r/cider • u/chikaleen • 6d ago

Too many apples for this single guy

Post image

I bought a house on a property with eight apple trees, two crabapple trees, and three chokecherry trees, with an entire coulee full of buffaloberries. Lots of different size fruit pits.

I'm making wines from it for my friends with a cheap small hand crank crusher and press. It takes three days to get a measly amount of liquid off the apples and then i have nowhere to put it all for the winter.

I'm looking for a solution to all my problems here... what items do I need to buy for this place to make this easier without overdoing it on size and cost, relative to the property size? I want to go electric for everything and I'd like to keep it under $2k.

Follow up question,, how do I buy new bottles and carboys efficiently enough to store all this heavy liquid? It feels like i need a dedicated two bay garage to do it in 😳😳😳

Reading all your replies and subbing for future updates. Thanks for all your help!!

**picture is of about 40# chokecherries hand-pressed through cheesecloth before I said fuck it and ran it through the prior-mentioned Amazon crank press to get double the amount. That did better on it than my hands did by far.

I don't know what I'm doing just happy to be here 🤠

17 Upvotes

91% Upvoted

2 comments sorted by

5

u/ScubaNinja 6d ago

A couple of our local homebrew clubs and shops have fruit presses they will rent or lend out since they are somewhat expensive pieces of equipment. May be worth looking into that

3

u/GucciAviatrix 6d ago

You can get a (manual) fruit press for a few hundred dollars. My friend bought one a few years ago and we built an apple grinder by using a stainless steel sink with a garbage disposal we got from Costco. Friend welded up a frame for it with square food grade stainless steel tubing because he had the equipment and wanted a challenge. I would have cut a hole in a wood cutting board, mounted the garbage disposal on that, and built a wood frame because I don’t know how to weld.

We quarter the apples and toss them through the garbage disposal and what comes out is the consistency of a thick apple sauce. It comes out directly into the press which we line with a large brew bag. Works great for us and the whole thing could def be assembled for about $1K. We processed ~150lbs of apples last year and got almost 15G of cider