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