North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

["Erdman, James" <ErdmanJ@uwstout.edu>]

After making 30 or 40 gallons of apple cider (maybe  more),  I thought I'd 
comment on our cider making outfit.  We are using a 3/4hp Insinkerator 
disposal, with stainless steel innards, set up in a small table made of a 
piece of formica covered countertop on 4 legs made of 2x4s.  We are using a 
small computer fan to blow air at the disposal in hopes of cooling it a bit, 
and we removed all the decorative enclosure over the disposal.  We found that 
if we put large chunks of apples in it, the disposal overheated in 20 minutes 
to a half hour of use, and required 20 minutes or so to cool down enough to 
run again.  By cutting apples into quarters or eights, we can feed apples 
into it for hours at a stretch, without overheating unless they are really 
dry apples (such as the Northwestern Greenings that we did yesterday).  
 
The press is a hydraulic jack in a welded steel frame that pushes a plate 
against a second fixed plate.   On the first plate, attached to the jack, 
(the jack is underneath and push up) is a stainless pan with a drain, and in 
the pan  sits a cylinder of perforated stainless steel, about 12 inches in 
diameter and 16 inches tall.  This is filled with apple pulp, a plate fits 
inside the top and is braced against the top of the welded frame, and we 
start jacking the apple filled assembly upward.   A friend with a similar 
press (we copied his) uses a hammer mill to grind his apples, and figures 
that we can get a half gallon per bushel more from the same apples as he 
does.  We pressed some mixed Cortlands and Prairie Spys for some friends the 
other day, and they took home 6 gallons of cider and had about 1 1/2 bushels 
of apples to begin with.  The softer apples tend to plug the holes in the 
stainless basket so we pressed, then emptied the basket, and refilled it with 
the same pulp and pressed it again.
 
Although it takes a bit of time to grind and press apples with our outfit, we 
are pleased with it as it is fairly easy to clean and produces a lot of cider 
per bushel. We can press a bushel or so and be done in an hour or so, if that 
is all the apples that are ripe.  I am thinking it is time to get a larger 
freezer, as we have lots of cider canned, and all the refrigerator space 
filled, and so far 4 five gallon carboys plus some gallons fermenting away.  
And we are drinking it as much as we want.