a second hand one would be good, keep your eyes peeled folks

[Stanleythecat]

I wanted to try to make one too. We were hoping to hold an apple day in the country park. Does anyone have a good design?

Leo

[gregorach]

I seem to recall that Match made a fairly serviceable press from a rectangular wooden frame and a car jack. You don't need to get particularly sophisticated about it.

[British Red]

Tony,

I can go into quite a long diatribe as to the pros and cons of each type (screw vs jack) and materials (steel vs wood). Screw ones MUST be bolted down on a bench or you cannot get enough torque to juice (the whole press spins). The bottle jack variety do not suffer from this as much and are easier to use free standing.

The stainless varieties (that I use) tend to be smaller but easier to keep clean and are also suitable for use as a cheese press which is nice

The last thing is for big batches you need a pulper. This breaks the fruit down to a "mush" suitable for squuezing. These can be as simple as a spinning blade in a sealed bucket, through a clean cheap garden shredder to a specialised bit oh equipment. The press won't work well without it though

Shout if I can help

Red

[British Red]

Here you go Tony - I've shopped with these guys many times - they offer a range of presses and fruit crushers

http://www.ascott.biz/acatalog/Fruit...Home_Brew.html

From 1.5 litre minis



to 36 litre beasts




Crushers as simple as a blade in a bucket



to ones doing 800kg an hour



Worth a look at least to guage whats out there

Red

[stevesteve]

I have used my-father in-law's press which has a powder coated perforated steel drum and a screw press. We blitzed the apples whole and got it into muslein inside the drum.

The resulting juice partly oxidised toa golden colour and was bottled in old lucozade bottles with no added yeast and some sugar.

The result was some really good cider. Lots of fun to make and drink.

Cheers,
Steve

[Colin.W]

My home made press is a 2 feet (600mm) length of 4inch (110mm) soil pipe fixed to a piece of 3/4" ply through the top I have inserted a length of flat bar which a threaded bar with a snug fitting turned disc on the end goes through. I havn't used it to crush hard fruit so I don't know if it will stand up to it I have only juiced soft fruit that I didnt want to put through the blender because of mixing in the pips etc
I know a lot of you like to see pics but my computer skills havn't got that far yet sorry I promise I will work on it

[spamel]

Making the apples small and manageable for the press has been one thing I've been thinking about and cannot come up with a really decent solution. Something like a massive rotary cheese grater would be fantastic but bearing in mind we are in a recession and times are hard it would need to be home made. Maybe I could get some old cheese graters and cobble them together into a rotary grater of doom, with a pipe feeding the apples onto the grater of doom I could potentially get the apples grated quite easily. Attatch to a motor or the kids bike and I should be able to get mushing and pressing some good stuff quite soon!

[stovie]

You could always make one of these Tony...it'll never break...

[Tony]

Yeah, that's cool. Umm, I'm starting to think that this is going to end up being a next year thing, especially if i make one.

[SteveW]

I wonder if I could adapt something for my Fly Press.....

[EdS]

Making the apples small and manageable for the press has been one thing I've been thinking about and cannot come up with a really decent solution. Something like a massive rotary cheese grater would be fantastic but bearing in mind we are in a recession and times are hard it would need to be home made. Maybe I could get some old cheese graters and cobble them together into a rotary grater of doom, with a pipe feeding the apples onto the grater of doom I could potentially get the apples grated quite easily. Attatch to a motor or the kids bike and I should be able to get mushing and pressing some good stuff quite soon!

Just use a juicer - I do about 5 gallons of cider that way. Approx 20lb per gallon of apple

[BigShot]

Tony, you could rent one this year and make one in plenty of time for next.


Stovie... I see a project, that looks like it would lend itself to a knock-down construction really well! Set it up for use and then slot it all away into about 3 cubic feet when finished!

[spamel]

Tony, if you check out tonights episode of Autumn Watch on iPlayer then you will see them using one of the presses on there making apple juice. It had the beam over the top, much more heavy duty looking and a lot larger than the one Addo has lent me.