Cider Using Whole Apples - Not Juice

[davidd]

Hi, I'm just starting to research making some cider.. My Dad did it years ago and told me that they used to use whole apples (not juice) cut them into quarters and add to some liquid and leave it all to ferment, the rest of the description from him is VERY vague.. Has anyone heard of this method.. I have done quite a few google searches and everyone seems to juice the apples

thanks
David

 

[Gormand]

Hi, I'm just starting to research making some cider.. My Dad did it years ago and told me that they used to use whole apples (not juice) cut them into quarters and add to some liquid and leave it all to ferment, the rest of the description from him is VERY vague.. Has anyone heard of this method.. I have done quite a few google searches and everyone seems to juice the apples

thanks
David

I would imagine just sitting in water (Assuming thats the liquid he was using) the fruits would release their sugars. This would allow the yeast to start munching and I know from a friends experience that cut up apples in fermenting cider kinda turn to mush so I am assuming that this happens to them as well, which releases more sugars etc.
Then just run the whole lot through a mesh bag, or maybe you can just let it settle out.

I am intriged to try this. I am planning on using 2L bottles to test things out, sounds like a good test Might pickup some apples on the way home. I would add a tiny bit of DDME and yeast nutrient to keep the yeast happy and kick things off and go from there.

 

[manticle]

I'm sure it would work but it seems like a very inefficient way of getting fruit sugar.

 

[Greg.L]

It isn't difficult to make a homemade press. There are lots of plans on the web - use google images. I mill my apples with a garden mulcher, then press them with a homemade press. Using whole apples will be a lot of trouble for not much cider, and it probably won't taste as good.

 

[ekul]

It isn't difficult to make a homemade press. There are lots of plans on the web - use google images. I mill my apples with a garden mulcher, then press them with a homemade press. Using whole apples will be a lot of trouble for not much cider, and it probably won't taste as good.

it really amazes me the amount of ingenuity on here, what a tops idea

 

[KenJohnson]

ive heard of the "whole" apple technique, but that was for an apple wine in which you have to add both water and sugar. but as GregL said, it wouldnt be hard to knock up some sort of press. I was considering doing this: pulp the apples somehow, then wrap them up in some very open weave fabric (hessian?) and press them with two squares of wood and a few G clamps. with a little investigating, you'll find heaps of cool, easy ideas

 

[KudaPucat]

Many fruit wines are made this way. BUT apple juice will have a SG of about 1060 at best. Made this way, if we assume 50% water %50 apples, you'll get 1030 maximum, which if fermented dry will give you 2.5% or so max ABV.
If you crush or shred the apples, you'll be able to increase this ratio. It would be interesting to try, as I think it may give different flavours than a juice only batch.
It will ferment fine, and the yeast will have no trouble turning those apples to mush.

It isn't difficult to make a homemade press. There are lots of plans on the web - use google images. I mill my apples with a garden mulcher, then press them with a homemade press. Using whole apples will be a lot of trouble for not much cider, and it probably won't taste as good.

It is hard to make an efficient one though.
The best efficiency I have seen is using a 'scratter' to pre mulch it. Google scratter for more info, it destroys the most number of juice cells, allowing the highest estraction when pressing.

As I understand it, apple juice is quite acidic. I imagine that (unless it's really fancy) your garden mulcher does not have stainless blades. Contact with resinous timbers or raw steel is a well quoted 'no no' with apple cidre. Have you had any trouble with this?
A garden mulcher would be hard to keep sanitised, I'd expect... what sort of troubles do you have (if any) with this method?
(I'm fishing cos I don't want to have to build a scratter ;-D )

 

[gap]

I am drinking a cider made from juice supplied by Greg.L
using his mulcher and juice press to extract the cider apple juice..
I can verify it makes fantastic apple cider

Regards

Graeme

 

[chefeffect]

I my self have just bought a few books on cider, one awesome recomendation for small scale cider is to freeze the apples and then juice them once thawed, rather than pulping. A really good cheese press has been recorded of having upto 70% yeild of juice from the apples, reather than the wine presses which can also be used which may yeild 40-50%.

 

[KudaPucat]

I am drinking a cider made from juice supplied by Greg.L
using his mulcher and juice press to extract the cider apple juice..
I can verify it makes fantastic apple cider

Regards

Graeme

Thanks Graeme, I expected as much, or he'd not bother making it.
I'm more interested as to whether he has ever had an infection, what contact with bare iron does, and what he does to keep the mulcher clean.

I my self have just bought a few books on cider, one awesome recomendation for small scale cider is to freeze the apples and then juice them once thawed, rather than pulping. A really good cheese press has been recorded of having upto 70% yeild of juice from the apples, reather than the wine presses which can also be used which may yeild 40-50%.

