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This
page is a collection of plans for cider mills and
cider presses. Collection is an optimistic word
at the moment, the list is very small! Many thanks
to those who have contributed, and if you have plans,
please, please let us have a copy!
Disclaimer:
These documents are for information only. The information
is as accurate as the contributors can reasonably
manage, but no contributor accepts any liability.
Cider
Presses
Once the fruit is pulped, the pulp (pomace or pommy) must be pressed so that the juice is separated from
the pulp. A surprisingly high pressure is required
for this step and so a little care is needed for constructing
presses. There is a good description of a cider press
in the book "Making Cider" by Jo Deal (ISBN 0 900841
45 1; published by Amateur Winemaking Publications
Ltd. in the UK). It is easy to construct a press at
home, as the following plans demonstrate.
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Cider
Mills
Having
got your apples or pears you need some way of extracting
the juice. The first step it to mill the
fruit. Essentially this step consists of reducing
the fruit to a pulp so that you can press the juice
out of it. There are a number of ways you can do
this. Some people freeze the fruit and then allow
it to thaw. The freeze/thaw cycle softens the skins
and makes it very easy to pulp the fruit. The disadvantage
of this method is that it can easily destroy the
wild yeasts present on the fruit skin. This is not
a problem if you want to ferment with a defined
yeast strain, but is a problem if you want to use
wild yeasts. The most common way of approaching
this step is to liquidise the fruit in some way,
usually in a scaled up version of a domestic liquidiser.
- Sacks'N'Socks Cider by Ifor Williams. A brief description
of a common method of milling contained within
a recipe.
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