Branches

Since the early summer glory days of appllogging, apple prices have been on the rise.

While I would love to keep experimenting with additional variations in raw materials, I can't bring myself to pay about 3 times the price for the same type of apples. I may have to put the raw cider fermentation project on hold until I can get a hold of some cheaper apples.

If you or someone you know has an orchard, backyard apple tree, or if a cousin's step-brother's friend-in-law has the hook up, please give a shout out. I'll be happy to share the end product.

After fermenting the big batch I spoke about before, I wound up with some relatively dry, but quite appley flavored cider. In anticipation of a user base that preferred a sweeter cider, I back sweetened the batch with some more raw cider pressed from the beloved appleratus. This cut the alcohol content by volume down by about 60% while bumping the sweetness through the roof.

I took the 2.5 gallon batch of dry cider and bumped it up to a total of 4 gallons. Each 1 gallon jug had a different amount of dry cider, and was filled to the 1 gallon mark with raw (unfermented) cider. I would estimate the original ABV around 8 % so the resulting ciders were quite sweet in comparison.

These were received with mixed results. The driest of the jugs was practically guzzled down, while the sweetest ones were a bit too sweet and not alcoholic enough.

I learned good lesson. People want a full bodied, sweet cider in winter, and a lighter, higher alcohol cider in the summer. Skip the cloves and cinnamon until you're wearing a coat. Also, I picked up a few corny kegs and started experiments with forced carbonation and brewing beers from barley extracts. Maybe the beer discussion needs to be put on hold until later.

I had about 6 pounds apples left in the garage, so I figured I would do another batch. This batch had about 6 pounds of Klicker strawberries added to the mash. The resulting cider had a wonderful aroma, a beautifully clear, red color and a sweet-tart taste that sent people's eyes rolling.

I believe this is the point of no return. I found the perfect cider. It was just hard enough to feel the effects quickly, while light enough to drink for an extended period of time.

It was also the point at which I had no more apples to grind, and switched to a sort of extract brewing for cider.

I read a few blog and forum posts online and found a few people mentioning their hard cider started at the grocery store. I had to take a look.

The first batch was only a 2 gallon batch; I used 6 cans of winco brand apple juice concentrate and nottingham yeast. After one week in primary, 4 days in secondary, I backsweetened with 3/4 gallon of previous batch from raw cider / pressed apples. This was force carbed in < 6 hours using the shake method, and party people drank it in under an hour.

I would say the first experiment was a huge success. The cider was very dry straight out of primary, mellowed and got a little clearer a few days, and needs just a little sweetener to be a little more accessible. This is the perfect base for flavored ciders, I believe.

I then tried a 5 gallon batch - 9 cans winco brand AJ, 6 cans tree top brand, 4" ginger root, notty yeast, 1 tsp irish moss. Backsweetened with 4 cans of winco / treetop brand juice.

This turned out very well, and is currently on tap at the RJ. I'm not the biggest fan of the ginger; it took off during secondary and it's way too much for my taste now.

I think the future will hold much more of this concentrate cider; it's very easy to make and it turns out far better than I expected. I'm sure a hybrid concentrate / raw cider batch will be absolutely phenomenal.

30 pounds of fun

We woke up early Saturday morning to get pressing. 11 pounds of Braeburn, 10 pounds of Golden Delicious, 3 pounds of Fiji, 3 pounds of Red Delicious and 3 pounds of Gala apples filled the entire 5 gallon bucket with mash.

The grinding process was much faster than I previously anticipated, it took less than  minutes to grind 5 pounds of apples. The pressing, however, was quite time consuming.

I employed the new apple bucket / guide in hopes of speeding up the pressing process, but this extra haste resulted in a blowout. The apple patties shifted inside the bucket just enough to send the jack flying out the back side of the pressing appleratus. Had it shifted the other way, I would likely have a wonderfulyl bruised shoulder or broken window in my car.

In an attempt to contain the waste from before, I used my go-to cutting board material to form a funnel inside the grinding appleratus. This time, the only waste was from chunks we were too lazy to press through the grinding applratus or fly-offs from the violent grinding process.


After pressing, the entire 30 pound project resulted in 2.5 gallons of splendidly sweet-tart cider.

