[HesterF]

I've just started looking at making some apple juice this year. Better late than never....but now not sure what size I should get. My hope eventually is to be able to press enough for us to drink for most of the year - and to try cider making.

At the moment we've got four really big (up to 7m), old Bramley apple trees (plus one that I've managed to kill!), two of which are well covered in fruit. No idea how much it'll weigh but more than I can manage to turn into pies by quite a way. Then we've got two dwarf but established eaters which I'll not be juicing this year since there's a nice amount on them to eat but not too much.

Looking forward, we've planted a further 13 apple trees (on MM106) so far plus four pear trees (which I'd also like to juice at some point) with plans for probably a similar number again over the next couple of years. They've got next to nothing on them this year but hopefully will be cropping in the next few years.

I don't want to buy a press now that works OK for a few apples but is a hassle when it gets to bigger quantities and I end up having to buy another crusher/press. So what size do I need? And have you got a brand/design that I should look out for?

And the next step - how do you preserve juice so that it'll last for up to a year? Heat? Campden tablets (as for wine)? Or?

Thanks! H

[Simon O]

If you have a local orchard group they might hire out an apple press - we do this in the clyde valley - it makes much more sense than buying a press. We have quite a big press mounted on a trailer, and an electric scratter. A small press could take so long to press all of your apples it could get dispiriting. Juice can be frozen if you have a large freezer and not too much juice; or pasteurised and sealed - more expense for gear - again local group may have. Or make cider. At 50% juice extraction you should get 1 litre per 2kg so from these trees you could end up with a lot of juice to deal with. If you do want to buy I think this is the one we have got (in the CVOG) and it works pretty well: http://www.vigopresses.co.uk/Catalogue/Fruit-Presses/Rack-Cloth-Screw-Press-91307 - then you could rent it out! If you do not have a local group you could start one, as then you may be able to get some grant for purchase of equipment as we did.
Simon

[Bodger]

Just by chance, this morning I put this answer on Downsizer to a very similar query to yours.
http://forum.downsizer.net/viewtopic.php?t=78803
As far as preserving apple juice is concerned, we produce several thousand bottles of the stuff every year. We pasteurize it in 75cl bottles and with the use of something akin to a Burco water boiler you really don't need any fancy equipment. I'm pretty busy right now but I'll get back to you ASAP with a description as to what you need to do.

[Bodger]

Here's a post that I made way back in 2009 when we were taking our first teetering steps into apple juice production. We've changed the temperature regime for the pasteurization a little but you should be able to get the gist of what you need to do from this.
Today Kaz and I took the youngest back to Aberystwyth for the final year of his course. As we were moving him into his new digs, I spied an apple tree loaded with fruit. A quick word with Robs landlord and we quite quickly had a boot full of apples to take home with us.
I'm not clued up when it comes to apple varieties but these were a fairly nondescript green eating apple.



When we got home, we managed to make four gallons of very pleasant tasting juice from them.
Now for something entirely different. At least for us anyway. So far this year, we've been freezing the juice that we've been making but now thanks to the arrival of a pallet of glass bottles and their tops, it was time to get our new pasturiser out of the box.
The machine will deal with thirteen bottles at a time. The idea is to fill the bottles with freshly pressed apple juice and very loosely put the self sealing lids on them. All in all, the half barrow of apples in the picture made 20  75cl bottles.



The bottles are then placed into the pasteuriser.





The pasteuriser is switched on and the water taken upto 77 degrees and kept at that for thirty minutes.
After this time the bottles are taken out and the tops tightened. The bottles are then laid on their side so that the hot apple juice actually pasteurises the inside of the lid.


This was our first effort at pasteurising apple juice and if we've gotten our temperatures correct, then the apple juice will have a long shelf life and wont try and turn itself into cider or go off.

I've still got to design some labels and find some willing guinea pigs to try the juice. :wine:

[HesterF]

Thanks Bodger. That looks a lot like the Pasteuriser on Vigo. Actually I could make good use of it in many ways (just made some Blackberry cordial today, for example).

