John,
Where did you get your equipment? Looks good is it fairly efficient?
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Pleasant Hill fruit presses. Yes I’m happy with it. Sturdy construction.
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Is that this one John https://pleasanthillgrain.com/macintosh-fruit-apple-cider-press-stainless-basket?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIvOiyl9qk1gIVxUGGCh0dbQt3EAQYAyABEgInsPD_BwE ?
Yes I got the four gallon which is just fine by me. My set up needs to be better for less mess.
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The grinder needs to be more stable. I’ll have to figure that one out. No big deal.
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My apple juicers / press grinder
I started with a cheep centrifugal juicer ,did not like it,to slow.
Bought the jack lalannes,really good for small amounts of juice. Large feed tube.2 3/4". Small apples go in whole. Affordable $100.00 ?
I like the jack Lalanne
Lower right.in photo:
Bought a Ruby 2000 on eBay ( nutrifast is about the same ?)
Smaller feed tube, apples needed to be 1/4 ed. So slow to feed.
An industrial machine for sure. Great for carrots other veggies .
Just not the production machine for me for apple juice .
Mostly because of the small feed tube.
It will eat apple 1/4s as fast as 2 people can feed it.
It uses a lot of power ( this is a issue for me , as I am solar powered)
It cost a lot -$500.00 used --$2000.00 new ?
I wanted a lot of easy cider !
Next upgrade :
I bought a hydro press and electric grinder from pleasant hill grain.
The grinder will eat apples as fast as 2 people can throw them by hand.
You can not dump them in ,it will jam.very fast, easy clean up.
Uses a lot of power but only for a short period of time .
The hydro press is so cool.it is a bladder type press that uses your house water pressure (50#) to fill a central bladder that squeezes the juice out from the center , not down. Fill press with pulp.Just hook it to a garden hose ,turn on water, and the juice just just pours out . Totally quiet.
Does a great job , really happy with it !!!
The only disadvantage is that it must be full.you can not use it 1/2 full,it will blow a hole in the bladder.
You can save dry pulp from the first run to top off the last run so it will be full
So don’t buy one that is to big. Pleasant hill has 2 modules 10gal. And 20gal.
Easy clean up with garden hose.
I love this machine
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A look in side the press ,top off,nylon press bag, bladder in center ( think inertube ) notice… small air bleeder valve at top of central screw.
Fill with ground pulp. Put lid on ,tighten top wing nut,
Turn water on, open bleeder valve, wait for water to push air out of bladder, must turn off bleeder when full of water .then the water fills bladder pushing the juice out.
This is a perfect time to open a bottle (or so ). …of last years Apple wine
And just kick back and watch that juice, gush out , pour out ,keep coming out then slow , then drip, drip ,drip. Don’t worry. Their are Moore ."…""…?.."
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I went to my town dump and found a table perfect for my grinder. Cut hole in it, clamped it down. Works like a charm.
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As Johnthecook has stated…The centrifugal juicers produce a lot of foam; but the masticating juicers work well. I have an Omega 8004 that I bought for $40 on Craigslist…It is surprisingly fast and extracts a lot of juice (leaving an almost dry pulp)…Its downside is that you have to cut up the fruit into rather small pieces to go down the chute.
My scratter build here.
And this pic is the same scratter - pretty much done except I have a hopper on top to make the loading of apples less manual - like shake them in out of a bucket.
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What size motor are you using to run your scratter?
I believe that is 1/4 hp.
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This video is using pears, but it shows a really neat old and awesomely designed cider press.
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My orchard-owning nonagenarian friend had a single-basket setup with the exact same hardware. We used it our first year.
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I grind my apples in a garbage disposal. I would be interested to compare juice output from a grinder as compared to a scratter device, Id guess its significantly higher from the grinder.
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Today I canned 141 three litre jars of apple juice (no sugar, it’s too sweet). That’s equal to about 14300 oz.sometimes I make even more, because orders must be delivered in time.
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These are my tools:
The thermometer is to control pasteurization temperature level at around 80C (176F)
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Nice setup! Most of the cider I press is for fermenting into hard cider, but I’d like to also can some or bottle some of the unfermented stuff for my kids to drink. Are you pasteurizing the juice in the pot and then hot-filling them into the jars? Or filling the jars first and using the pot to pasteurize and as a water bath canner?
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I pasteurize the juice in the pot. Jars must just be washed clean.
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I’d love some!
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