can anyone recommend a good fruit press ?

[JCD]

Hi,

I've had so much fruit this year, I've decided I should try and turn some of it into juice. Can anyone recommend a good fruit press for apples......they're Bramley's.
Will cooking apples pressed produced good juice on their own?

Thanks

 

[JamezF]

Vigo are probably the de facto suppliers of fruit presses in the UK, but you'll need something to crush the apple up with first.

I bought the apple crusher from Vigo and built my own press. Well, actually I've made more than one. The first was from scrap timber I had lying about, but it wasn't really hefty enough so I rebuilt it with bigger timbers. I use a twelve tonne bottle jack to power the press.

James

 

[dano41]

I agree homemade press is very easy to make.What we find cheapest and quickest for crushing apples before pressing is a five gallon bucket with lid and a hole drilled so a plasterers mixing tool that fits in a drill can pass through it, takes about two mins to pulp afive gallon fill.

 

[roche]

http://www.beekeepingforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=2216&highlight=apples&page=3

 

[JCD]

Thanks for your replies. I should probably mention that I'm female, late middle age, and not very DIY ish.....so might be better off buying......will have a think.
I'm guessing that electronic juicers don't cope with a large quantity of apples, and that a press might be good with honey cappings too if needed?

 

[JamezF]

Domestic electronic juicers really can't cope with the volume, and juicing apples is hard work compared with, say, citrus fruit. Some presses might work ok with cappings, but you'd have to choose carefully I think.

James

 

[countryman]

crushing apples

cooking apple (bramleys) will be quite sharpe to drink will need a lot of sugar to sweeten we make a lot of cider each year using apple trees on the side of the road 90% eaters 10% cookers to pulp them we have a garden shredder taken zig zagy bit of put a v large funnel on builders bucket of apples 20 seconds done (make sure you wash apples first old tin bath will do)home made press with car bottle jack build up biscuits using wooden frame and muslin clothe and press should get 75-80% juice this way cider last year hit 17.4% last year didnt take a lot lol still got 11 gal left

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

garden shredder great - the odd apple gets stuck in the side, give it a poke and carry on

 

[Jimmy]

If you don't want the expense and time of the crusher + press and then pasteurizing, you may be able to get the fruit crushed and turned into juice for you.
Not on your doorstep but reasonably accessible to you, Pershore College offers a fruit juicing service, see link for details. I think they have a minimum 100kg fruit requirement, you get ~100 0.75litre bottles, cost is £160. I easily got this amount of apples in the back of my very modest car.

http://www.warwickshire.ac.uk/about_us/commercial_facilities/avonbank/avonbank_juice.aspx

 

[DorsetB]

I got one from Machine Mart in their sale, and it is very good for all our fruit: the pulp you are left with is very dry.

We also use it as a heather press with the addition of a muslin bag, works perfectly.

 

[Frisbee]

Thanks for your replies. I should probably mention that I'm female, late middle age, and not very DIY ish.....so might be better off buying......will have a think.
I'm guessing that electronic juicers don't cope with a large quantity of apples, and that a press might be good with honey cappings too if needed?

I'm erm 'cough' similar to you and I have a Vigo 12 litre mill and press and get on with it fine.......making up to 300 x 75cl bottles of juice a year. I pasteurize the juice .......heat to 80c and hold for 8 - 10 minutes, bottle hot and screw the caps down tight. Bottlesouth do green 75cl bottles and caps. The bottles last till broken and the caps do at least 3 re-uses.
I would disagree with Countryman in that for juice you don't need so many eaters. Up to 100% Bramley is fine as long as they are ripe. Juice from purely eaters tends towards very sweet and insipid (depending upon the variety of course). The juice which presses out of apples tends to be sweeter than the apple if you are just eating it, strange but true.

Frisbee

 

[alanf]

For occasional demijohn sized batches for cider kitchen equipment can be adequate. One tip is that the fruiit is a lot softer, easier to pulp and you get more juice out if it has been frozen first. Quarter the apples and leave a carrier bag full in the freezer overnight. Defrost and they will pulp in a bucket with a hand blender.

For pressing you can improvise a gauze wrap of the pulp between a couple of boards over a washing up bowl. You can even use mdf or chipboard offcuts as boards if they are wrapped in cling film. Two sash clamps and you have an instant press.

Bit tedious if you have more than a couple of demijohns but adequate for a few buckets of apples if they turn up every few years.

 

[rae]

We are re-establishing an old orchard that came with the house. 40 trees, all planted a bit close together and no pruning for the last 20 years. This year we had the first whopper crop. We've pressed about 150 litres of juice using a Vigo 36 litre press, and one of the neighbours (who is in the juice business) said that our juice was excellent. There was no science to apple selection at all, we just took whatever was ripe and threw it in. Bramleys are fine, but they must be really ripe.

 

[Frisbee]

Sorry forgot this bit. I got my Vigo press off ebay, there appears to be a lot more choice now than there was then, a lot of presses seem to come from Eastern Europe. And the only fruit I've ever pressed which needed to be sweetend for drinking interestingly was strawberries!

Frisbee

 

[countryman]

hi fisbee when i said about % that was for making cider when you need the suger content but you only need the sharpness of cookers to get the yeast going hence only 10% but for juiceing i go 50/50 but as you say only really ripe bramleys

 

[Frisbee]

Ha ha............actually Countryman, not to be completely pedantic you said this :-

cooking apple (bramleys) will be quite sharpe to drink will need a lot of sugar to sweeten

And then went on to say about your cider. The OP asked specifically about juice.
I also said :-

Up to 100% Bramley is fine as long as they are ripe.

Not very ripe. Very ripe fruit goes mushy and is difficult to press as you will know.


Frisbee