Yes I was aware of the dismal efforts of wine presses. Do you not pulp the apples after freezing? You just press them whole?

Alas, as interesting as this appears to be, I don't think it's very usefull for me, as I don't have a freezer big enough for the 3-4 tonne of apples I'm being asked to juice...
What does a cheese press look like?
do you mean wrapping the pulp up in 'cheeses' and pressing them? Cos yeah, we already do this.

 

[chefeffect]

Thanks Graeme, I expected as much, or he'd not bother making it.
I'm more interested as to whether he has ever had an infection, what contact with bare iron does, and what he does to keep the mulcher clean.



Yes I was aware of the dismal efforts of wine presses. Do you not pulp the apples after freezing? You just press them whole?

Alas, as interesting as this appears to be, I don't think it's very usefull for me, as I don't have a freezer big enough for the 3-4 tonne of apples I'm being asked to juice...
What does a cheese press look like?
do you mean wrapping the pulp up in 'cheeses' and pressing them? Cos yeah, we already do this.

Yeah a freezer that big may be a logistical nightmare ha ha, no my comment was mainly addressing small scale, and you do not need to pulp the apples afterwards you can just crush them by hand or roughly crush how ever you choose, obviously its only an option for small scale.

And the press im refering to is a pack press from making up "cheeses" then pressing them, sorry I should have been more clearer.

 

[Greg.L]

I am drinking a cider made from juice supplied by Greg.L
using his mulcher and juice press to extract the cider apple juice..
I can verify it makes fantastic apple cider

Regards

Graeme

Thanks Graeme, good to hear it turned out well. Of course I clean the mulcher every day when pressing.
The issue with mild steel contact is that iron gets into the juice and when oxidised will give the cider a dark colour. You really should avoid your cider oxidising, but it is best to minimise contact with mild steel or iron. This year I painted the internals of my mulcher with polyurethane paint so the iron contact is a lot less than previous years. It doesn't effect the flavour at all and won't cause infections. You can buy a SS apple mill from winequip for $1400, a bit out of my price range (my mulcher was free). You can see a photo of my homemade press on my gallery, gets about 60% efficiency for an investment of less than $100, I can press about 30L per hour.

Greg

 

[Greg.L]

Many fruit wines are made this way. BUT apple juice will have a SG of about 1060 at best. Made this way, if we assume 50% water %50 apples, you'll get 1030 maximum, which if fermented dry will give you 2.5% or so max ABV.
If you crush or shred the apples, you'll be able to increase this ratio. It would be interesting to try, as I think it may give different flavours than a juice only batch.
It will ferment fine, and the yeast will have no trouble turning those apples to mush.



It is hard to make an efficient one though.
The best efficiency I have seen is using a 'scratter' to pre mulch it. Google scratter for more info, it destroys the most number of juice cells, allowing the highest estraction when pressing.

As I understand it, apple juice is quite acidic. I imagine that (unless it's really fancy) your garden mulcher does not have stainless blades. Contact with resinous timbers or raw steel is a well quoted 'no no' with apple cidre. Have you had any trouble with this?
A garden mulcher would be hard to keep sanitised, I'd expect... what sort of troubles do you have (if any) with this method?
(I'm fishing cos I don't want to have to build a scratter ;-D )

To clean my mulcher I just take it apart, it is easy to disassemble and clean. I think a mulcher is the easiest, cheapest way to mill apples. In terms of efficiency a mulcher works very well, chops the apples into small pieces but not too small. If the apples are pulped too much it will clog the cloth and be hard to press the juice out. Making a press is really quite simple, it is mostly just a matter of scale. A big press needs bigger timber and bottle jack, a 10 or 16 tonne will give a good yield. A small press will be cheaper but slower. I pressed about 1.5 tonne this year, a fair bit of work by yourself but much easier with help.

Greg

 

[InCider]

Hi Greg - I'm in love with your cellar!

 

[KudaPucat]

Yeah, the presses are sorted, it's just the mulching.
So do you have stainless parts, or is the steel + apple juice 'nono' a bit of an old wive's tail?

 

[Greg.L]

Yeah, the presses are sorted, it's just the mulching.
So do you have stainless parts, or is the steel + apple juice 'nono' a bit of an old wive's tail?

Not exactly an old wives tale, but it's all relative to your budget. SS only came into widespread use in the 1930s, before that all cider was milled using mild steel. It is definitely best to use machinery designed for food processing meaning mainly SS or plastic. The cheapest apple mill I know of is the "fruit shark" ,basically a food-safe mulcher the same as a garden mulcher but all SS. I haven't heard of the fruit shark being sold in oz, I think in the UK its about 400pounds. If you want to spend the $1400 get the mill from winequip, it is pretty fast for milling. The only unpainted mild steel parts of my mulcher are the blades. I could try and replace these with SS but it doesn't seem such a problem to me, the cider turns out fine. If you want to go into full commercial production you need to make sure all the equipment, pumps etc, are food grade, but if you are just doing small scale stuff I think you just need to make sure you use stuff that can be properly cleaned. my mulcher is very easy to take apart and clean at the end of the day. I've worked a bit in a winery and most of what they do is cleaning.

