It's Apple Season

[Greg.L]

in England the voran press is top of the range, I don't even know if you can buy these in Australia.

 

[troopa]

in England the voran press is top of the range, I don't even know if you can buy these in Australia.

Ill take 2 please

 

[punkin]

Bottled yesterday. Igot 2 dozen 340ml stubbies. a dozen pint stubbies and two corney kegs full of cider from the roadside apples.

I'm tasting the sherbet twang still, my winery guy is a little aprehensive that i may have a malic fermentation going on, but i'm still hopeful that i've just gone to hard on the lactic acid blend.

i'll do a Ph test tommorow, should give me an idea what's going on. he's predicting bottle bombs.....

 

[Greg.L]

Bottled yesterday. Igot 2 dozen 340ml stubbies. a dozen pint stubbies and two corney kegs full of cider from the roadside apples.

I'm tasting the sherbet twang still, my winery guy is a little aprehensive that i may have a malic fermentation going on, but i'm still hopeful that i've just gone to hard on the lactic acid blend.

i'll do a Ph test tommorow, should give me an idea what's going on. he's predicting bottle bombs.....

You don't get bottle bombs from MLF, only a small amount of co2 is produced. It would push a cork out but crown caps should be fine. If you did an initial pH then testing now should tell you if MLF has happened.

 

[Airgead]

Mine's been slowly fermenting away at a cool 15-16C. Down from 1.050 to 1.012 as of today. Still ticking away. Tasting pretty good. Should be a cracker when it finishes. It better be. I have 40l of it...

Cheers
Dave

 

[punkin]

Apple season rolling around again soon. Unfortunately all my trees except for the actual cider apple tree have been stripped by a massive hailstorm a couple of months ago that was folowed by an invasion of lorikeets that cleaned up the trees that were laden with a massive haul of damaged fruit.

Meanwhile, the roadside trees are loaded round the area this year, so with a little rain tween now and march we should be good to go.


My preparation questions are;

I have a mate with a winery that has offered me the use of a very large press much like this one..

http://aussiehomebrewer.com/topic/70090-fs-grapeolive-hydraulic-basket-press-adelaide/

Trouble being that i don't own a scratter. My mate says why not just press them whole, but i believe i will have to chunk them first to get efficiency.

I'm thinking the best way to do this on the cheap without having large equipment to store would be to buy a purposed garden mulcher.

I intend to pick 6-8 garbage bins of apples to do at least 100-120l of cider.



That leaves my two questions.
One, which of the common garden mulchers would do the job in peoples opinions...
And two, will i need to build cheeses or just tip the pulp in?

http://www.bunnings.com.au/products_category_garden-power-tools_1583.aspx?filter=categoryname--Garden+Shredders

 

[Greg.L]

Any cheap shredder should do the job, so long as it is easy to clean. You definitely need to shred them.
A press can be very simple, my first year I used the weight of my tractor to press against, a jack, a few boards and cloth made from mossie netting.
The next year I used a frame from an old workbench.

You can make a simple frame or adapt something. Your friends press looks like mild steel, so you would need to paint all the exposed metal (any iron turns cider black when exposed to air). Otherwise it would work ok. No need for cheeses, though perhaps you could replace the basket with boards and cloths, it would be more efficient and no metal contact.

 

[4feathers]

Holy ****, why can't i get in the car, go for a drive, pick some Apples, smash em up, ferment and drink, why why why. I am sick with envy.... :icon_drool2:

 

[Phoney]

I once got in the car, drove to an orchard out in the sticks that was juicing that day, got them to fill up a 25L cube of freshly pressed juice (got a 50/50 blend of Granny Smith / pink lady). i think they charged around $1.20/L. anyway took it home and fermented it with WY4766.

To be honest it turned out no better than my other batches made with store bought 100% juice. Definitely not worth the hassle IMO.