I spoke with the wonderful staff at Jim's Homebrew Supply ( remind me to talk to them about their website next time.. ) at length about my process and got squared away with the correct yeast, treatment, buckets and airlocks for the next step of my process.

The yeast is currently churning away.

I learned keeping 2 tons of pressure stable is easiest when everything is as square and level as possible. It might be necessary to develop a better pressing process. Perhaps a guide or stabilizing apparatus for the mash weight or jack will reduce the risk of blowout and allow for faster pressing.

Grinding larger bunches of apples at a time seemed to resolve the need for a weight or pressing devices on top, but I think there is still a need for a lid. This should be a simple way of making the grinding process easier for one person.

Updated TODO list:

•  Make a frame to contain apple cakes and plastic weight spreading wafers
• Cut 1/8" or 1/4" wafers to fit in the frame (or do double duty?)

This may need to be adjusted. The bucket worked to corral the mash, but allowed more instability in the pressing. The frame might need to be a set of 1x2 slats.

• Devise a way to guide the jack along its path to apple pressdom.
• Research an electric motor or other way to replace the drill
• Make a weight / cover / lid for grinding hopper
• Drink more beer

The Appleratus

After trolling site after site about DIY cider presses, apple grinders, and various home brew techniques, I drew out a plan and started turning a wrench to build my own press.

My research showed grinding and layering the apple mash before pressing gets the most juice.

To grind the apples, I wanted to make some sort of spinning tube with teeth. sexy, no? I decided using PVC pipe would be easier than wood since I don't have a lathe. Stainless steel would be too costly, and a coffee can filled with cement might rust after a few uses.

I picked up some 4" PVC pipe and a couple end caps, wrapped it with a very thin cutting board pre-drilled some holes and ran some stainless steel screws into it to act as teeth.

I drilled a hole on center in each of the end caps and attached the pipe to a threaded rod by screwing some sheet metal into the end caps and attaching a nut to the sheet with some epoxy stuff.

I added a few 2x4s for a frame, a couple bearings for smoothicity of motionocity, a handful of nuts and washers to keep things in place on the rod, an OSB hopper, and you're in business. Well.. you're in hobby. Business comes later.

Then I stacked a few nuts on the end and got it spinning with a drill. Ya herd?


The press was super simple! All I did was bolt together a few 2x4s to build a big square frame and set a couple layers of OSB on the bottom section; add baking tray on it to collect the cider and you've got the basic idea. I enlisted a bottle jack to put pressure on the apples and some cheese cloth to strain the mash.

A 2 ton jack seems to cause enough damage to the 2x4s and a few metal plates that I don't see much value in a larger one. Maybe adding more pressure will help the cause, but after feeling how dry the apple mash was after pressing, I'm doubtful adding pressure will get more juice.

In between each layer of apple cake, I put a layer of plastic cutting board material in an attempt to spread out the pressure. I have some other plastic sheeting stuff for later.

For the first pressing, I used cheese cloth to contain and strain the apple mash in the form of apple cakes. It served its purpose very well. Even though the apples were ground to a fine pulp, the cheese cloth retainer and filter didn't let more than one or two pieces of apple get into the cidery result. It does seem like I need to hand wash the cloth after using; the garden hose tore it a new one.

I learned a few things about this process with the first pressing. First of all, it worked! The cider tasted great, the appleratus was a breeze to clean up, and the process was quite a bit of fun.

The 2 ton jack only extends to about 13" from top to bottom, so I had to add a few pieces of wood along the way to get maximum compression. Speaking of maximum compression, when the jack was fully extended, there were plenty of creaking noises coming from the frame. It's possible the 2x4s will want to snap eventually, so I might need to reinforce the frame with some angle iron or something of the sort.

The apple cakes were pretty stable for the most part, but as pressure was applied, they seemed to shift a little bit. I plan to make some sort of frame for the cakes to help avoid this shifting and possible frame malfunction as a result.

Welcome to the Log

The first post is always the hardest. Let's get it out of the way quickly.

If you're here to check out pictures of my apple press, view the results of my apple cider making experiments, or get otherwise aroused by apple related stories, you've come to the right place.

Follow along with my magical journey.