# Fruit Press



## Ben Brewcat (Oct 27, 2004)

Well the biggest mistake most make with presses is not crushing the fruit first. You can't just put apples in a press, no matter how mighty, and get juice. Very soft fruits, maybe, but crushing first (like with an actual crusher) still improves yield. The only reason we ever had to take people's deposits on our rentals was to repair VERY tough, high-quality presses after someone ignored our warnings and did apples straight.

That said, if you're going to spend the money (consider renting, even for pretty fair amounts of home production), and you will spend some money, get the ratcheting type over the screw type. Treat the staves with Poxy-Cote or something similar.

I haven't really found another method that's quite satisfactory, plus the charm of pressing juice and that first sip straight outta the runnings is absolute joy. 

I should ask, is this for wine? Some folks have the money, but for many justifying the cost of a press would require that you're making at least 100 pounds fruit (for five or seven gallons) every year for many years. For beer, a freeze and then press through mesh or cheesecloth is usually adequate for the perhaps 10 pounds that a really fruited batch might take.

Don't get me wrong. A press rocks!


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## Propolis30 (Aug 25, 2005)

Yes it would be for wine/mead. Plus my Dad said he might borrow it for making jelly. So far I've only used the free/wild fruit on our land which is blackberries, plum, and muscadine. I don't think there would be any need to cut those before pressing. Thanks for the input on apples though. I would have probably tried them whole and broke something. 

I think I may give it a shot!


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## dcross (Jan 20, 2003)

One of my Christmas gifts was one of these:

http://store.preparedness.com/foodstrainsa.html

It wouldn't work for "stone" fruits, but grapes and blackberries should work fine. I'm looking forward to reducing the work of peeling tomatoes for 15 gallons of salsa!


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## Propolis30 (Aug 25, 2005)

My grandmother gave me 7 gallons of blackberry juice that she juiced herself by hand with a colendar. After I ran it throuh a nylon straining bag into the primary fermenter it turned out to only be 5 gallons of juice and 2 gallons of pulp. Of course that's perfect becasue I brew in 5 gallon batches. I couldn't imagine doing that by hand on a regualar basis though. I was thinking of a small table top type model like this.....

http://www.midwestsupplies.com/products/ProdByID.aspx?ProdID=4624

That should be just about perfect for the 2 or 3 batches I do a year.


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## Sundance (Sep 9, 2004)

If you are going to run any amount of fruit such as apples a cheap and very effective processor prior to pressing is a new garbage disposer.

The disposer is ideal as it mounts right to a stainless deep sink, is inexpensive, and really motors thru fruit quickly.


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## dcross (Jan 20, 2003)

I've never used one like that, but it looks like a pain to me.

I pressed grapes with a colander last year, the skins were still loaded with juice after. It worked well for blackberries and raspberries though.


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## MichaelW (Jun 1, 2005)

Great ideas guys!

I have 3 apple trees and want to make apple cider. I've been mulling over building a big press for a while. How about those wine making, fruit choppers before pressing? does that chop them up enough?

I may go with the disposal idea instead. 

I've seen some homemade presses before that didn't look too difficult.


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## Ben Brewcat (Oct 27, 2004)

Note that disposals are not rated for continuous duty and may (probably will) overheat if not given a break at regular intervals. The Cider lover's digest (same URL as the mead digest, Talisman.com I believe) has had a lot of threads on disposal conversions which do work well though never used one myself.


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## Propolis30 (Aug 25, 2005)

I've read where it's better to press than blend becasue blending mixes the bitterness of the peel into the juice ......with grapes anyway.

Don't know if it's true or not but that's what I heard downtown. I had always used a blender prior to reading that.

[ May 26, 2006, 02:10 PM: Message edited by: Propolis30 ]


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## MichaelW (Jun 1, 2005)

Thanks Ben, I found a couple posts about it. Sounds like you need to get stainless steel model that is as heavy duty as possible.

One guy used a 3/4 horsepower, but you might as well get a 1 horsepower.


How about a good sized food processor? Would they ware out too quickly? My wife would kill me if I killed it.


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## JZD (Apr 26, 2006)

It all depends on what you are wanting to process.
Grapes.. One needs a crusher. and then Press the crushed grapes. You will first need to remove all hard stems before you crush grapes or your wine will have a bitter taste from to much tannin. For apples you will also need to crush first then press. You can use a juicer on apples if you want but it is a bit harder to do a lot of apples. If you were going to get by with just one purchase, I would use a crusher for grapes et. first as it does give a first lite press to the crushing and a lot of juice is produced. A good crusher made from stainless steel with adjustable crusher rollers.


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## Aspera (Aug 1, 2005)

Has anyone ever tried one of these presses for honey extraction? I've read that this is pretty common for hard to extract honeys like ling heather and grapefruit. It might be a good alternative to centrifugation, especially for those making wax products.


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## MichaelW (Jun 1, 2005)

>A good crusher made from stainless steel with adjustable crusher rollers. 

any suggestions? I'm assuming you mean this would work for apples too. I have alot and would like to use them without too much expense. It is something I could use year after year. I have some grape vines starting too, for wine.

Any homebrew designs for a crusher? I can weld if needed.

Basically, I have at least a ton of apples and would like to make lots of apple cider, but don't want to spend a whole lot of money doing it.







The more I think about it and research, the less an inexpensive route seems likely.


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