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.
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.