For the press, how easy is it to set up. I don't really see where the crushed apples go - do you have lots of layers of them? Just because the cheaper ones look like you can just empty of a whole load of the crushed apples into the middle bit and just press down from the top. Isn't that quicker to do than having to arrange them over several layers? Or have I completely misunderstood? And is there anything that will crush and press in one go or is that just not worth it?

H

[Bodger]

You're right, they are the Vigo pasteurizers but at around £200 each, we think that they are quite pricy.
We do need to up our pasteurizing capacity but instead of buying more of the same, we're going to buy one of these instead. http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Burco-Cygnet-MFCT1030-30-Litre-Counter-Top-Manual-Fill-Water-Boiler-Stainless-St-/300951130626
I can't see any reason why one of these wont do exactly the same job. We'll just have to come up with some sort of trivet to go into the bottom of it for the bottles to stand on.

[HesterF]

Ah OK So you can use a pasteuriser as a tea urn and reverse applies too!

Just been looking at the Vigo hydropress that's on for the same price as the Rack and cloth one. It doesn't have quite the same capacity but looks a lot easier to use - have I missed something?

Husband is off on a vineyard course at the moment and I 've just had a light bulb moment that we could use the same presses for grapes (slow,me). Plus I wondered whethere there might be a bit of a sideline making apple juice for other people from their apples. Basically trying to justify the money!

H

[Bodger]

We can get hundreds of gallons per day out of the one for £695, you'll get nothing like that much from the hydro press.

[Simon O]

You are going well or working long hours then bodger - we were talking about this tonight at the orchard group meeting and we reckon we can do 100 litres an hour working fairly flat out with a few folk helping, with that same press. We reckon that we get about 50% return so this would be a ton of apples processed in 5 hours. Yes Hester making juice for other people or renting out the press will make some money back. It is a great thing to have at a stall at fetes etc - you can do 'bring your own apples to make juice' etc etc

[Bodger]

 Both Simon

[HesterF]

See that's what I wondered about the press. This will be me, working by myself and for no more than a few hours a day tops. The press looks like it may get lots out but it needs to be part of a well organised production line, doesn't it? With some crushing, some wrapping that up, a couple of people wrapping up the crushed stuff (guess there's a name for that) etc. or have I misunderstood the work involved? The hydropress looked a bit more like I could just pour the crushed apple into it and then let it do the hard work while I collected and bottled the juice.

I reckon there must be loads of people who have apple trees and just want a few apples for pie and then have nothing to do with the rest. It looks like it wouldn't take too long to convert that to juice, bottle it and pasteurise for them. How much do you charge for that?

Husband has just vetoed my spending plans anyway claiming he'll need the money for planting vines but at some point I will do this! Just need to get my holiday cottage running and then I'll have money of my own to spend 

H

[Simon O]

Yes people in a production line will cut down the time and make the whole process easier but one person can do it.
 

[Bodger]

When we make cider, there's usually at least three of us beavering away and once you're in the swing, its amazing how many apples you can get through.
 Cider and apple juice making with good company is great fun and for me, the social side of the process, is one of the main attractions of the pass time.
IMO, just one person collecting the apples, washing and sorting them, milling them and then pressing them etc, would be very slow and worse than that, soul destroying.
 
Even with the super duper all singing all dancing electric models that cost thousands, more than one person working them is a must.

[HesterF]

I reckon your volumes are much bigger than mine! At the moment I could probably manage to pick, clean and sort them plus pressing/crushing could be done in a couple of days on my own. It may be a different story once all my babies are fruiting but by then my kids might be big enough to be bribed into helping out. And if the end product is cider, no doubt husband might find a couple of hours to help - although his attention span is limited when it comes to drudgery (unless it involves a tractor).

H

[Bodger]

We're just about to start our third season of commercial cider and apple  juice production. We only have two hundred trees but with the apples from those plus those from friends and neighbours trees, we hope to make between three and four thousand litres this year.
 As long as small scale cider producers like ourselves make under 7000 litres a year, then we don't have to pay excise duty on our produce. That sort of quantity is plenty enough for us and if we ever get close to going over the limit, then we'll simply make more apple juice instead.