 

[punkin]

Thanks Greg, i just showed the link as an example pic of the type of equipment. My mates gear is all 100% stainless in contact with the juice and painted where it's not.
The basket is slightly larger than that too, i think he said it did about a tonne of grape in less than 20mins.

So do you think one of those little 2400 watt shredders will do the job for me?

 

[Greg.L]

The little shredders work fine, shredding a bucket of pomace takes me about 5-10 min - wear ear protection.Small apples go very fast but big cookers have to be pushed through - use a lump of wood not your hand. You have to take off the plastic cowl which is to stop idiots from touching the spinning blades. If it is all ss then a basket press is fine, but a bit heartbreaking to see the juice left behind. If you aren't too worried about the yield they are excellent. In wineries they use basket presses for the red wine after fermenting on the skins is finished, the pressing of the skins is very easy. I have pressed chardonnay grapes with a basket press (after going through the crusher) the stuff left behind was still very wet, we got about 50% and that is with a hydraulic ram. But it has to be better than a juicer.

I tested a seedling tree which is usually my first to ripen. The brix was already 14 (7.8 be) and the pH 3.6 even though they are still firm and don't taste ripe. The hot sunny weather is going to push the sugar right up, very low acid, but lots of flavour and small fruit. I hope I can get some high acid fruit from my cookers, to balance the pear juice which will be very low acid this year.

 

[punkin]

I get close to 70% with my juicer.

 

[Greg.L]

I read that juicers leave an awful lot of sludge in with the juice, and you have to cut up every apple.

 

[Airgead]

True that.

You get a good efficiency (at least with a good screw pres juicer) but yes, very cloudy and you do need to cut up every apple. It takes me a full day to push 40kg of apples through my juicer. I'm looking into a basket press to make the job easier and quicker. As I get my apples for free and can have as many as I like, efficiency is of secondary concern.

Cheers
Dave

 

[Lord Raja Goomba I]

Slightly OT, but only just - is there any 'free trees' and/or farms selling cheap 2nds apples in NW Tassie?

I'm moving in about 2 weeks' time and I managed to hold on to the Breville Juicer (great machine) and I'll make some cider (some or all of which will mysteriously become calvados).

Goomba

 

[einnebcj]

I have never done it, but I have a sunbeam juicer (older bu similar model to this - http://www.sunbeam.com.au/products/kitchen/je8600 that you just drop the apple in whole and it juices it in seconds. I have no idea how efficient it is but it seems to get plenty of juice from an apple. Why is a press better and if it gets more juice - are we talking sigficantly more?

 

[Greg.L]

You can certainly use a juicer, many people do, but it gets very tiresome for large quantities. If you are doing a big load of apples it is much quicker to use a press. You can get 200kg off one apple tree in a good season, and you only get one harvest a year so you need to make lots of cider to last the rest of the year. Even with my basic press I can do 30L/hr. But if you just want to do a 20L batch, a juicer is fine.

 

[punkin]

Using my juicer i can put whole apples in, but it prefers them cut. using unsprayed apples i need to cut them anyway as i'm not comfortable with the grubs in cider and trim them out. It takes me and the missus 2 - 2 1/2 hours to process 70-100 kg of apples.

The juice is cloudy but it settles very well over a few months in the fermenter to a brilliant clear. you do have to put up some oxidization. There also can be a lot of fine sludge. i kegged two kegs too early this year after some fermenter problems and they have fine particles in them. I've been drinking them, but they are destined for rectification.

With good apples i can certainly reproduce 30l an hour pretty easily.

I am looking for a better process though, so i'll be checking out the shredders and i'll take some pics of the press next time i'm at my mates. It's pretty imPRESSive. :lol:

 

[punkin]

Just a pic of the actual press i have access to now.

I think it's around 20 tonne, the basket is 750mm by 800mm deep, takes 20 mins to cycle...








Belongs to a member here (stephenkentucky) who has graciously allowed me to use it if i don't interfere at vintage :lol:

 

[Greg.L]

Do you need 3 phase for that press?