This year's cider is really good thanks to advice from this forum. However, so far I have relied on coring and slicing the apples then juicing the segments with a heavy duty domestic juicer. The juice yield is something like 1 gallon per 100 apples.
I do have a grape press but it won't handle chopped apples, they do need to be pulped before I can use it successfully.
Our friendly ebay has apple/vegetable pulpers for a hundred bucks or so (I did stumble across a somewhat expensive timber version from EC Kuaus). These look like a simple hopper (listed as 7 litre capacity) with a handle that turns contra rotating rollers with blades on them at the bottom of the hopper. These rollers grab the apples and "grunch" them, spitting the pulp out the bottom. The pulper sits on top of a bucket. The idea seems to be good, BUT are they really any good? Has anyone used them?
I only do small batches (1 gallon mixed varieties made from several hundred apples out of our small orchard). This year's Granny Smith and Pomme de Neige blend with EC1118 at first taste seems like a great summer sipper, but I think Pippin, Pomme de Neige and Crab Apple with Nottingham will be the star.
There are plenty of home made apple scatchers on Youtube but I am not sure it is worth the trouble to make one for the volume I am working with.
Does pulping and pressing give a better result than juicing? I do find that juicing produces a lot of foam (and mess). I notice that a lot of the cider on the forum is made from "store or orchard bought juice" but we don't seem to have such a marketplace. There is an apple growing area on the other side of our mountains (Tumut/Batlow) but it is a three hour drive away, and anyhow making cider is a good way to "get rid of" my surplus apples.
As we are getting towards the end of your Summer and Autumn is coming, I imagine that your thoughts are turning to making cider, so maybe now is a good time to ask the question and look at getting some sort of pulper... after all Father's Day and Santa are coming soon!
All opinions are welcome.
I do have a grape press but it won't handle chopped apples, they do need to be pulped before I can use it successfully.
Our friendly ebay has apple/vegetable pulpers for a hundred bucks or so (I did stumble across a somewhat expensive timber version from EC Kuaus). These look like a simple hopper (listed as 7 litre capacity) with a handle that turns contra rotating rollers with blades on them at the bottom of the hopper. These rollers grab the apples and "grunch" them, spitting the pulp out the bottom. The pulper sits on top of a bucket. The idea seems to be good, BUT are they really any good? Has anyone used them?
I only do small batches (1 gallon mixed varieties made from several hundred apples out of our small orchard). This year's Granny Smith and Pomme de Neige blend with EC1118 at first taste seems like a great summer sipper, but I think Pippin, Pomme de Neige and Crab Apple with Nottingham will be the star.
There are plenty of home made apple scatchers on Youtube but I am not sure it is worth the trouble to make one for the volume I am working with.
Does pulping and pressing give a better result than juicing? I do find that juicing produces a lot of foam (and mess). I notice that a lot of the cider on the forum is made from "store or orchard bought juice" but we don't seem to have such a marketplace. There is an apple growing area on the other side of our mountains (Tumut/Batlow) but it is a three hour drive away, and anyhow making cider is a good way to "get rid of" my surplus apples.
As we are getting towards the end of your Summer and Autumn is coming, I imagine that your thoughts are turning to making cider, so maybe now is a good time to ask the question and look at getting some sort of pulper... after all Father's Day and Santa are coming soon!
All opinions are welcome.