Cider - yield from press

[Skiddy au]

Hi all,

Last year I made my first cider, and after hours slaving over a juicer, decided to go for a crusher and press this year.

I have been using the setup today on some apples collected from roadsides about the place, and the yield seems..disappointing.

The press is a ratchet style basket press, size 30. I am getting between 3 and 4 litres per press, which means it is actually taking longer than the juicer did to get a decent volume.

First question - is this actually a normal yield, or is it low?

Could the ripeness of the apples be a factor? The juice comes out with a SG of 1.045.

What could I do to improve the yield in terms of techniques?

Thanks

 

[philistine]

I recently built a scratter and have just gone through the same process as you by the sounds!
(Used a juicer last year)

For starters i think a 50% - 60% fruit weight/juice yield is the norm.
Ie. 2kg fruit = 1lt juice
I guess a juicer may yield better, but i found with mine that i had to let the juice settle out in the fridge for a few days and i ended up decanting the clear juice off of a pretty thick layer of sediment, so the final volume was either the same or even less than the crush and press method.
For large amounts of fruit (we pressed 200kg this year) using a juicer would have been just stupidly tedious.

With your juice, 1.050 should be the minimum SG you’re looking for so id guess maybe its not ripe yet.
Ive had juice with a 1.070 SG before (from pink lady apples though)
Not sure what area you’re in, but i live kyneton VIC which is close to harcourt (apple country) and its still a little early in the season for most varieties.
Royal Gala is one of the first to pick and they only became available at the start of feb.

Best way to check ripeness is to cut open with a sharp knife and check the seed colour - they should be dark brown/black.
You can also test for starch with iodine.
Smear a drop or two on the cut fruit and wait a minute or two.
It reacts to starch by turning black.
A proper ripe apple wont really change colour at all (ill find a google image link and post it after writing this)

One other thing you should do is let the fruit sit for a week or two after picking before you process it.
This will let it ripen a little bit more and also soften it slightly resulting in better yield

 

[philistine]

One example of starch testing
https://goo.gl/images/Ee5Vk8

 

[Skiddy au]

I recently built a scratter and have just gone through the same process as you by the sounds!
(Used a juicer last year)

For starters i think a 50% - 60% fruit weight/juice yield is the norm.
Ie. 2kg fruit = 1lt juice
I guess a juicer may yield better, but i found with mine that i had to let the juice settle out in the fridge for a few days and i ended up decanting the clear juice off of a pretty thick layer of sediment, so the final volume was either the same or even less than the crush and press method.
For large amounts of fruit (we pressed 200kg this year) using a juicer would have been just stupidly tedious.

With your juice, 1.050 should be the minimum SG you’re looking for so id guess maybe its not ripe yet.
Ive had juice with a 1.070 SG before (from pink lady apples though)
Not sure what area you’re in, but i live kyneton VIC which is close to harcourt (apple country) and its still a little early in the season for most varieties.
Royal Gala is one of the first to pick and they only became available at the start of feb.

Best way to check ripeness is to cut open with a sharp knife and check the seed colour - they should be dark brown/black.
You can also test for starch with iodine.
Smear a drop or two on the cut fruit and wait a minute or two.
It reacts to starch by turning black.
A proper ripe apple wont really change colour at all (ill find a google image link and post it after writing this)

One other thing you should do is let the fruit sit for a week or two after picking before you process it.
This will let it ripen a little bit more and also soften it slightly resulting in better yield

Thanks for this info.

I am based in Melbourne, and the apples were picked from around the Colac/Otways area. I thought I was a bit early, but the press and crusher are new toys that I wanted to play with. When it comes to roadside apples, it's a bit of a guessing game, as you can't tell if they are not yet ripe or just small apples. It is even more complicated because, bizarrely enough, I don't like apples, especially the super sweet desert types in supermarkets, so I always tend to pick the under ripe, more sour types.

By weight, the yield was significantly below your target figures - 25kg of crushed apples gave me a yield of around 4.5lt. I have some leftover apples, so I am letting them sit for a while to see how much of a difference it makes.

Might also be a practice makes perfect thing - as I learn to use the press more the yield might improve.

