Thread: Cider time once again

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no hand crank on our machine it has a 1 hp electric
the shreader is made from apple wood with many stainless steel wood screws in it on a 1" shaft.
The hopper holds 1- 5 gallon bucket of apples at a time

it takes 8 to 10 buckets to fill our stainless steel cylinder.

we get from 8 to 16 gallons per pressing and about 15 minutes per pressing.

Gravelstein are our most juicy apples.

we use a 4 inch thick apple wood pressure plate on top and a Jack-All / Hi lift jack
to do the pressing. Steel frame to hold it together but the top beam is bending from all the use.

I'll see if I can find a photo

My pal Peter would hand me the apples
I'll pour them into the SS hopper
then I'd grind them using the wooden mallet to press the apples on the spinning drum
the Jack All is good for 4 tons and has lots of stroke

getting the mash out of the cylinder takes a little work using a heavy steel ram to press out the pressure plate
the mash goes into the compost pile.

Then there was the one year when we put 5 wheelbarrow loads of mash into a 500 gal SS milk tank and some yeast and water and let it work.

The weather turned cold and it froze out so cold you could not get a pick to break the surface of the ground.

I looked in the tank and saw a big block of icy apple mash. Fearing that it would freeze and split the tank, I opened the 3" SS ball valve on the bottom and out poured a clear liquid, We took 40 gallons of a tasty liquid we called Bella Cooler (local joke)
Ice Cider of sorts

We store our share of the juice frozen in 3 freezers in juice containers we get from the local hospital. Our kids also have their freezers loaded. We do a lot of trading.
Peter's family can their share in glass canning jars and have a big shelved wall covered .

great time of year
cheers
hank



ApplePress-peter.jpg

Hank that's very impressive. Nice yield per load, it took me two afternoons of hand cranking to get 12 gallons! It would be nice to get that from just one pressing. Nothing taste better than that fresh squeesed juice! I get more juice from my Gravenstein apples too. I've got as high as 2.5 gallons per 40 lbs bushel. Still have two gallons frozen from earlier this summer. I want to blend that with 3 gallons of the rome beauties, and 1 gallon of the various mixed fruit apples from my yard, after I find some bitter variety to top it off. Then it's hard core fermenting time!

Hank I just finished reading my latest Cider book last night. They went into detail about making Aplle Jack using a freezing process. Evidently you leave the fermented cider outside in 0 degree weather, let about an inch of ice form, and then siphon off the liquid into a new container. If you continue this process until you get about a tenth of the original volume of hard cider, the resulting liquid will be a apple brandy with up to 28% alcohol, or 56 proof. Suppose to be some of the best stuff around, can't experiment here, unless I use the upright freezer, but evidently it is considered cold distilling and therefore illegal in our ilustrious country, however a mstake like yours can be easily explained as unintentional!

I just like the drinking part

Originally Posted by stovens

Hank I just finished reading my latest Cider book last night. They went into detail about making Aplle Jack using a freezing process. Evidently you leave the fermented cider outside in 0 degree weather, let about an inch of ice form, and then siphon off the liquid into a new container. If you continue this process until you get about a tenth of the original volume of hard cider, the resulting liquid will be a apple brandy with up to 28% alcohol, or 56 proof. Suppose to be some of the best stuff around, can't experiment here, unless I use the upright freezer, but evidently it is considered cold distilling and therefore illegal in our ilustrious country, however a mstake like yours can be easily explained as unintentional!

Steve, just above Placerville ( apple Hill ) I`m sure there are a lot of mistakes...maybe Keith (alias BLN31 ) could tells us about.....we used to go up there a lot til it turned into a tourist nighrmare.

We have poured fresh juice in large deep stainless steel serving trays and then stick it in the freezer and after it freezes the
apple syrup rises to the top and we squeege it off. Very tasty on waffles. The block of ice doesn't have much taste so we just dump it.

We also make a mix of pear and apple --pears just don't press by themselves.

Back in the '60s I stopped in Sebastopol Calif. and picked apples they paid us .07 a 5 gallon bucket --I made $28.
the apples went to be made into vinegar.

Yeah I'm thinking if some of the hard cider comes out rough, I may freeze some and see what happens. I'm also thinking of doing a pear pressing. Saw a tree loaded down the road that nobody ever picks. I guess I'll chat with the owner!

406Rich - I'll be headed up there next month with family for christmas tree. Haven't had much luck buying bulk apples up there. There prices are pretty high, but they do sell juice, fresh pressed, so depending on cost I might bring home a few gallons, not to mention Rainbow Orchards makes fresh apple donuts while you wait - Yum!