Making Cider at Home

I visited this place in Somerset on Friday, probably filmed at least 5 years ago and the shed's not been cleaned since! Good pics of the giant press in action, though. I thoroughly recommend a visit if you are in the area.

Seem to be plenty of plans and instructions for building your own on the net. A handy chap like you should manage just fine.

As luck would have it some friends of mine had a pressing party yesterday using a home made press with a few net curtains to make the cheeses of squashed apple. It was pretty basic but it worked exactly like the professional press in miniature. It looked like sketch 3 on this site.
http://www.atomicshrimp.com/st/content/cider_press

Apparently it's best to use a dense hardwood otherwise they just split under the pressure.

 

As above, I reckon that 15lbs of (well milled, ferm fleshed) apples will yield 1 gallon of juice if a decent press is used. Apples are 85% juice by weight, so the upper limit of 30lbs quoted would contain 25lbs 8ozs of juice which @ 10.4lbs/gall would 2.45 gallons, so to only get one gallon out is an incredibly poor yield.

@Dave W Only proper, hard Perry Pears are suitable for domestic crushing and pressing. Desert pears will turn into into a slurry that will yield little (if any juice) that will contain a massive sediment, the riper they are, the worse it gets with something the a consistency of a porridge/wallpaper paste mixture squirting out everywhere. Even some commercial pressers only use a mix of apples and pears.

The trick is to freeze pears whole for several days minimum, defrost and press whole, taking it slowly and under filling the press. This method produces clear, sediment free juice. Add Ascorbic Acid after pressing as the juice is prone to oxidation and avoid using very or overripe pears. If you press Conference Pears too early the juice can have a slight 'milky' tinge, but the brew will be golden after fermentation.

Desert pears are low in acid, so if fermenting their juice I add some pressed crab apple juice.

 

Would this do you, Zigs? Going cheap, buyer collects