 

[KudaPucat]

Not exactly an old wives tale, but it's all relative to your budget. SS only came into widespread use in the 1930s, before that all cider was milled using mild steel. It is definitely best to use machinery designed for food processing meaning mainly SS or plastic. The cheapest apple mill I know of is the "fruit shark" ,basically a food-safe mulcher the same as a garden mulcher but all SS. I haven't heard of the fruit shark being sold in oz, I think in the UK its about 400pounds. If you want to spend the $1400 get the mill from winequip, it is pretty fast for milling. The only unpainted mild steel parts of my mulcher are the blades. I could try and replace these with SS but it doesn't seem such a problem to me, the cider turns out fine. If you want to go into full commercial production you need to make sure all the equipment, pumps etc, are food grade, but if you are just doing small scale stuff I think you just need to make sure you use stuff that can be properly cleaned. my mulcher is very easy to take apart and clean at the end of the day. I've worked a bit in a winery and most of what they do is cleaning.

Cool, that is interesting to hear...
Most of the traditional mills used timber or stone though. Timber hammer mills came after stone wheel mills AFAIK steel was never used, but perhaps for a short while in the early 1900's before stainless was discovered.
60% yield is OK, the hand mulcher from winequip (can be retrofitted with a motor) got about that yield too.
We found with a scratter (poorly manufactured and not ours, had to return it, and can't bottow again) and a cheese press, that we got nearly 85% yield.
I know it's not commercial, but if it means I pick less apples (or get more cidre) and the price to pay is sitting and having a drink whilst the press does it's thing.. well hey... who's whinging.
Anyhow, we now have 3 presses in out little group, and we can only just keep up with 2, so sitting with a drink watching the juice drain is probably a pipe dream.

 

[Greg.L]

How do you measure yield? By 60% I mean 6L juice/10kg fruit. I haven,t heard of 85% yield with apples so I think you must be using a different measure - you could only get that sort of yield with a commercial belt or screw press.

Greg

 

[KudaPucat]

How do you measure yield? By 60% I mean 6L juice/10kg fruit. I haven,t heard of 85% yield with apples so I think you must be using a different measure - you could only get that sort of yield with a commercial belt or screw press.

Greg

Our measure is the same as yours. except we weighed the juice, as it's more realistic, so perhaps by your scale it's more like 75-80% because of the 7% difference in our measures.

We did it using a scratter, and a cheese press with drains between the cheeses, and a 20 tonne load cranked up untill the 4x2 timbers threaten to (and eventually do) snap.
Drain boards between the cheeses made a HEAP of difference. And the scratter - High speed mill, which breaks the cells by impact, not just cutting.
I'd LOVE to have a belt press, they work so efficiently and quickly.

The scratter, as I mentioned was poorly made, but this led to slow production more than low yield.

I've been convinced to build a scratter. Plans and photos will be provided when it's ready and proven (next apple season)
It's rather fancy and high quality, because of the commercial like yields we're going for, so I don't know how many ppl will be interested, but the cost is looking at about $300 so far. I'm prepared to spend up to $600.
I'll let you know.

regarding presses, the only difference between a hydraulic press and a screw press is the gearing in a screw press. But given a sufficiently wide cylinder and enough oil, the same pressures can be experienced.
Also: waiting a while for the juice to propperly slow down gives ~1% more yield
giving it 10 minutes to recover again, and then re-pressing gives another ~4% yeild.

(the measured value was 5% all up, I'm guessing 1% and 4% based on my visual recollection)

My hypothesis on this is that you squish all the juice out of the cheeses, but some juice gets squished into the pulp. Letting it rest means you have some very dry pulp and some wet, so the juice wicks into the dry pulp. when you press again, some of that juice is pressed out, and some pressed back in again. But the result is a higher yield - if you have the time to wait.

 

[Greg.L]

Well sounds like you're doing a pretty good job pressing. Some people take the whole cheese apart then repack the pulp before re-pressing. Others add a bit of water for the second pressing, the way brewers add water to sparge the grain, but I don't like the idea of diluting the juice. Also I'm too lazy to do a second pressing, I have more apples than I need so 60% is fine for me.

Speed is also important to me, I get about 30L/hr by myself but would like to get that up to 50L/hr with a bigger press when my harvest gets bigger.

By screw press I mean a press with an auger pushing against a screen, wineries have continuous screw presses which can be emptied while still being filled. Belt presses are considered a bit harsh for good cider.