Thanks

 

[Airgead]

I have heard that basket style presses are really designed for soft fruit like grapes rather than hard fruit like apples bad the yield will be low with the hard fruit. The big single basket gets packed with hard pulp very quickly and the juice can't run.

Traditional apple presses were a diferent type with "cheeses" of apple pulp being wrapped in cloth and stacked with boards in between. Essentially there are multiple, smaller packets of pulp so they don't clog up as much and the juice can run much easier.

Cheers
dave

 

[philistine]

Yeah the iodine test is a good one, especially for random roadside apples.
Random roadside apples are usually pretty small and tart, even if they are a table variety, due to the fact that they aren’t pruned and fed the way orchards are.

Also, as airgead says, filling the basket too much can reduce your yield sightly and i found that only half filling mine worked much better.
Make sure your “grind” is really fine too. The finer, the better!
Except with ripe pears..... we ground ripe pears reeeealll good and they ended up being impossible to press......

 

[philistine]

Re: you not liking regular supermarket apples-
As with most fresh produce, supermarkets stock stuff that looks good, transports easily and stores well. Taste rarely even factors in to it.
Im an apple fan myself, but recently got to try some rare and heritage table varieties and HOLY SHIT they were amazing!
You couldnt even compare them to the bog standard fujis, or pink ladies, or galas.... different world altogether

 

[Skiddy au]

I have heard that basket style presses are really designed for soft fruit like grapes rather than hard fruit like apples bad the yield will be low with the hard fruit. The big single basket gets packed with hard pulp very quickly and the juice can't run.

Traditional apple presses were a diferent type with "cheeses" of apple pulp being wrapped in cloth and stacked with boards in between. Essentially there are multiple, smaller packets of pulp so they don't clog up as much and the juice can run much easier.

Cheers
dave

I was thinking of trying to get some small hardwood or stainless sheets to add as layers in the pressing process, to see if I could replicate this/encourage juice to flow from the middle of the pressings.

I spent good money on the press and grinder, they are not going anywhere soon, so I will find a way to make it work.

I will try the iodine thing next time I'm looking for apples, and see how I go. Roadside apples have one redeeming feature though - price!

 

[MHB]

You can mix a little water with the pressed pulp, give it time to soak and repress to get a bit more out of the apples.
Be a good idea to check the OG of your first runnings, say you got 1.075 (as mentioned above) you could use enough to get you down near your target OG
Say you had 5L at 1.075 (75) and wanted to go down to 1.050 (50) 5*75=X*50, 5*75/50=X = 7.5L so add 2.5L
Mark

 

[wynnum1]

What is the enzyme in apples that converts the starch to sugars is there a way to help convert could try raising the temperature .

 

[Skiddy au]

Thought I give a quick update. As the season progressed, and the apples I picked were riper, the yield increased. I have also found the most efficient amount of crushed apples to out into my press to get the best yield. I think to improve my yield now I need to get finer grindings, so I might fork out for an electric apple specific grinder for next year. Other than than that, I have ended up with about 120L across four batches, which will be plenty until next year.

 

[MHB]

What is the enzyme in apples that converts the starch to sugars is there a way to help convert could try raising the temperature .

Apples like grapes store the energy as Sugar rather than starch - unless you get down to the level of looking at apple seeds, the fruit is meant to be sweet, it bait for people, birds, bats... to get us to transport its seeds elsewhere.

There isn't much point in trying to convert the pulp to get more sugar, tho I suppose if you got some and put it in a mashtun and added a bunch of enzymes you would get some sugar. Probably be simpler, quicker and cheaper to just buy sugar.
Mark

 

[wynnum1]

Apples like grapes store the energy as Sugar rather than starch - unless you get down to the level of looking at apple seeds, the fruit is meant to be sweet, it bait for people, birds, bats... to get us to transport its seeds elsewhere.

There isn't much point in trying to convert the pulp to get more sugar, tho I suppose if you got some and put it in a mashtun and added a bunch of enzymes you would get some sugar. Probably be simpler, quicker and cheaper to just buy sugar.
Mark

The apples when they ripen get less firm and less starchy over ripe apples would have more sugar enzymes would be converting starch sweet corn seems to do the opposite the sugar converts to starch after it harvested .